2007-08 Women’s Basketball Media Guide www.niuhuskies.com 77 2007-08 Women’s Basketball Media Guide 2007-08 Women’s Basketball Media Guide HUSKIE HERITAGE With nearly a half-century of tradition from percentage. NIU’s .502 field goal rate ranked which to draw, women’s basketball has made fourth nationally. a lasting impression in the history of Northern Albright reached the 20-win plateau again PATTY Illinois University athletics. A large part of in 1990-91 when the Huskies lost just once in DELP that hardwood heritage has a permanent 17 games at mid-season, but a late-season place in Huskie lore with an even dozen slide resulted in an NWIT bid and a 25-10 final representatives in the NIU Athletics Hall of Fame. ledger. E.C. Hill NIU returned to the NCAA tournament in 1992 The All-America guard became the latest as the capstone to an 18-14 campaign, and won member of the Hall of Fame sorority in October, back-to-back Mid-Continent Conference titles 2004, with her induction into Huskie history. the following two seasons. Albright’s Huskies The Whitney High School standout earned All- dominated the Mid-Con, going 33-1 in league America accolades from the U.S. Basketball play and winning the 1993 loop tournament. Writers Association as a senior in 1993-94, Even a loss in the 1994 tourney final wasn’t leading Northern Illinois to the NCAA tournament enough to keep the Huskies out of the “Big for the third consecutive season. NIU’s 24-6 Dance” for a third year in a row. overall ledger included an unblemished (18-0) Following a loss to Southwest Missouri mark in the Mid-Continent Conference and a State University in the first round of the 1994 24-1 mark after an 0-3 start. NCAA tournament, Albright took the reins at the Hill’s 22.0 ppg. scoring pace that season University of Wisconsin where she coached the featured the game-winner as the Huskies upset Badgers to five more NCAA tournaments and then-fourth-ranked Iowa on Jan. 25, 1994. She a pair of Women’s NIT appearances in nine hit double figures in all but one of the team’s seasons. 30 games that season, part of a résumé which Lisa Foss includes 85 such performances in her career. The sharp-shooting guard entered the Hall of Hill surpassed the 25-point mark 25 times Fame in 1997 after setting a Huskie standard and collected 30 or more in three separate with 2,500 points in her (1987-91) career while contests. playing for fellow Hall of Famer Jane Albright. The Chicago native sat out her freshman Foss burned out scoreboards across the season due to academic restrictions, but still nation, posting a total which still ranks among LISA ranks sixth in school history with her 1,638 the top 25 in NCAA Division I history. She STAROSTA career points. Her 17.8 ppg. norm is fourth in scored 20 or more points an amazing 69 times, school annals, but Hill also contributed in areas including 13 games with 30 or more tallies and other than scoring. She stands third on the all- 17 more between 25 and 29 points. time Huskie list with 392 assists and holds the As a senior, “Light ‘em Up Lisa” ranked ninth same spot on NIUs steal charts at 259—just 17 in the nation in scoring with an average of 24.4 thefts behind Leslie Pottinger, who played 32 points per game in 1990-91. She posted 20 or more games at Northern Illinois. Hill holds the more points in ten consecutive games at one school’s single-season mark with 100 counts stretch and 26 times during the season. That of larceny in 1992-93. productivity helped her reach double digits in Jane Albright scoring 117 times in 122 career games, including NIU’s former head coach entered the Hall of each of her last 51 outings in the Cardinal and Fame in 2003. Albright directed the Huskies to Black. four NCAA tournament appearances during a Foss still owns an incredible 17 school five-year span at the conclusion of her (1984-94) records, including the Huskie standards for tenure in DeKalb. She remains the winningest career points and scoring average (20.5 points coach in program history, posting a 188-110 per game). Her 41 points versus 14th-ranked (.631 percentage) ledger in her decade at the Washington led NIU to the championship of the helm. Fastbreak Fest tournament and also matched The Appalachian State graduate took over the school single-game scoring record. a program which had won more than 15 Carol Owens games only one time in its first 27 campaigns, The 1995 inductee anchored the middle as a but brought