The 1985 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament began on March 14 and ended on March 31 and featured 32 teams. The Final Four consisted of Old Dominion, Northeast Louisiana, Western Kentucky, and Georgia….with Old Dominion defeating Georgia, 70–65 in the championship game. Old Dominion’s Tracy Claxton was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
1985 is the first year ESPN began televising some of the Tournament games. They televised two of the four Regional Finals (East and West Regional)…..as well as the two national semifinals. The Georgia vs Western Kentucky match up was shown live….while the Old Dominion vs. Northeast Louisiana game was shown tape-delayed….whereas the Championship game was broadcast by CBS.
Georgia faced Western Kentucky in the semi-final….which was a rematch of a game played in December…. when Western Kentucky prevailed by a score of 72 – 67…..however, in that game, Georgia’s star Katrina McClain had been sidelined with an ankle injury….but she was available to play in the final four….and achieved a career high total of 25 points…..as her teammate, Teresa Edwards, scored 27….and the two helped Georgia win the semi-final 91–78.
In the championship game, Georgia took on Old Dominion. The Lady Monarchs weren’t hitting their shots, scoring on only 38% of their field goal attempts….but they made up for their misses with rebounds. The Old Dominion team had set an NCAA Final Four record (still standing in 2017) with 57 rebounds in the semi-final game….and they repeated that performance in the championship game….by pulling down 57 rebounds and limiting Georgia to 30. The game would be close, but Old Dominion prevailed, 70 – 65, to win the national Championship.
