Rompola Era, 10 best memories
Posted: Wed Feb 24, 2016 6:56 amI've followed the womens basketball team here since before I was a student, saw Rhonda play a couple of times in her senior year. Havent missed a home game since 1984 (started dating one of the players that year). I dont know how many road games I've been to, but I've been as far southwest as San Francisco and as far northeast as Philadelphia. Saw every post-season and NCAA tournament game they played, in San Francisco, Ruston, Norfolk, Phoenix, West Lafayette, Iowa City, Minneapolis, Amarillo and Athens. So, since the Rhonda era is coming to an end, I thought I would write down my favorite memories from her career. This is mostly from memory, I dont have time to look up all the stats, so I might get some numbers fudged, but its as close as I can get.
1.) 1999 WAC Tournament Final, Las Vegas, Nev. SMU 65 Colorado State 49. CSU was 31-1 and ranked 3rd in the nation, the highest ranked team we ever beat. They were lead by All-American guard Becky Hammon, the Naismith Award winner, and now an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs. She's the first and only female full time assistant in the NBA. Karen Blair rolled her ankle early in the game and had to be carried to the locker room, but after getting retaped she came back and defended Hammon the rest of the game. CSU had beaten us in the regular season, but because of the "pod" system in the 16 team WAC, there was no regular season champion, the tournament winner was the only champ. The regular season game at CSU drew 7,150 fans. This was also the year that half the conference announced they were leaving to form the Mountain West, and the president of CSU had made several public statements about others schools being "uncompetitve" and there were alot of bitter feelings, so Dr. Turner took a couple of mild shots back at him in a post-game interview. Lamar Hunt and several other prominent alums were also in the stands. This was the first time SMU had an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, we probably would have been in the field anyway, but it was nice not to be nervous on selection sunday. One week after beating CSU, the Mustangs beat 20th ranked Toledo in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the only time the team has beaten ranked opponents in back-to-back games.
2) 1995 NCAA First Round at Stanford. SMU 96 - Southern Miss 95, in double OT. The Mustangs first ever victory in the NCAA tournament was an overtime nail biter against a Southern Miss team that was seeded much higher than we were. If I remember correctly, Kim Brundgard, Kerri Delany and Kim Brandl all scored 20+ that night. The trip to the San Francisco bay area is still the best road trip i've ever taken to watch an SMU team play. Between the first and second round games we took a hike through the Muir woods (giant Redwoods), had dinner in Chinatown, drove down the infamous Lombard Street and across the Golden Gate Bridge, had clam chowder in Sausalito, and got chased by campus security at Cal-Berkly. The best of times.
3) Fort Worth, Jan 25th, 1997. SMU 127- TCU 125- 4 OT. At the time this was the longest and highest scoring womens basketball game in NCAA D1 history. There have been two 5OT games since then, but the 252 combined points is still the NCAA record. Seven other NCAA records were set that night, and I think most of them are still standing, they included most combined field goals made and most attempted, most 3-point field goals attempted, and most free throws made. At one point in the second half SMU trailed by as much as 23 points, making this the biggest comeback in school history. Shawna Ford led all scorers with 43 points, which is still the SMU single game record. Ironically, Shawna was also part of the highest scoring game in Womens D2, when she was head coach at Abilene Christian.
Initially, I had only planned to stay for the first half. The SMU men were playing TCU at Moody that night, but since the games tipped off 30 minutes apart I thought I could watch the first half of the women, then drive back to Dallas and catch the 2nd half of the mens game. When I got in my car and turned on the radio, though, the men were already down by 20, so I decided just stay in Fort Worth. In a way it was fortunate, because I got to see history being made.
4) 1993 NWIT, Amarillo Tx. SMU 76-UNLV 74- OT. SMU's first appearance in a post season tournament, and 3rd victory over a ranked opponent (UNLV was ranked 24th). This was Rhonda's second year as head coach, and alot of things they accomplished were firsts for the program. In those days the womens NCAA tournament only had 48 teams, and the NWIT had 8, so there were only a total of 56 post season bids for the women. The entire NWIT tournament was held at a single site, in Amarillo. We were the 8th seed and UNLV was first, so it was considered something of an upset. When we won the first 2 rounds and made the finals, alot of SMU alums from that area came out to see the championship game. It was a great trip, besides winning the games, I did alot of sightseeing, met alot of new people, and toured the Palo Duro Canyon with some friends. Everything was a new experience then, and the future promised even bigger things to come.
