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Players from first all-Black All-American women’s basketball team reflect on making history in 1984

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Players from first all-Black All-American women’s basketball team reflect on making history in 1984


The 10 team members marveled over its meaning, then and now

1984 was packed with many firsts in women’s basketball. It was a year with a glimpse into the future of the game’s evolution, a year filled with special recognition.

West Virginia center Georgeann Wells became the first woman to dunk a basketball in a collegiate game, the year Bertha Teague, Margaret Wade and Senda Berenson Abbott became the first women inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. The USA women’s Olympic team won its first gold medal. A rule change in the NCAA reduced the basketball’s diameter by one inch (to 28.5-29 inches) and made it two ounces lighter than the previous ball, and 1 to 1.5 inches in diameter smaller than the one used by men.

More than a decade before the WNBA in 1996, the Women’s American Basketball Association debuted, but it was short-lived like so many other women’s pro basketball leagues. And USC women’s team became the first to win its second consecutive NCAA championship.


Read full article @ ANDSCAPE