The challenge issued by UT Lady Vols Head Basketball Coach Pat Summitt to her 1990-1991 team was plain and simple – return to the Final Four after losing in the finals of the East Regional in 1990 and bring home a third national championship in five years. Mission accomplished! The Lady Vols dispatched four tournament foes en route to the title game, an exciting 70-67 overtime victory over Virginia, the team that had ended Tennessee’s 1990 season. Talk about a storybook ending! The Lady Vols began their season with a win over defending NCAA champ Stanford and amassed a 23-4 regular-season record against a typically rugged schedule. After a loss to LSU in the SEC tournament finals, the Lady Vols began stalking the national championship. Their five-game NCAA tourney run included victories over Southwest Missouri State (55-47), Western Kentucky (55-47), Auburn (68-65), and Stanford (68-60). That set up the finale against Virginia. It was the Lady Vols’ eleventh trip to the final four in the last fifteen seasons, and they made the most of it. Lady Vol center Daedra Charles was named the Wade Trophy winner, symbolic of the nation’s best women’s basketball player, and was honored as SEC Female Athlete of the Year. The Lady Vols capped their national championship season with a trip to Washington to meet President Bush.
