Head coach Rhonda Rompola has led the Mustangs to the NCAA Tournament for the seventh time this season (photo by Travis Johnston).

Everyone, that is, except Katy Cobb.

While Hughes deservedly elicits gasps from observers for her outrageous speed, as well as her basketball skills, Cobb didn't surrender the two points freely. The senior from Rio Vista, Texas - a former high school track champion - lowered her head and took off after Hughes. She caught up as Hughes got to the basket, went up over the UTEP sophomore to get her hand on the ball and erased all doubt by driving Hughes to the floor. When asked after the game if she intended to send a message on the play, Cobb admitted she had.

"That was my intention with it," Cobb said, laughing - a little. "She didn't think I was going to catch her, and I wanted to let her know 'I'm going to catch you, and you're about to get fouled.'"

Cobb didn't intend to hurt Hughes, and but for a couple of minor aches and pains, and perhaps bumps and bruises, she didn't. Hughes played the entire game - exceptionally well - and went head-to-head with Cobb and Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year Sharee Shepherd, and the rest of the Mustangs.

But if most fans saw the play was nothing more than a mere blip that drew a replay or two on the ESPN2 broadcast, it was indicative of the grit this year's team (24-8) showed en route to winning its first Conference USA tournament championship, the first conference tournament crown since winning the Western Athletic Conference tournament since 1999 and its first NCAA bid since 2000.

Senior center Janielle Dodds helped lead SMU to the C-USA Tournament title, and earned tournament MVP honors (photo by Travis Johnston).

Senior center Janielle Dodds said that as the season wore on, the team everyone knew had talent also cranked up its intensity, a key ingredient in the Mustangs' march through the C-USA tournament.

"I can't explain the fire my teammates had," Dodds said. "It showed throughout the tournament."

The Mustangs were not expected to win the C-USA Tournament, and after jumping the tracks in a loss at Tulane in the regular-season finale, they weren't expected to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. But that's exactly where they're headed.

If Cobb is the team's enforcer/Energizer bunny/chief agitator, and Dodds is the statistical headliner, Shepherd is the emotional leader. When the Mustangs take the floor for warm-ups before games, Shepherd engages her teammates in an off-court chant before leading them on to the floor. When warm-ups are over, the game doesn't start until Shepherd sprints back toward the bench, screaming the whole way and leading a parade of high-fives between the players and coaches.

In the waning moments of Sunday's game, as the Mustangs tried to extend their lead and the Miners frantically tried to play catch-up, the UTEP defense collapsed around Dodds, and clung tightly to scorers Delisha Wills and Brittany Gilliam, keeping a wary eye on three-point bomber Jillian Samuels. But during late timeouts, it was Shepherd who told the coaches she wanted the ball in the clutch.

"'Ree' was the player who came into timeout and said, 'I want the ball - I think I can make a play," Rompola said. "She's that kind of player for us - she pumps us up."

Perhaps the most misunderstood senior is Dodds. Like it or not, she maintains the role of the team's marquee player - she's tall and blond, has set countless scoring and rebounding records, and has been earning accolades from Freshman All-America accolades to numerous conference Player of the Week awards ever since her freshman year. Dodds gets the headlines and the most interview requests, and earned Conference USA All-Academic honors this season while she works on her Master's in Liberal Studies degree.

Senior guard Katy Cobb set the Ponies' defensive tone against UTEP with her hard foul on C-USA Player of the Year Jareica Hughes (photo by Travis Johnston).

"She seems like she's the most experienced player on the team," forward Elbie Gates said, "and when we have a bad practice or something, she's the one who gets us in the huddle, gets us together, and knows what to say to get us right again." But the disciplined veteran is just one side of the senior from Fairfax, Va. Dodds also is "goofy as all get-out," according to Shepherd, shares countless inside jokes with her teammates and does an impression of her coach so accurate that seems like she might be able to "out-Rompola" Rompola herself.

