It's rare that you see a program transform before your very eyes, much less in a single season. But this past season, Hokie fans were treated to the sight of the Tech women's basketball team establishing itself in a mere matter of months as a national power.

How did a team that was little more than a diversion for its family and friends, usually drawing fewer than a thousand fans a game, suddenly turn into a cultural phenomenon capable of selling out Cassell Coliseum and generating the type of excitement that had previously been reserved for the men's team?

In early March, 1998, a mostly anonymous Tech women's basketball team departed for the final four of the Atlantic 10 tournament championship in Massachusetts. They would return as budding celebrities, having laid the groundwork for an unprecedented run of success that would vault them into the local and national spotlight.

As they arrived in Massachusetts, the Hokies were facing long odds. They had finished tied for second in the A-10 West and had not earned a first-round bye in the tournament, which meant they would have to win four games in six days, with three of those games on the road.

In the tournament, Tech had already beaten Fordham at home and had then topped St. Joe's in Philadelphia, thus earning the trip to UMass. Once there, Tech would be matched up with perennial power and #1 West seed GW, and if they were able to make it past GW, they would probably meet #1 East seed UMass in the final, on the "Minutewomen's" home floor.

Tech did the unthinkable, knocking off both teams and returning home as Atlantic 10 champions. Both games were on television, with the tournament final being broadcast on ESPN2, and the Hokie fans who tuned in were treated to a team that executed crisply, played with heart and desire, and (gasp!) made their free throws (34 of 39 against GW in a one-point win).

A lucky streak? A hot run at just the right time? Perhaps, but their tournament performance gained them some attention from curious fans, and a ticket to the NCAA's for the first time in three years.

The Hokies were seeded 11^th in the NCAA's and wound up matched against #6 seed Wisconsin. A date with 3^rd-seed Florida loomed in the second round for the winner, and Wisconsin made the grave mistake of looking past the hot Hokies.

One Wisconsin player even went so far as to say, "I don't know much about them (Virginia Tech), but I do know they're not the best team in their conference." Ouch - maybe the Hokies' regular season standing didn’t show it, but by the end of the season, the Hokies definitely were the best team in the Atlantic 10.

Wisconsin paid for their mistake. The Hokies, down by three at the half, stormed back in the second half and downed the Badgers, 75-64. This game was also shown on TV in the New River Valley, and although the Hokies would get hammered by Florida in the next round, Tech had made a statement and had gotten noticed.

Coming off a successful 1997-1998 season, several factors came together to turn the following season into one of magic and energy for the Hokies:

• The Tech radio network expanded its coverage of Tech women's basketball, in only its second season, from a handful of home games to ALL games, including road games. The games were broadcast on only one station - FM 101.7 out of Christiansburg - but it was a good, strong signal, and Hokies in the New River Valley could follow the team's every game.

• Here at HokieCentral, where I had never covered women's basketball closely before, I set up a Women's Hoops page and jumped into the hype with both feet. The women's team, usually ignored, was suddenly a hot topic on the web site and the message board.

• The Roanoke Times, smelling the interest, began to cover every women's basketball game, including a large number of the road games.

• The Tech men's team started to scrape bottom in both fan interest and performance, and as Hokie fans stayed away from Bobby Hussey and his men's team in droves, Bonnie Henrickson and her troops were primed to step into the void.

The rest was up to the team, and they jumped on the opportunity, seizing it tighter than a Jennifer Aniston T-shirt.

In the second game of the season, on the road against #6 Duke, the Hokies hung a 72-70 loss on the Blue Devils, who would go on to have a great season, losing the championship game of the NCAA Tournament.

The win established that these Hokies weren't going to go away, and that their strong finish the previous season wasn't a fluke. They proved the point again three games later, thrashing a 15^th-ranked UVa team 81-65 in front of over 5,000 fans at Cassell Coliseum. The size of the crowd was simply a harbinger of things to come, as was the Hokies 5-0 record.

After that, things snowballed. Tech would eventually run their record to 18-0, and when they finally lost to Xavier, they were the last unbeaten team in the country to fall. The secret was out, the national media knew who Tech was, and the local fans were getting whipped into a frenzy.

Prior to the start of the season, the Hokies' publicly-stated goal was a Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA's, but thanks to their performance, they received a bonus: Tech was seeded in the Top 16 teams, and therefore received the right to host two first-round games at Cassell.

Tech won the first game easily over St. Peter's, in front of a record capacity crowd of 10,052, the first ever for the women. The second game was late on a Monday night, against tradition-laden Auburn of the SEC.

A full season of effort, media attention, and peak performance had created a love affair between Tech fans and this team, and it all came to a head on March 15^th, 1999, when a near-capacity crowd jammed Cassell Coliseum and watched a fired-up Tech team dismantle the Auburn Tigers like second-rate girl scouts.

The atmosphere in Cassell harkened back to some of the classic mid-80's battles the men's team had fought against the likes of Memphis State and Louisville in the old Metro Conference. The Tech women responded to the challenge, thumping Auburn 76-61 behind a rain of three-pointers the likes of which the Hokies hadn't managed all year long. It was the perfect game at the perfect time, from the screaming fans in the upper rows of Cassell Coliseum down to the players that battled in the paint.

