Texas Tech star stole show in 1993 NCAA title game

	Sheryl Swoopes' 47 points against Ohio State in 1993 is an NCAA record for a women's championship. AP
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By Kelli Anderson

The 1993 NCAA women's basketball Final Four, held in Atlanta, was notable for a number of reasons: It was the last year of the 48-team tournament format; the first year the Final Four sold out in advance and the first time a Vegas bookie issued a betting line on the games. He made Vanderbilt a four-point favorite in the semifinal against Texas Tech, which showed how little he and, by extension, most people outside the Southwest Conference knew about Sheryl Swoopes, the senior forward for Texas Tech.

I was in Atlanta that weekend, on one of my first Sports Illustrated assignments. I had heard Swoopes was good, but because women's basketball got so little airtime back then, I had never seen her play. The thousands of red-clad Tech fans in attendance had, however. In well-practiced unison, they formed pistols with their hands and yelled Swooooopes! every time she hit a shot. And her 31-point, 11-rebound performance in Saturday's 60-46 win over Vanderbilt was just a hint of what she would deliver in the final against Ohio State on Sunday.

The Buckeyes tried to slow her by trapping in a 2-3 zone -- they even called the play 22 after Swoopes' number -- but she was unstoppable. She scored from everywhere -- the three-point line (4-for-6), the foul line (11-for-11), the baseline, the paint, even from behind the backboard. By the time the buzzer sounded in Tech's narrow 84-82 victory, Swoopes had tallied an astonishing 47 points. That total was the most scored in an NCAA basketball championship game, eclipsing the mark of 44 set by UCLA's Bill Walton in 1973.

At the men's Final Four in New Orleans, Michigan's Fab Five had won their semifinal over Kentucky in overtime the night before and would lose the title game to North Carolina after Chris Webber's infamous timeout the next night. But in this part of the south, and in many parts beyond, all anyone could talk about was Swoopes. She had become women's basketball's first overnight sensation.

Fans and sports-talk jocks jokingly touted her as an NBA lottery pick, but her coach, Marsha Sharp, called it right: She'll be a legend in women's basketball, she said. Four years later, when the WNBA started, Swoopes, who already had won an Olympic gold medal, was one of the league's first players.

Since then, she has become the most decorated U.S. female basketball player, with four WNBA championships (all with the Houston Comets), two more Olympic gold medals and three WNBA MVP and Defensive Player of the Year honors to her credit. Great accomplishments all, but they pale compared to the one night's work in Atlanta that instantly raised the profile of a sport.

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