This year's senior class has been remarkably productive for the Mustangs, and as the season has gone along, Rompola has said she wants the team to reach the NCAA Tournament for many reasons, not the least of which is that the team is very close and the seniors, in particular, deserve the chance to experience the sport on the nation's largest stage. But the when this year's class - Dodds, Shepherd, Cobb, Katie Gross and Brittany Barker - graduates, it's not like the team will be void of talent. Rompola will get nine players back from this year's team for the 2008-09 season, and welcomes a quartet of quality recruits. There will be an adjustment period, to be sure, but the foundation for future success remains in place, even with the upcoming graduation of one of the most talented classes in SMU history.

Perhaps the reason this team has meshed so well is because it is, in a way, a mirror image of its coach. Cobb's horsecollar tackle of Hughes easily could have been carried out by Rompola herself, formerly a sensational player who remains a fierce competitor, often getting so wound up on the sideline she looks as if she might shuck her heels for a pair of adidas hightops and enter the game herself - at the opponent's peril. Shepherd's emotional outbursts before games clearly reflect Rompola's efforts to coax emotional every-drop-of-energy performances from her players.

Dodds' ability to dominate a game - and yes, her well-hidden silly side - match Rompola's skill on the court and a well-hidden willingness to let her team laugh at her. For example: when the Mustangs' flight to Birmingham was cancelled because of inclement weather, and rescheduled the next day only to re-route through Memphis because of bad weather in Birmingham, the team arrived at their team hotel about four hours before tipoff, rather than the customary 24 hours or more. The team dropped off its bags, raced through an abbreviated film session and pregame meal. The team was so short on time that Rompola and her staff coached the game in the team's travel warm-up suits, and on the team bus, as most of the players were lost in the music pumping through earphones, the bus driver piped in a collection of disco's less-than-greatest hits - to which the ever-focused Rompola started bopping her head, pointing her fingers in the air and bouncing in her seat. All that was missing was a rhinestone -laden leisure suit with excruciatingly wide lapels and the requisite platform shoes.

Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year Sharee Shepherd leads the Ponies with 29 blocked shots this season, and set a new SMU record with 98 steals (photo by Travis Johnston).

Associate head coach Lisa Dark, who has worked on Rompola's staff since Rompola took over and played for her before that, said she had never seen the warm-ups-on-the-sideline look. Radio voice Ray Canevari said of the surprisingly loose atmosphere on the bus: "it's game day. Don't ask questions - just roll with it."

Roll with it they did. The Mustangs took the floor in Birmingham and blew the Blazers out of their own gym, thanks in no small part to Shepherd's SMU-record nine steals. Everything that could have gone wrong on the trip had, and nobody had an explanation. Some pointed to the sideline attire, some to the music, some to the re-vamped travel schedule.

Rompola, between post-victory smiles, allowed that it must have been the music. On the bus back to the hotel, when her players teased her about her dancing, she assured them that if they won the Conference USA title - the final was played on her birthday, no less (she's - 21) - she would get down with her team. She told her players that if they earned a trip to the tournament known nationwide as "The Big Dance," she would do just that - dance with her team.

So that's where things stand for this remarkable team. A group that began the season with some high expectations and some question marks overcame some serious adversity, losing players to illness and injury, and persevered and reached its goal. Preseason polls inexplicably called for Tulane to repeat as Conference USA champions. Once UTEP got on a roll, it looked like the Miners might never lose. But a talented, veteran team, led by a terrific senior class and a driven coach, laid waste to UTEP's 23-game winning streak and cut down the nets Sunday in Orlando.

Rompola has had ample opportunity to use the word "special" this season. Getting married over the summer certainly was the most special of her year. Winning her 300th career game - on national TV, no less, and at her alma mater, where she has coached her entire career - definitely was special. Watching Dodds set new statistical standards was special. But for the Mustangs' coach, the most special aspect of this season that now requires a destination and an opponent for its first NCAA bid in eight years was the team itself.

"It means the most because of this team, these seniors - they're special," Rompola said. "This is one of the closest teams we've ever had here. We have a lot of players who have played big roles for us, but our seniors have led us. I'm proud of them, but I'm so happy for them. They deserve this."