Maryland and UCLA meet again in March, 41 years after they made women's basketball history

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Maryland Terrapins
Maryland and UCLA meet again in March, 41 years after they made women’s basketball history

By Ava Wallace
Reporter covering local colleges and universities
March 24 at 8:49 PM

When she arrived at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion on March 25, 1978, Chris Weller decided she wasn’t going to look up. ... The Maryland women’s basketball coach had put her heart and her nerves through quite enough just to get to that court, where the Terrapins were set to face the Bruins for the national championship of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the predecessor to the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. Not only had Maryland arrived at the title game by pulling off upsets over No. 1 Tennessee and No. 2 Wayland Baptist, the crème de la crème of women’s basketball at the time, but it had literally arrived on a plane.

It was the first time the team had flown to a game, and it was Weller’s first time flying. ... Had the coach looked up, she would have seen the 9,351 spectators in Pauley Pavilion, the most to witness a women’s title game at the time. Had she looked around, she would have seen NBC cameras, there to televise a women’s college basketball championship for the first time. ... “I kept my head down and tried to concentrate on us, period, end of sentence,” Weller said Sunday. “It was absolutely the biggest game I’ve ever coached in. I can’t even tell you, when it was something big like that. … I don’t think it hit me, the historic event that it was going to become.”

On Monday, No. 3 seed Maryland (29-4) and No. 6 seed UCLA (21-12) will meet in the second round of the NCAA tournament in College Park exactly 41 years after the Bruins beat the Terps, 90-74, in a title game that was heralded at the time as the arrival of women’s basketball on the national stage. ... It was the first time two mainstream national powerhouses met in a final, as women’s basketball had been dominated by smaller colleges such as Wayland Baptist of Plainview, Tex.; Immaculata, a small Catholic school in Pennsylvania; and Delta State in Cleveland, Miss. Tennessee was just beginning its ascent.

[Before there was U-Conn., the Wayland Baptist Queens ruled the basketball court]

It was also the first time the AIAW tournament, in which women’s teams competed from 1972 to 1982, had copied the final-four format of the men’s tournament. Before then, the tournament was a four-day extravaganza.
....

Ava Wallace covers college sports with a focus on Georgetown, Navy and Maryland, as well as tennis and the WNBA for The Washington Post. Before her current role, she covered Virginia and Virginia Tech athletics for The Post. Follow https://twitter.com/AvaRWallace

[rurallib]

1. That you for this - I am women's b-ball fan from way back

Used to watch Iowa games almost from their inception.

Spent many years cheering on Vivian Stringer with my two daughters. They had some great teams at Iowa. Certainly hope her health straightens out.
Stringer came from Cheyney(?) State (IIRC) where she had her team on the national stage in the old AIAW days.

And so this year I also am anticipating that Maryland - UCLA set-to. Maryland's coach is an Iowa product. Iowa and Iowa State have been medium powers over the years, yet both are looking good this year.

Cheering for Maryland to beat UCLA.

My head tells me Notre Dame or Baylor is the team to beat, but by golly I would so love to see that trophy in Iowa.

[Brother Buzz]

2. Anita Ortega was on the UCLA team

She delivered the commencement speech at my son's graduation from UCLA (in Pauley Pavilion, no less!).

"Be relentless," Says First Black Woman LAPD Police Commander


Ortega attained the rank of area captain in the LAPD before retiring in 2016. She was inducted into the UCLA Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002.



She also officiated a few NCAA games along the way, too