Seven-tenths of a second was all North Carolina's Charlotte Smith needed to change her legacy from a brawler to the owner of the greatest shot in the history of Tar Heel women's basketball.
"Maybe now people will remember me for something else besides the fight," Smith said after she stunned Louisiana Tech with a 3-pointer at the buzzer in Sunday's NCAA championship game.The basket, just Smith's ninth 3-pointer of the season, gave the Tar Heels a 60-59 victory and their first national title.
It came exactly two weeks after Smith, North Carolina's top rebounder and No. 2 scorer, was ejected from the Tar Heels' second-round East Region game for punching Old Dominion's Beth McGowan. The ejection also meant Smith had to sit out North Carolina's next game, a victory over Vanderbilt in the regional semifinals.
"I was hoping I could do something" to make amends for the fight, she said. "I'm just glad things worked out the way it did."
Even before her dramatic shot, Smith had a huge impact on the championship game. The 6-foot junior forward scored 19 of her 20 points in the second half. She also set a championship game record by grabbing 23 rebounds and was named the oustanding player of the Final Four.
Her efforts helped North Carolina (33-2) finish the season with its 14th consecutive victory and complete a turnaround from a last-place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference three years ago.
"A few years ago, we were taking our lumps from everybody," coach Sylvia Hatchell said, "and that's helped to make us a better team."
Louisiana Tech (31-4) saw its 25-game winning streak end and settled for its third runner-up finish.
"We've accomplished a lot of goals, but losing like that, it really hurts," said senior guard Pam Thomas, who led the Lady Techsters with 15 points.
Coach Leon Barmore said the loss was his fault because he failed to assign someone to guard Stephanie Lawrence, freeing her to fire the 30-foot inbounds pass to Smith for the winning shot.
There were 10 ties and three lead changes before Thomas put Louisiana Tech up 59-57 on a 19-foot jumper from the right wing with 15 seconds left.
North Carolina's Tonya Sampson missed badly on a leaning shot from the free-throw line with five seconds to go. The Tar Heels' Marion Jones and Louisiana Tech's Kendra Neal battled for the rebound until a joint possession was declared with seven-tenths of a second remaining.
North Carolina, which was awarded the ball on the alternating possession rule, called a timeout to set up a play.
Hatchell wanted Lawrence to lob a pass down low into the lane to 6-foot-5 Sylvia Crawley. But Crawley was covered, so she called another timeout.
On the second try, Lawrence fired a strike to Smith, who was wide open on the right wing after working around a screen by Crawley.
"I knew that as soon as I got the ball, it would have to go up," Smith said. "When I shot the ball, I was praying the whole time. And then it was like, `Oh, God, He answered my prayers.' "
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Additional Information
1995 tournament
After expanding to 64 teams this year, the NCAA women's basketball tournament will be divided into 16 subregionals to be played on the courts of the top 16 seeds in 1995.
Two first-round games will be played at each of the 16 sites, followed by a single second-round game. The winners will advance to the regional semifinals, including Storrs, Conn. (East), Knoxville, Tenn. (Mideast), Des Moines, Iowa (Midwest), and Los Angeles (West). The Final Four will be in Minneapolis.