Sheryl Swoopes’ 47-point title game is widely considered the greatest individual championship performance in women’s college basketball history, but the championship performance from Charlotte Smith in 1994 is right up there as well.
Smith finished the night with 20 points and 23 rebounds, but the play everyone remembers came in the closing second. With the Tar Heels trailing by two and just 0.7 seconds remaining, she caught the inbounds pass on the wing and drilled a three-pointer to give North Carolina a 60–59 win over Louisiana Tech and secure the program’s only national championship.
What made the shot even more surprising is that Smith wasn’t known as a three-point shooter. She entered the game as a career 24.1% shooter from deep and had made just 15 three-pointers across her previous 93 games. Even during that NCAA tournament run, she had gone only 1-for-8 from beyond the arc.
But with the season on the line, North Carolina inbounded the ball from the baseline. Smith set a cross screen, popped out to the opposite wing, caught the pass, and released the shot just before time expired.
The ball dropped.
That three-pointer not only sealed the title, it also made Smith the only player in women’s college basketball history to record a 20-point, 20-rebound performance in a national championship game. 🪄