“Sports Illustrated” called the 1997-1998 season of the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball “Orange Crush.” It went on to say that “When the best player in women’s basketball [Chamique Holdsclaw] was joined by four fabulous fearless freshmen [Tamika Catchings, Kristen Clement, Teresa Geter, and Semeka Randall], the result was something even [Coach] Pat Summitt hadn’t seen before perfect season for the Lady Vols.” They concluded the 1997-1998 season with a 39-0 record, and in capturing their third consecutive NCAA national title, they were the first team in the history of women’s collegiate basketball to three-peat. But it was not only that the Lady Vols accomplished this unprecedented feat, it was how they did it that made the season amazing. The 1997-1998 Lady Vols season began with one of the toughest schedules facing the 1996 and 1997 NCAA champions. The nucleus of this team had finished the 1996-1997 season with the most losses (ten) of any Lady Vol squad in the preceding decade and produced a number of other negative firsts. Yet, they still managed to capture the NCAA title in spite of themselves. Their character-building 1997 championship season would yield even greater dividends in 1998. In the season-opening victory over Southeastern Conference foe Mississippi, 92-64, freshman reserve guard Semeka Randall broke the rookie scoring record with twenty-four points. That night the story of the “Three Meeks” began and throughout the 1997-1998 season, either Chamique Holdsclaw, Tamika Catchings, or Semeka Randall would be the leading Lady Vol scorer in thirty seven of the thirty-nine games. With the final buzzer in the NCAA championship game, the Lady Vols capped one of the most phenomenal seasons in women’s collegiate basketball. They led the nation in scoring with an average of 88.8 points per game, while holding their opponents to a paltry 58.7 ppg, for a winning point differential of 30.1 ppg. The 1997-1998 Lady Vols won all thirty-nine games, including seventeen victories over ranked opponents, by an average margin of thirty points. No team in the history of women’s hoops had ever won more games-and so convincingly.