In those days I wore a basketball on my head, chains wrapped around my body, and people referred to me as "the fan from hell", or "the bleacher creature". I was a much younger man then, and I liked to raise a bit of a rumpus in the stands. Ironically, someone called me "fan from hell" at the mens game with Tulsa last week. First time anyone said that to me in more than a decade. I still have the basketball, it's out in my garage.
5) 2008 C-USA tournament championship, SMU 73-UTEP 57. UTEP was the regular season champions, and ranked 16th when we beat them in the finals. Their point guard, Jarieca Hughes, was the conference Player of The Year, but Katie Cobb shut her down in the championship game. That senior class was a special group, Janielle Dodds broke the school records for points and rebounds, and Sharee Shepard broke the record for steals. Two other seniors had their basketball careers ended by life threatening medical conditions earlier in the year. Brittany Barker was found to have a leaky heart valve, and was told she had to give up the game. Katie Gross was hit by a case of bacterial meningitis and encephalitis. One night she hit 6 3-pointers against Tulsa, and a couple of days later she was in a hospital bed, unable to move, see, or hear. Both of them are fine now, and I heard Katie recently got engaged, but at the time it was a scary thing. Both of them stayed with the team and were able to make the trip to Indiana for the NCAA tournament game against Notre Dame. That team was special in alot of ways, I got to be good friends with most of them, and their families, and I still speak to them once in a while now. Expectations had been high that year, but there was a bit of drama and dissapointment along the way. Seeing them get a big win at the end of the year made up for alot.
6) Austin Tx. Feb. 12, 1994. SMU 74- Univ. of Texas 73. SMU's first win over the Lady Longhorns. UT was a national superpower in the 80's and early 90's. The NCAA and SWC did not sanction womens basketball as a sport until 1983, and when they did UT completely dominated SWC play, their conference winning streak lasted until 1991, when Arkansas finally gave them their first SWC loss. The LadyHorns were the standard everyone else was chasing, and SMU finally got their first win in 1994, Rhonda's 3rd year as coach. Jennifer McLaughlin led SMU with 24 points that night, but on the final play of the game she was trapped by the defense and had to dish off to Andrea Guziec. Andrea was a career role player, never scored more than 5-6 points per game, but her claim to fame is she made the winning layup in SMU's first win over UT, in Austin.
7)2000 NCAA Tournament first round, Norfolk Va. SMU 64-North Carolina State 63. The game went back and forth, and Kate Remke put us ahead to stay with free throws at 3 seconds left in the game. She had hurt her knee when she was fouled but stayed in for the free throws. NC STate threw the ball from halfcourt as the buzzer went off, and it rolled around the rim for a moment before popping out. This one was as close as games ever got, but in the end we got out with the win. It was a good trip, there was lots of good seafood, and I toured the Naval Base, but the best part was seeing all the old pictures of Rhonda. The games were played at Old Dominion, where she played before transferring to SMU, and there were several pictures of her in their gym, from the years that ODU was national champs. The fans there seemed to remember her well, and the crowd was definitely behind us, partly because of Rhonda, but also because they just seemed to hate NC STate. This was also the end of Karlin Kennedy's career, and she was matched against NC STates All-American center, Summer Erb. Erb had 24 points, but Karlin also had 20, and that was just enough to get the win. Rhonda wont let anyone see picture of her from her Old DOminion days, those 80's hairstyles are hard to explain.
Dallas, Feb 28, 2009. SMU 78-UTEP 65. The rivalry with UTEP continued, but this time it was for the regular season C-USA championship. This was the first time SMU won the conference title on it's own court and was able to cut down the nets in Moody after the game. At the time we didnt know if we were champions or co-champs, because Southern Miss still had a chance to tie us for the title if they won later that evening. They choked in a game they were expected to win, though, so SMU won the title outright. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, with Dodds, Shepherd and Cobb graduating the year before, and the season had started out ugly with a loss to UTA, but gradually young players stepped up into new roles, and they were able to click when conference play started.
9)2014 NWIT first round, Dallas. SMU 84-Texas Southern 72. This was the first time SMU hosted an NWIT game at Moody. In 2013 SMU was the higher seed, but had to play on the road because renovations at Moody were already underway. Texas Southern was the SWAC regular season champions, but lost in the finals of their conference tournament, and didn't get the autobid to the NCAA tournament. SMU led most of the game, and Keena Mays led all scorers with 32 points. Mays would break the SMU season scoring record, formerly held by Coach Rompola, three days later in their second round game at Minnesota. This was the final game in Moody for Mays, a 2-time C-USA Player of the Year, and for fellow seniors Akil Simpson, Korina Baker, Mallory SIngleton, and Crystal Johnson.
