25 years later, 1999 NCAA champions have lasting impact on Purdue women's basketball

WEST LAFAYETTE — For a weekend, it was almost as if time stood still.

The lasting image of Katie Douglas grasping the basketball with both hands and launching it into the air as time expired is as iconic today, almost 25 years later, as it was on March 28, 1999.

Douglas and her Purdue women's basketball teammates were just kids then, unaware of the lasting impact that night in San Jose, Calif. would have on their lives and their university.

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"Being able to get Purdue over the hump and bring home that first national championship was pretty incredible," said Stephanie White, a senior guard that season and now head coach of the WNBA's Connecticut Sun.

Members of that team were welcomed back to West Lafayette over the weekend, getting not one, not two, but three warm receptions from the Purdue faithful after being introduced during a men's basketball game Friday night, a football game on Saturday and again at halftime Sunday of the women's basketball victory over Southern.

Gatherings like this between what remains the only Big Ten women's basketball team to win a national title don't happen often enough.

But when they do, 25 years seems like yesterday.

"It is a family reunion. Not just the 25th anniversary. We grew together as a team," said Camille Cooper, a sophomore center on the 1999 national championship team. "The love and support for each other extended beyond the court. Even leaving Purdue, we still have a bond and connection."

Building a champion

Lin Dunn, hired in 1987, built Purdue's women's basketball program into one of the best in the country.

The Boilermakers won three Big Ten championships under Dunn from 1991-95. Purdue advanced to its first Final Four in 1994 and followed it with an Elite Eight appearance in 1995.

The key ingredients to a national championship roster, though, didn't arrive until the 1995-96 season when White, Indiana's Miss Basketball, and Kentucky Miss Basketball Ukari Figgs arrived on campus.

That duo would play for three head coaches in four seasons.

Dunn, along with assistant coach MaChelle Joseph were fired after minor NCAA rule violations. Nell Fortner coached the team for the 1996-97 season, with White and Figgs forced to lead as sophomores a roster made up of three returning players and nine newcomers. Dunn went on to coach the Indiana Fever of the WNBA.

Purdue won a share of the Big Ten title and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament, losing to eventual NCAA runner-up Old Dominion in overtime.

Fortner departed after one season to coach the U.S. national team and Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke elevated assistant Carolyn Peck to head coach. Purdue went 23-10 and advanced to the Elite Eight in 1997-98 under Peck.

Season to remember

Peck returned for a second season in 1998-99, giving Purdue stability atop the program. White and Figgs were now seniors and the entire roster from the previous season returned.

The Boilermakers added a boost off the bench in freshman guard Kelly Komara, Indiana's 1998 Miss Basketball, who immediately introduced herself to Purdue fans in the season's first game.

On Komara's first offensive possession of her college career, she hit a 3-pointer from the right wing. On her second, she assisted Cooper on a layup that put Purdue ahead of three-time defending NCAA champion Tennessee 21-14. The Boilers would start their season upsetting the top-ranked Lady Volunteers behind 24 points from White and 11 rebounds from Michelle Duhart.

A week after beating Tennessee, Purdue fell at Stanford, 73-72.

It would be the Boilermakers' only setback during a 34-1 season.

"I don't think we ever thought we were really that good," Komara recalled. "I remember beating Tennessee in the home opener and I remember Carolyn saying, 'If you play like that, we'll do what we said we want to do.'

"I don't know that there was ever talk of national championships. It was just let's play the best we can play and see where that leads us."

Purdue was 16-0 in Big Ten play. White was named National Player of the Year and Figgs the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player after Purdue ran through the NCAA tournament, beating Oral Roberts, Kansas, North Carolina, Rutgers, Louisiana Tech and Duke by an average of 18.5 points and winning every tourney game by at least 13.

"We just had an incredible group of human beings that really fought for each other every single day," White said. "To this day as a player, I never experienced another team like that. It was a true team in every sense of the word.

"There are a lot of memories on the floor. Wins, losses, hard practices, trips that we took and all those things. But it really was a journey with some pretty incredible people."

Leaving a legacy

The 1999 NCAA championship game was the last as Purdue's coach for Peck, who'd already committed to making the jump to the WNBA's Orlando Miracle following the season.

Four months after the national championship win, tragedy struck when junior guard Tiffany Young, a starter for all 33 games during the 1997-98 transitional season under Peck, was killed in an automobile accident by a drunk driver.

Two years after winning a national championship, Purdue, led by Douglas, returned to the title game, losing to Notre Dame in the 2001 NCAA final. It remains Purdue's last Final Four appearance, setting a standard for all Purdue teams that followed.

Purdue has reached as far as the Elite Eight three times since, most recently in 2009.

Last season, under second-year head coach Katie Gearlds, the Boilermakers returned to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2017. As a player, Gearlds competed in four NCAA tournaments from 2004-07, leading Purdue to the Elite Eight as a senior. In the offseason, she added Komara to the staff, linking the current Purdue team with its best team.

Gearlds had the players who returned to West Lafayette over the weekend speak to this year's team, fresh off a lopsided loss at UCLA and set to host its home opener Sunday afternoon.

"Having them around and giving us little stories here and there will help us in the long run," senior guard Madison Layden said.

Gearlds came to Purdue, partially inspired by what happened in 1999 in hopes of replicating what that team accomplished.

On Sunday, for the first time in several years, the 1999 NCAA championship trophy was given a proper home in Mackey Arena's concourse. It's now the first thing people see when they walk into the main entrance.

"I remember playing here and that crystal ball was in the middle of the concourse and you just kind of walked around and every day you came into Mackey, it was like, man, I'd give anything to get one of those," Gearlds said. "For whatever reason, during the renovation (to Mackey Arena), that ball has been in our office.

"Kelly and I were talking one day and we were like, 'We've got to get that thing back on the concourse.' People have to see that. That's why you want to come to Purdue. We've got a very, very long way to go, but we told that '99 team (Sunday) that they are the reason why we are here. They are the reason why I came here and we're going to do everything we can to make sure we're making them proud."

Sam King covers sports for the Journal & Courier. Email him at sking@jconline.com and follow him on Twitter and Instagram @samueltking.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Journal & Courier: How the 1999 NCAA title continues to impact Purdue women's basketball