Saturday, March 25, 2000
NKU plays for national championship
Tristate pins hoops hopes on Norse
BY NEIL SCHMIDT
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Michelle Cottrell is NKU's leading scorer
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PINE BLUFF, Ark. — Nancy Winstel looks around and sees a landscape littered with fallen basketball powers.
Cincinnati? Gone. Xavier? Finished. Miami, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio State? Kaput.
Only one Tristate team is left: her Northern Kentucky University women.
And only one game is left: today's NCAA Division II national championship.
“I told the team yesterday, you always want to be in the last game,” Ms. Winstel said, “whether it's for a national championship, or you're just kids on the playground trying to get in one more game before it gets dark or your mom calls you.
“And we get to play in the last game.”
The Norse (31-2), ranked No.2, face No.3 North Dakota State (28-3) for the title at 4:30 p.m. The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2.
NKU's athletic program, in its 29th year, awaits its first national champion.
This is the third time the team has appeared in the Final Four — its second in a row — but its first appearance in the final.
It's also the third NKU women's team in a Final Four this school year, following soccer and volleyball.
“That blows my mind,” NKU Athletic Director Jane Meier said. “There are 260 (Division II) teams trying to do this.
“Financially (with a $1.8 million annual athletic budget), we're not an athletic factory. We're getting it done because of great coaches and the great athletes in the Cincinnati area.”
Seven Greater Cincinnatians are on the team: Michelle Cottrell and Suzie Smith (both from Boone County), Michele Tuchfarber (Mount Notre Dame), Amy Mobley (Harrison), Bridget Flanagan (Mercy), Rebecca Bell (Simon Kenton) and Lisa Geiman (Bishop Brossart).
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