10) Dallas, New Years Eve, 1995. SMU 76-Stephen F Austin 73. SFA was a FInal Four team the year before, and ranked 5th when we beat them. This was the teams first win over a top-10 program. There's more to the story, but its 6AM and I cant remember any details now, I better go to sleep and finish this later.
1.) 1999 WAC Tournament Final, Las Vegas, Nev. SMU 65 Colorado State 49. CSU was 31-1 and ranked 3rd in the nation, the highest ranked team we ever beat. They were lead by All-American guard Becky Hammon, the Naismith Award winner, and now an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs. She's the first and only female full time assistant in the NBA. Karen Blair rolled her ankle early in the game and had to be carried to the locker room, but after getting retaped she came back and defended Hammon the rest of the game. CSU had beaten us in the regular season, but because of the "pod" system in the 16 team WAC, there was no regular season champion, the tournament winner was the only champ. The regular season game at CSU drew 7,150 fans. This was also the year that half the conference announced they were leaving to form the Mountain West, and the president of CSU had made several public statements about others schools being "uncompetitve" and there were alot of bitter feelings, so Dr. Turner took a couple of mild shots back at him in a post-game interview. Lamar Hunt and several other prominent alums were also in the stands. This was the first time SMU had an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, we probably would have been in the field anyway, but it was nice not to be nervous on selection sunday. One week after beating CSU, the Mustangs beat 20th ranked Toledo in the first round of the NCAA tournament, the only time the team has beaten ranked opponents in back-to-back games.
2) 1995 NCAA First Round at Stanford. SMU 96 - Southern Miss 95, in double OT. The Mustangs first ever victory in the NCAA tournament was an overtime nail biter against a Southern Miss team that was seeded much higher than we were. If I remember correctly, Kim Brundgard, Kerri Delany and Kim Brandl all scored 20+ that night. The trip to the San Francisco bay area is still the best road trip i've ever taken to watch an SMU team play. Between the first and second round games we took a hike through the Muir woods (giant Redwoods), had dinner in Chinatown, drove down the infamous Lombard Street and across the Golden Gate Bridge, had clam chowder in Sausalito, and got chased by campus security at Cal-Berkly. The best of times.
3) Fort Worth, Jan 25th, 1997. SMU 127- TCU 125- 4 OT. At the time this was the longest and highest scoring womens basketball game in NCAA D1 history. There have been two 5OT games since then, but the 252 combined points is still the NCAA record. Seven other NCAA records were set that night, and I think most of them are still standing, they included most combined field goals made and most attempted, most 3-point field goals attempted, and most free throws made. At one point in the second half SMU trailed by as much as 23 points, making this the biggest comeback in school history. Shawna Ford led all scorers with 43 points, which is still the SMU single game record. Ironically, Shawna was also part of the highest scoring game in Womens D2, when she was head coach at Abilene Christian.
Initially, I had only planned to stay for the first half. The SMU men were playing TCU at Moody that night, but since the games tipped off 30 minutes apart I thought I could watch the first half of the women, then drive back to Dallas and catch the 2nd half of the mens game. When I got in my car and turned on the radio, though, the men were already down by 20, so I decided just stay in Fort Worth. In a way it was fortunate, because I got to see history being made.
4) 1993 NWIT, Amarillo Tx. SMU 76-UNLV 74- OT. SMU's first appearance in a post season tournament, and 3rd victory over a ranked opponent (UNLV was ranked 24th). This was Rhonda's second year as head coach, and alot of things they accomplished were firsts for the program. In those days the womens NCAA tournament only had 48 teams, and the NWIT had 8, so there were only a total of 56 post season bids for the women. The entire NWIT tournament was held at a single site, in Amarillo. We were the 8th seed and UNLV was first, so it was considered something of an upset. When we won the first 2 rounds and made the finals, alot of SMU alums from that area came out to see the championship game. It was a great trip, besides winning the games, I did alot of sightseeing, met alot of new people, and toured the Palo Duro Canyon with some friends. Everything was a new experience then, and the future promised even bigger things to come.
In those days I wore a basketball on my head, chains wrapped around my body, and people referred to me as "the fan from hell", or "the bleacher creature". I was a much younger man then, and I liked to raise a bit of a rumpus in the stands. Ironically, someone called me "fan from hell" at the mens game with Tulsa last week. First time anyone said that to me in more than a decade. I still have the basketball, it's out in my garage.
