If you work hard enough, stay at it long enough, and get lucky enough, eventually you might have the kind of season Head Coach Jim Foster and the Vanderbilt women’s basketball team had in 1992-1993. The list of their accomplishments is impressive. The Commodores finished the season with a remarkable 30-3 record. Foster was named National Coach of the Year by the United States Basketball Writers’ Association. Several Commodore players won All-Conference and All-Tournament honors, and most notably 6’10” center Heidi Gillingham was included on the prestigious 1993 Kodak All-American team. The team reeled off seventeen straight wins, a program record which included victories over nationally ranked opponents Southwest Missouri State, Alabama, Texas, Connecticut, Virginia, and Ohio State. On January 5, 1993, the Commodores attained a number-one national ranking in both the AP and “USA Today” polls, marking the first time in the school’s history that a Commodore team was rated as the nation’s best. They won the SEC tournament, which featured three of the top five ranked teams in the nation. Vanderbilt then advanced to the Final Four in the NCAA tournament, where they lost their semifinal game to the Texas Tech Lady Raiders. An accomplished team in the classroom as well as on the playing floor, the Commodores led all other SEC teams in the number of players named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll. A fitting final honor for one of the greatest teams in Vanderbilt’s rich history.
