"It wasn't the prettiest march to the championship, but it was probably the most rewarding because of obstacles we had to go through," Roebuck said.
Maybe championships do feel better when one overcomes obstacles. And the Fighting Sioux women's basketball team had plenty in a season in which it earned the school's third straight NCAA Division II Elite Eight women's basketball championship. Before the season even started, the Sioux lost 6-foot transfer Lynda Hass to knee injuries. Before the championship game ended, UND's two point guards had a serious on-court collision.
"I honestly thought I knocked her out," Jaime Pudenz said of teammate Tonia Jones."She landed on my ankle, and I didn't have anywhere to go."
Pudenz's knee caught Jones in the head. Pudenz struggled to her feet, limping even more noticeably than she had earlier after suffering an ankle injury in the first half of UND's quarterfinal victory against Kennesaw State of Georgia on Wednesday. She stayed in the game.
On the floor dazed and confused for a few minutes, Jones walked gingerly to the Sioux bench. Six minutes, 26 seconds remained. She left, then returned with 3:52 left.
"I couldn't sit out and watch the rest of the game, it's the national championship," Jones said.
Tough customers, these Sioux women.
They didn't play their best game en route to an 80-63 victory against Arkansas Tech on Saturday, but they fought through injuries and headaches and a sluggish start to defeat the No. 17 Golden Suns at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
The championship-game victory was a microcosm of both the season and the tournament for the Sioux, who finished 31-1. Injuries didn't get in the way of UND's first championship in 1997. Nor did they surface during the Sioux's second championship in 1998.
But with the loss of Hass for the season and returning starting forward Mandy Arndtson, who scored 23 points in last year's title game here in Pine Bluff, for most of the season, UND wasn't nearly as deep entering the 1999 Elite Eight. The depth could have taken another jolt in the first half against Kennesaw, when Pudenz became tangled up with Jones and suffered an ankle injury.
She limped badly after the game but received treatments and a night's rest and returned to the starting lineup for Thursday's semifinal against Emporia State. Not only did Pudenz start, she was the only Sioux player who played the entire 40 minutes.
Then, on Saturday, Pudenz started again. She didn't leave the floor until under one minute remained, and Roebuck wanted to give his junior a hug and a hand from the crowd.
"It is more than just gutting it out,"Roebuck said."It's having as big a heart as your chest. It's wanting to play more than anything. It is about being able to play with pain. If you get that kind of player once or a couple of times in a coaching career, you feel lucky."
Roebuck, I'm told by his wife, Karolyn, played the same way. But even he was lost for words to describe the heart his little guard showed in the tournament.
"She just had to gut it out, grind it out," Gene Roebuck said of Pudenz.
That's pretty much what the entire Sioux team did en route to the school's three-peat, which leaves Amy Ruley as the only Division II coach with more championships than Roebuck. Ruley's teams have won five national titles. Roebuck's teams have won the last three.
If UND can keep Gene"Scissorshands"Roebuck around, he and the Sioux might be able to take a run at Ruley. Despite the loss of standouts Jenny Crouse and Kami Winger, UND should be in position to contend for another national title in 2000.
Even Roebuck was talking about next year. He said the Sioux like the pressure of defending another title.
"That's going to drive the team to work even harder," he said.
Maybe they can work even harder, but it's hard to imagine a tougher group than the 1999 team. Or a meaner group. They didn't often reach out to give a hand to an opponent. They didn't look for an opponent's hand when they were down, either. They played like their coach did back in the 1960s.
They were tough in the Bluff.