The 1986 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament began on March 12 and ended on March 30. The tournament expanded to 40 teams from 32. The Final Four consisted of Texas, Tennessee, Western Kentucky, and USC, with Texas defeating Southern California, 97-81 in the championship game. Texas's Clarissa Davis was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament. With their championship win, Texas completed the first undefeated season (35-0) since the NCAA began sponsoring women's basketball in 1982.
ESPN expanded their coverage to show all four Regional Finals and the National Semifinals. CBS continued to broadcast the Championship game.
Read more about 1986 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament: Notable Events, Records, Qualifying Teams - Automatic, Qualifying Teams - At-large, Bids By Conference, First and Second Rounds, Regionals and Final Four, Bids By State, Record By Conference, All-Tournament Team, Game Officials
Famous quotes containing the words women, division and/or basketball:
“Sing lullaby, as women do,
Wherewith they bring their babies to rest;
And lullaby can I sing too,
As womanly as can the best.”
—George Gascoigne (1539–1577)
“Affection, indulgence, and humor alike are powerless against the instinct of children to rebel. It is essential to their minds and their wills as exercise is to their bodies. If they have no reasons, they will invent them, like nations bound on war. It is hard to imagine families limp enough always to be at peace. Wherever there is character there will be conflict. The best that children and parents can hope for is that the wounds of their conflict may not be too deep or too lasting.”
—New York State Division of Youth Newsletter (20th century)
“Perhaps basketball and poetry have just a few things in common, but the most important is the possibility of transcendence. The opposite is labor. In writing, every writer knows when he or she is laboring to achieve an effect. You want to get from here to there, but find yourself willing it, forcing it. The equivalent in basketball is aiming your shot, a kind of strained and usually ineffective purposefulness. What you want is to be in some kind of flow, each next moment a discovery.”
—Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)