Tech would continue on to the Sweet 16 in Greensboro, where they would be beaten soundly by a powerful Tennessee team, but by that time, the season had already become the most magical season in Tech women's basketball history. It culminated in that incredible game against Auburn, a Cassell-rocking affair that will forever be frozen in time as the cherry on top of the incredible season no one expected.

At season's end, Bonnie Henrickson would turn down the advances of national champion Purdue and would instead renegotiate her contract with Tech into a sweetheart of a deal that will pay the coach $200,000 a year in salary and other income, and it promises to keep her here for at least five more years - and to keep Tech women's basketball on the map.

Before we start to look at the future, though, I want to do a little analysis on the past season first.

Although the scoring stars for this team were Amy Wetzel and Tere Williams, the true "poster children" for the Hokie women, the three people who embody their success, are Bonnie Henrickson, Lisa Witherspoon, and Michelle Houseright.

Rivers of copy have been written about Bonnie and her ability to coach, motivate, inspire, and connect with the fans. I don't think there's much more you can say about Tech's calm, cool, collected leader, who says that she doesn't scream and gyrate on the sidelines of a game or yell at the refs or her players, because it would interfere with her ability to analyze what's going on and concoct the proper strategy and player substitutions to put her team in position to win.

As I've said many times before, Bonnie is a person with rare leadership abilities, someone who can get people to listen to her, rally around her, act upon what she says, and succeed under her direction. Her prowess at all phases of coaching, from winning on the court to winning fans off the court, is well documented.

And Bonnie will be here for at least five more years, if she fulfills the terms of her recently-renegotiated contract.

The sad thing is, Lisa Witherspoon and Michelle Houseright won't. They're done. "Spoon," as she is known affectionately to Tech fans, will be sorely missed, and many observers credit her with being the second biggest contributor to Tech's success, behind Bonnie Henrickson.

Never mind Lisa's wide-eyed, gosh-golly reactions to this year's spectacle, and never mind her incredible ability to play through pain. We all respect her ability to recognize a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and to play through the agony her back subjected her to since a fall in practice early this year. She knew, as a senior, that she was only going to get one shot at this, and she grabbed at the chance and made the most of it, pain be damned.

But when you get right down to it, what will be missed more than her warrior's spirit and her charming personality is her ability as a point guard, plain and simple. How many of Tech's victories were won simply through Lisa's ability to thread a pass through traffic to a waiting Tech player, standing at point blank range under the basket? We may find out next year, when Lisa is no longer here to make those plays.

For those of you who saw Tech dismantle UVa in Cassell this year, it was a clinic in passing down into the post. Time and again, Tere Williams and Michelle Houseright found themselves holding the ball, all alone under the basket, beneficiary of another Spoon assist.

As for Michelle Houseright, "what a long, strange trip it's been." When Michelle was a freshman in 1994-1995, Tech was a pretty good team, winning over 20 games and advancing to the NCAA's. The next year, as a sophomore, she led the Hokies in scoring and rebounding, but she was the captain of a sinking ship. The Hokies suffered a losing season after two straight NCAA appearances.

Then the roof fell in on Michelle's basketball career. Michelle had to take a year off for "personal reasons," and those reasons turned out to be a new husband and a new baby. While she was gone, Tech suffered through another losing season, and Coach Carol Alfano's contract was not renewed.

Despite the hard times, Michelle came back for the 1997-1998 season, and the rest is history. Despite a body that had, shall we say, shifted, Michelle was a key contributor in Tech's Atlantic 10 and NCAA run.

This year, her performance waned, and she lost her starting job to freshman Nicole Jones. But when the A-10 and NCAA tournaments arrived, Michelle was transformed back into the dominating player that the Hokies needed. In Tech's five postseason games, Michelle averaged just over 14 points and 6 rebounds a game, which doesn't sound like a lot, but she did it coming off the bench, and she did it by shooting an amazing 27-39 from the field (69%).

More so than that, I saw a player who was looking at the end of her career and was bound and determined to go down swinging. Against Tennessee in the Hokies' ill-fated Sweet-16 loss, Michelle came off the bench and, totally unintimidated, put up 9 straight points on the Volunteers, and held her own on the boards.

Now, back to the future.

It's clear to me that to expect another 28-3 season, with the accompanying hype and hysteria, is not realistic, and probably won't happen. That isn't to say that the Hokies won't continue to be successful - they will - and it isn't to say that we won't continue to have a heck of a lot of fun - we will.

While it's true that the chemistry of this year's team may be hard to reproduce, and Spoon and Houseright will be hard to replace - along with their fellow seniors - it is also true that the Hokies have the ingredients in place for continued success.

We still have Bonnie, of course, and we return our two leading scorers, Amy Wetzel and Tere Williams (and we return them the year after next, as well). Add to that the powerful Nicole Jones, who has only just started to impress us, and you can see that Tech returns a nucleus of good players that we're all familiar with.

