Austin, Texas ? When Jody Conradt won her first game as a coach, women played six-on-six basketball, and only two players could go the length of the court.
How times have changed.
Long considered a women’s coaching pioneer who helped shape the game with her powerhouse Texas teams of the 1980s, the Hall of Famer resigned Monday night after the Longhorns failed to reach the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year.
The coach who led Texas to its only national championship in 1986 and claimed career victory No. 900 just last week, said simply it was time for someone else to try to bring a national title back to Austin.
“It’s a winning business. Losing is not acceptable,” an emotional Conradt said as she addressed the media with her team immediately after the NCAA Tournament selections were announced.
“The easiest thing to change is the leadership,” she said.
The 65-year-old Conradt, inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1998, is second on the Division I college basketball victory list, behind only Tennessee women’s coach Pat Summitt.
Texas (18-14) entered the Big 12 tournament having lost six of its last seven conference games. The Longhorns won their first tournament game in Oklahoma City, but then lost to No. 9 Oklahoma on Wednesday.
Conradt fought back tears several times during the news conference. Her players stood off to the side, many of them sobbing and hugging.
“What she’s done for the game is so important. She’s a legend, a pioneer,” senior Tiffany Jackson said. “I don’t think anyone saw it coming.”
Conradt most recently had reached the Final Four in 2003 and with top recruits coming in, the program seemed ready to stay among the national elite for some time.
But the program went on a slow decline instead. Although Texas finished first and second in the Big 12 the next two seasons, the Longhorns were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in the round of 16 in 2004, the second round in 2005 and fell to 13-15 overall last season when injuries, immaturity and inexperience disrupted one of the top recruiting classes in the country.
Texas seemed to be turning things around this season around until some of the same problems led to a five-game losing streak in February, the longest in the program’s history.
Conradt said she couldn’t find the formula to bring the best out of her players this season.
“Hard lessons are sometimes learned through sports. You have to bring it every day. If you don’t bring it every day, sometimes it doesn’t work out for you,” she said.
Player Brittainey Raven said Conradt told the team before the NCAA selections were announced. “I wasn’t expecting that at all. Everybody’s faces just dropped,” Raven said.