University of North Carolina Athletics
1994 Champs To Be Honored Sunday At Carmichael
January 31, 2014 | Women's Basketball
The 1994 Tar Heel women's basketball team will be honored at halftime of Sunday's game against Miami at 2 p.m., marking the 20th anniversary of the program's first-and the ACC's-first NCAA title.
Charlotte Smith, who had 20 points and 23 rebounds in the title game, made the winning shot with 0.7 seconds on the clock to give UNC a 60-59 win over Louisiana Tech, capping a 33-2 season for the Tar Heels.
Smith was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four, while teammate Tonya Sampson joined her on the all-tournament team after scoring a game-high 21 points against La. Tech.
Charlotte Smith had to wait for the replay to watch the biggest shot in North Carolina women's basketball history fall through the net. She was the one who released it, just before time expired in the 1994 NCAA Championship game, but ultimately her line of vision was blocked.
"I didn't look at it," Smith said. "And the mob got me before I knew it had gone in."
That mob, made of her teammates, had good reason to be excited. Just three years earlier, when the seniors on that team were freshmen, North Carolina had finished at the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference. So to have hit those heights, earning the program's-and the conference's-first NCAA title, was almost too much to be believed.
The success had been building steadily. Since the 1991 season, when UNC finished 12-16 for its fourth consecutive losing season, the Tar Heels had put together back-to-back 20-win campaigns. Sylvia Hatchell's team headed into the 1993-94 season with five returning starters and an outstanding freshman point guard named Marion Jones, who would go on to gain fame on the track.
First, however, Jones made an indelible mark at UNC in basketball. By the fourth game of the season, Jones was a starter, and she went on to set an ACC record for steals by a freshman.
Joining her in Carolina's regular lineup were four experienced players: seniors Sylvia Crawley and Tonya Sampson, and juniors Stephanie Lawrence and Smith.
The Tar Heels opened the 1993-94 season with 11 consecutive wins and climbed to No. 4 in the country before falling at home to Virginia, 77-75 on Jan. 12. The Cavaliers would prove to be the only team to defeat UNC that season, winning again in Charlottesville on Feb. 9, 83-74.
There were a few other close calls, though. At the ACC Tournament in Rock Hill, S.C., the defense stiffened to beat Clemson 65-64 and advance to the final. Having survived that scare, Carolina finally got the better of Virginia, 77-60 in the championship game, to claim its first conference crown since 1984.
After advancing through first and second-round NCAA Tournament games in Chapel Hill, UNC traveled to the East Regional at Rutgers. There, the Tar Heels beat Vanderbilt 73-69, despite playing without Smith, who served a one-game suspension for fighting during the second round win against Old Dominion. Crawley picked up the slack with a season-high 22 points. An 81-69 victory against Connecticut put North Carolina in its first Final Four.
In Richmond, Va., UNC enjoyed its trip but didn't forget it was there to take care of business. The Tar Heels put on a dunking display at practice, then got serious and won easily in the national semifinal against Purdue, 89-74, to advance to the NCAA Championship game.
On April 3, Louisiana Tech led through most of the first half, but never by more than five points. The Tar Heels trailed by two when they got the ball out of bounds on a possession arrow with a mere 00:00.7 showing on the clock. After two timeouts, Lawrence inbounded the ball to Smith on the right wing. The rest, as they say, is history.
"It makes it even more special to know that we came from the bottom to the top," Crawley said after the game. "This is the way I've always dreamed about it, and my dreams have finally come true."
"When I was recruited out of high school, the team had only won a few conference games the year before I attended. UNC was not the powerhouse of today. In just a short three-year span, Coach Hatchell took that team from last in the conference (or close to it) to National Champions. It brings tears to my eyes to relive that moment. As each player, each coach, and each manager knows, it was a journey. A journey that started years earlier. A journey that ended in a special moment for each of us. It was not an easy season nor an easy journey.
"We fought for every opportunity that was afforded us. But what meant the most for each of us was that we truly believed - believed in ourselves, believed in our coaches, believed in our university. We believed it was our turn.
"This team holds a bond to one another that no one can ever break. No matter the miles between us, the months between phone calls, or the years between visits, we are still connected by a great moment in time."
- Stephanie Lawrence Yelton (Junior on the '94 team)
