Tennessee Tech women win OVC title to clinch nation's first bid to NCAA tournament

EVANSVILLE — Kim Rosamond was emotional. It’s hard not to be in a season of milestones that brought one more landmark when Peyton Carter caught the final defensive rebound and sprinted down the court as time expired in front of 526 spectators at Ford Center.

The Tennessee Tech women’s basketball coach couldn’t help herself. This is what she’s been working for since she was hired in 2016. The 54-46 win over top-seeded Little Rock in the United Fidelity Bank Ohio Valley Conference Tournament championship game represented everything she wanted when she accepted the job. With that, the Golden Eagles hand another banner and will play in their first NCAA Tournament since 2000 after earning their 1,000th win as a program this season.

So the waterworks were acceptable and expected.

“It’s why I came here,” Rosamond said of the 23-year wait. “We’re back. It’s been a long road and we have not skipped a step in it. These players and the players that have committed to this program over the past seven years have gotten us back to championship standard.”

There were plenty of things that could have gone better. Saturday’s championship game was ugly. Neither team scored a 3-pointer or hit the 55-point threshold. TTU’s 54 points were 15 below its season average.

Winning ugly has proven crucial in the OVC this season and maybe going forward, perhaps best exemplified by the losing side of the final. The Trojans averaged 53 points per game heading into the championship. The Eagles beat them at their own game.

TTU doesn’t care about the optics of the win. The Eagles don’t care about the 0-for-6 shooting from deep, at least not in the moment.

All they care about is the trophy that is draped with the cut-off net and the banner that will eventually be raised at Hooper Eblen Center.

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“It’s what your dream is. When you walk in there every day and you look up and you see all those through history, that’s what you came here for,” TTU guard Maaliya Owens said. “We’re gonna know that was us. It took everybody and I think that’s something that we wanted so much.”

Beyond the on-court celebrations and Rosamond hitting the "stanky leg" dance with her team, the win could signify a shift in OVC women’s basketball.

Belmont won six of the past seven league tournaments, including one over TTU last season, before departing for the Missouri Valley Conference and leaving an opening as the top dog. Tennessee Tech has staked the first claim for that spot. In a wide-open conference, that first one is always important.

“When we got to Tech, we weren’t just trying to build a team, we were trying to build a program,” Rosamond said. “I think we’ve done that with our culture, we’ve done that with our connection.

“We’ve been right there. These kids broke through that ceiling today. Obviously getting here is really hard; staying here is even harder. I know that we’ll have a committed group in that locker room when it comes time next year to tip it off.”

The key takeaway from the win is “they know what it takes,” Rosamond said. The fact that they’ll be playing in the NCAA Tournament hasn’t sunk in for the players yet, Owens, Keira Hill and Jada Guinn all said with a laugh.

The Big Dance is next. A game against one of the nation’s elites beckons in a few weeks' time, signifying TTU is back where it was those years ago. All of the celebratory aspects of Saturday showed it — the tears, the net on the trophy, the stanky leg, the “TICKET PUNCHED” board.

As Rosamond said — “We’re back.”

“It’s just so rewarding,” she said. “To be able to celebrate this with our players that did it — but also our alumni, our fans, our administration and our families that believed in us — it’s something that I know none of these guys, they don’t even know it yet. I don’t even know yet, that they know what they’ve done.”

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Tennessee Tech women's basketball returns to NCAA Tournament