On March 28, 1982, No. 7 Rutgers beat No. 5 Texas to win the country’s most established women’s college basketball tournament.
On March 28, 1982, No. 1 Louisiana Tech beat No. 2 Cheyney State to win the country’s most competitive women’s college basketball tournament. It was a strange day, but those were strange times.
For the first time in its history—and nearly 10 years after the passage of Title IX—the NCAA was sponsoring women’s championships. Until the 1981–82 school year, that had been the province of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, which both came into existence and held its first basketball tournament in ’72. With the two governing bodies each offering a trophy, schools could choose their tournament. That Tech and Cheyney went with the NCAA—which offered more perks, such as paying for transportation—was no surprise. Of the top 20 teams, 17 made the same choice.