5) 2008 C-USA tournament championship, SMU 73-UTEP 57. UTEP was the regular season champions, and ranked 16th when we beat them in the finals. Their point guard, Jarieca Hughes, was the conference Player of The Year, but Katie Cobb shut her down in the championship game. That senior class was a special group, Janielle Dodds broke the school records for points and rebounds, and Sharee Shepard broke the record for steals. Two other seniors had their basketball careers ended by life threatening medical conditions earlier in the year. Brittany Barker was found to have a leaky heart valve, and was told she had to give up the game. Katie Gross was hit by a case of bacterial meningitis and encephalitis. One night she hit 6 3-pointers against Tulsa, and a couple of days later she was in a hospital bed, unable to move, see, or hear. Both of them are fine now, and I heard Katie recently got engaged, but at the time it was a scary thing. Both of them stayed with the team and were able to make the trip to Indiana for the NCAA tournament game against Notre Dame. That team was special in alot of ways, I got to be good friends with most of them, and their families, and I still speak to them once in a while now. Expectations had been high that year, but there was a bit of drama and dissapointment along the way. Seeing them get a big win at the end of the year made up for alot.
6) Austin Tx. Feb. 12, 1994. SMU 74- Univ. of Texas 73. SMU's first win over the Lady Longhorns. UT was a national superpower in the 80's and early 90's. The NCAA and SWC did not sanction womens basketball as a sport until 1983, and when they did UT completely dominated SWC play, their conference winning streak lasted until 1991, when Arkansas finally gave them their first SWC loss. The LadyHorns were the standard everyone else was chasing, and SMU finally got their first win in 1994, Rhonda's 3rd year as coach. Jennifer McLaughlin led SMU with 24 points that night, but on the final play of the game she was trapped by the defense and had to dish off to Andrea Guziec. Andrea was a career role player, never scored more than 5-6 points per game, but her claim to fame is she made the winning layup in SMU's first win over UT, in Austin.
7)2000 NCAA Tournament first round, Norfolk Va. SMU 64-North Carolina State 63. The game went back and forth, and Kate Remke put us ahead to stay with free throws at 3 seconds left in the game. She had hurt her knee when she was fouled but stayed in for the free throws. NC STate threw the ball from halfcourt as the buzzer went off, and it rolled around the rim for a moment before popping out. This one was as close as games ever got, but in the end we got out with the win. It was a good trip, there was lots of good seafood, and I toured the Naval Base, but the best part was seeing all the old pictures of Rhonda. The games were played at Old Dominion, where she played before transferring to SMU, and there were several pictures of her in their gym, from the years that ODU was national champs. The fans there seemed to remember her well, and the crowd was definitely behind us, partly because of Rhonda, but also because they just seemed to hate NC STate. This was also the end of Karlin Kennedy's career, and she was matched against NC STates All-American center, Summer Erb. Erb had 24 points, but Karlin also had 20, and that was just enough to get the win. Rhonda wont let anyone see picture of her from her Old DOminion days, those 80's hairstyles are hard to explain.
Dallas, Feb 28, 2009. SMU 78-UTEP 65. The rivalry with UTEP continued, but this time it was for the regular season C-USA championship. This was the first time SMU won the conference title on it's own court and was able to cut down the nets in Moody after the game. At the time we didnt know if we were champions or co-champs, because Southern Miss still had a chance to tie us for the title if they won later that evening. They choked in a game they were expected to win, though, so SMU won the title outright. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year, with Dodds, Shepherd and Cobb graduating the year before, and the season had started out ugly with a loss to UTA, but gradually young players stepped up into new roles, and they were able to click when conference play started.9)2014 NWIT first round, Dallas. SMU 84-Texas Southern 72. This was the first time SMU hosted an NWIT game at Moody. In 2013 SMU was the higher seed, but had to play on the road because renovations at Moody were already underway. Texas Southern was the SWAC regular season champions, but lost in the finals of their conference tournament, and didn't get the autobid to the NCAA tournament. SMU led most of the game, and Keena Mays led all scorers with 32 points. Mays would break the SMU season scoring record, formerly held by Coach Rompola, three days later in their second round game at Minnesota. This was the final game in Moody for Mays, a 2-time C-USA Player of the Year, and for fellow seniors Akil Simpson, Korina Baker, Mallory SIngleton, and Crystal Johnson.
10) Dallas, New Years Eve, 1995. SMU 76-Stephen F Austin 73. SFA was a FInal Four team the year before, and ranked 5th when we beat them. This was the teams first win over a top-10 program. There's more to the story, but its 6AM and I cant remember any details now, I better go to sleep and finish this later.