What you can't see is that current redshirt Sarah Hicks will be cleared to play again next year, and she's got perhaps the best three-point shooting touch on the team, so an area of inconsistency this year will be remedied next year.

Plus, I hear that Chrystal Starling, who couldn't play this year because she didn't qualify due to some ugly gymnastics of the NCAA's eligibility rules, is quite a player herself.

The biggest roadblock to continued success will be replacing Spoon at point guard. She averaged almost 40 minutes a game this year, and when she came out, Amy Wetzel would fill in for her, and since it's unlikely that Wetzel will be moved to point (but you never know) there's no heir apparent for Spoon. And we certainly don't have anyone waiting in the wings who can pass like Spoon.

One of the keys next year is Tere Williams. One thing is for sure: Tere's so quick, no one can guard her when she has the ball down in the paint. One thing is not so sure: now that Spoon is gone, can Tere get the ball in position to score?

Tere has been used to receiving the ball from Spoon down in the post, where she can use her quickness to score. But Tere herself will admit that she isn't good off the dribble, and the problem is, without Spoon delivering the ball to her, starting her move off the dribble is something she's going to have to be able to do. Look for Tere to work like a dog on that during the summer.

One area where Tere is good is running the floor, so if Tech can continue to push the ball up the floor, Tere will continue to be successful on the fast break. But don't be surprised if you see her struggle a bit early next year as her game continues to evolve.

Another key is Nicole Jones, whose strength is her best asset. You can't see it, but any player who comes into contact with her will remark about how strong she is. That explains why Nicole can take the ball and work her way through the paint for an open shot despite not being particularly quick.

The only thing Nicole needs to improve is her finish. She was inconsistent this year as far as finishing her shots. Chalk it up to being a freshman, and look for a more forceful, more direct-to-the-basket Nicole next year.

Amy Wetzel needs to broaden her game, as well. She has a well-earned reputation as a penetrator, and it became harder and harder for her to score off the drive as the season went on. Amy needs to do what Bimbo Coles did between his junior and senior years, and work on her outside shot during the off-season. Once she adds that to her repertoire, it will open the drive back up.

Other random thoughts: (1) the reappearance of Kim Seaver would be nice; and (2) if Sarah Hicks can really shoot the three, it will make the new point guard's job of getting the ball into the post easier.

When I lived in Hell, uh, Charlottesville, in the late-80's and early 90's, the UVa women's team, of course, was very good (still is). One of the guys I worked with went to nearly every one of their games, and he loved it. He told me women's basketball was more fun to watch than men's basketball.

I poo-pooed him. Surely that was Communist propaganda. How could that be? Women can't dunk, and they don't have the sheer athletic ability that the guys do. He spewed some lecture at me about fundamentals and free-throw shooting.

Now, years later, I find myself in total agreement with my friend. Yes, men's basketball can be exciting, but in the last 10-15 years, beginning with the Detroit Pistons and their defense-oriented NBA title years, the men have made the mistake of transforming basketball from its finesse roots into a power game.

As a finesse game, played with precision, basketball is a work of art and is the second-best sport in the world, behind football. As a power game, played by idiotic lugs like Shaquille O'Neal, it's a bore, and I'm not the least bit interested in watching it, college or pro. How many times can you watch Shaq or Barkley catch the ball, dribble it, back in on his man, back in, back in, back in, and then dunk it? Yawn.

On the other hand, I could watch Lisa Witherspoon lead a fast-break or thread a seeing-eye pass down into the post all day, every day, 24 hours a day.

And I won't even talk about free-throw shooting.

The fact is, although I haven't given up on the men's game, there are many teams out there that play it poorly. I submit Mike Jarvis's GW teams of the past as exhibit A. And women's basketball, for now, is still played as the game was intended to be played, with finesse. They shoot well, they make their free throws, they pass well, and when a player has the ball in the paint, it isn't an excuse to hack them until they bleed, like it is in a men's game.

I say all this because I think many, many fans who were coming out to see the women play this year for the first time were reintroduced to basketball as it is meant to be played, and I think they liked it, and I don't think they'll go away. They may not have analyzed it like I did, but they do know on some level that they like it, and they'll keep coming back.

And by signing Bonnie Henrickson to a new, lucrative contract, Jim Weaver has given Tech fans a reason to keep coming back. Did you know that the new coach at Purdue, the national champions, is getting paid about the same money as Bonnie? I like what that says about our chances of keeping Bonnie.

In football, where some schools are willing to pay their coaches $500k - $1 million a year, or more, Tech is not, and never will, I hope. So when you get right down to it, we can't compete with the rich schools, on a dollar basis, for football coaching talent. But apparently, when it comes to Bonnie Henrickson, we not only can, but we will, and we do. I like what that says about our chances of building a national-championship caliber program here.

What happened here this past year was truly unique and special, and it has changed the landscape of Tech athletics for the foreseeable future. And it happened in the wink of an eye, relatively speaking.