AUSTIN, Texas - Texas women's basketball coach Jody Conradt resigned Monday after her team failed to reach the NCAA tournament for the second straight year. The 65-year-old Conradt is the second on the Division I college basketball victory list, behind only Tennessee women's coach Pat Summitt.
"The easiest thing to change is the leadership," Conradt said as she addressed the media with her team immediately after the NCAA tournament selections were announced.
Conradt had the nation's top recruiting class this season, but injuries, inexperience and immaturity hurt the Longhorns. Texas (18-14) entered the Big 12 tournament having lost six of its last seven conference games. The Longhorns won their first tournament game but then lost to No. 9 Oklahoma on Wednesday.
"It's a winning business. Losing is not acceptable," she said.
Conradt, who led Texas to a 34-0 record and its lone NCAA title in 1985-86, fought back tears several times during the emotional news conference. Her players stood off to the side, many of them sobbing and hugging.
"What she's done for the game is so important. She's a legend, a pioneer," player Tiffany Jackson said. "I don't think anyone saw it coming."
Brittainey Raven said Conradt told the team before the NCAA selections were announced. "I wasn't expecting that at all. Everybody's faces just dropped," Raven said.
Conradt said she started thinking about retiring earlier in the season.
"I'm not going to take another coaching job," she said.
Conradt picked up her 900th win Tuesday in the first round of the Big 12 Conference tournament in Oklahoma City.
"As I told her, we all appreciate what she's done for this game," Summitt said." She's been a great friend of mine, a mentor, and we're going to miss her. But she's left her footprints all over the game and all over a lot of us coaches."
Conradt is 900-306 in 38 seasons — four at Sam Houston State, three at Texas-Arlington and 31 at Texas.
"She's an icon in women's basketball," Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. "Nine hundred wins is mind boggling. As great a coach as she is, she's an even better person. I've admired her and the job she's done. I'm happy for her she's retiring and moving on, but our game will miss her. I only have the ultimate respect and admiration for her. It has to be hard. She's from my era a little bit. You think of coaches around my age retiring — whoa."
Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma also praised Conradt.
"I think they established something that every other coach in America wanted to build," Auriemma said. "I'm sure she'll be involved somehow in the basketball community. She's just too valuable a resource to just let her walk away."
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