Northern Illinois into the national two-time Kodak District IV All-America selection spotlight in short order. In her fifth season, for Hall of Fame coach Jane Albright. Albright guided her team to its first-ever 20-win Owens, a product of Chicago’s Notre Dame campaign as Northern Illinois finished 23-7 High School, posted 2,102 career points (second and reached the championship game of the behind Foss on the all-time list) plus 1,028 1989 North Star Conference tournament. That rebounds, 256 steals and a school-record 244 season also featured a school-record 15-game blocked shots in her Huskie career (1985-90). winning streak. NIU surpassed the 100-point She also registered one of two “triple-doubles” mark six times that year. in school history en route to USBWA District IV But the 1988-89 campaign proved to be only All-America honors and the second of her two a prelude for the Huskies, who compiled a 26-5 straight appearances on the Kodak District IV All- mark the following season and climbed to the America unit. She had 23 points, 10 rebounds No. 14 spot in the Associated Press national and 11 steals versus Western Illinois on Dec. rankings. One of those victories came on Feb. 1, 1988. 15, 1989, when an overflow crowd of 6,118 fans Owens paced Northern Illinois to its initial flooded Evans Field House to watch Northern NCAA berth, leading the way with 21.7 points Illinois defeat perennial nemesis DePaul per game to earn North Star Conference Player University. of the Year accolades. Owens established DOREEN NIU topped the Blue Demons again to capture NIU’s single-game scoring mark with 41 points ZIERER the North Star tourney title on March 10, 1990, versus the University of Illinois on December and joined the NCAA’s “Big Dance” for the first 16, 1989, one of eight times she poured in 30 time. The Huskies led the nation in scoring at or more in or more in a single contest. “C.O.” 94.5 points per game—still fourth-highest in shot 52 percent or better from the field in each NCAA history— and also with a .775 free throw of her four full seasons and still boasts the best 78 www.niuhuskies.com 2007-08 Women’s Basketball Media Guide HUSKIE HERITAGE career touch (.537) in school history. Illinois player to score five goals in one game. But scoring was only one part of the Chicago She was inducted into the Hall of Fame in native’s all-around game. Owens used her 6-3 1987. frame to swat away 244 shots, putting her atop Luehr’s mentor in both sports was one of the the school’s all-time list in career blocks. That honorees when the Hall of Fame added its first total includes seven in each of two games along women in 1986. with four other contests with six rejections each. Dr. Mary Bell The blue-collar worker was also a force on the Bell guided Huskie teams in six sports during boards for the Huskies, ranking second in NIU her 1957-77 run in DeKalb. She posted a 109- LISA annals with 1,028 rebounds to make her one 90 (.547 percentage) mark on the basketball FOSS of only four players to hit four figures in both sideline, a victory total which still ranks second points and caroms. She recorded the Huskies’ in school history. Her team reached the first-ever ‘“triple-double” against Western Illinois national AIAW Elite Eight following the 1971-72 University on December 1, 1988, while her 40 campaign, finishing that breakthrough season career “double-doubles” are second in school with a 15-3 record. But her accomplishments history, behind the 50 by teammate Tammy on the hardwood are only one chapter in her Hinchee. story, which also includes service as Northern Diane Hillard Illinois coach in volleyball, softball, swimming, A three-sport letterwinner (four years in field hockey and badminton. basketball plus two years each in track and In June 1998, the Huskie softball field was volleyball) at Northern Illinois, Hillard earned dedicated in her honor, commemorating her National Dean’s List honors for her 3.97 service to that sport. She owns the school’s top cumulative grade-point-average. She was a victory percentage on the diamond with a .747 part of the 1981-82 unit which won the school’s success rate in 14 seasons and also served first Illinois AIAW state title in 1981-82. as the director of the Women’s Recreation Hillard also set the NIU track standard in Association in 1957. the 800 meters in 1979. Her versatility was The women’s basketball program also rewarded with a Hall of Fame plaque in 1993.