Fans and Families Know Their Spartans History 

It took a historic season and three tense games over four days to bring the UNC Greensboro Spartans women’s basketball team a SoCon Tournament Championship and a berth in the 2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. But basketball pride runs deep among UNCG students, alumni and faculty, as evidenced all weekend long at Harrah’s Cherokee Center in Asheville, where the men’s and women’s SoCon Tournaments were played. 

Players, coaches, spirit squads, alumni, and University personnel posted up for the weekend at the Embassy Suites, just a couple blocks from the arena. There, events were held before and after each game, players were sent off with hurrahs and fight songs, and faces from UNCG’s basketball legacy were together to cheer – or commiserate – about the team they love. 

WOMEN BEGIN TO WIN 

Bus driver Kevin Michael has been ferrying the UNCG women’s basketball team to and from games for seven years. He watched them beat Western Carolina University handily on Thursday, and on Friday’s game against Wofford he eschewed the arena seats set aside for team drivers and instead sat in the UNCG section with the rest of the fans. It was a nail biter, but even while the women were down in the first quarter, Michael said it’s the best UNCG women’s team he’s ever seen. 

“They’ve got speed and defense,” he said, “and they know how to work together as a group.” 

He was there the last two times they made it to the SoCon Tournament championship game – that was in 2020 and 2024. But their appearances in 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2006 were before his time. And he definitely wasn’t there the last time the women’s Spartans team won the SoCon Tournament and made it into the NCAA Tournament. That was in 1998. 

Pat and Glenn Spivey, both members of UNCG’s Class of 1969 and both in Asheville for the tournament, remember all those games. Glenn wrestled for the UNCG team in those years just after the school began admitting men. The Spiveys are fans of all UNCG sports, but right now they’re particularly keyed on women’s hoops. 

Cynthia Waller ’99 played on the Spartans women’s basketball team for the 1993 season. Known as Cynthia Shade then, she had 80 assists and 88 points that season. 

“We were in the Big South then,” she remembers. “We won the regular season but lost the conference finals against Radford.” 

Spivey, sitting in the next row, chimes in, “You beat Charleston Southern that year.” 

“We did!” Waller says. 

Down by 10 points in the third quarter, the UNCG women rallied against the Wofford Terriers in a SoCon Semifinal game to prevail 54-50. 

DOWNTOWN, DRIBBLING 

In downtown Asheville’s Pack Square Park, Spiro the mascot posed for photos with youngsters and their parents as the UNCG Spirit Band set a beat for the cheer and dance teams at the Downtown Dribble. The free event let fans and families experience some of the SoCon Tournament on a warm and windy Saturday morning, with mascots and spirit squads, T-shirt giveaways, dancing and a basketball parade to the arena down the street before the first game of the day. 

The Spartans cheer and dance teams lined up to do the Wobble before forming a Soul Train Line and inviting the local children to dance down the aisle. They burst into cheers as one of the kids turned a cartwheel. 

Many of the young ones came with their families, but a few dozen were brought there by social workers and school resource officers of Buncombe County Schools, chosen for a fun weekend event that they might otherwise have missed. 

LaWanda Neal, wearing a T-shirt that says “UNCG Dance Mom,” took it all in from a perch on a low wall. Her daughter Madison, a second-year dance major, has been performing with the Spartan Gs dance team for two years now; this was her second SoCon Tournament and her second Downtown Dribble. 

“God has a sense of humor,” LaWanda says. “I played basketball, softball, volleyball and ran track. And now I have a dancer. 

“I used to think dance was not a sport,” she continues, “but they are most definitely athletes.” 

After remarks from Asheville City Councilmember Bo Hess and Buncombe County Commission Chair Amanda Edwards, a hundred or so children grabbed their basketballs and began to parade down College Street, the sound of rubber on pavement echoing off the building facades. 

TOUGH LOSS FOR THE MEN’S TEAM 

After earning a 2-seed in the SoCon Tournament and a bye in the first round, the men’s Spartans basketball team lost their first game against VMI, knocking them out of the tournament. 

But before the game, alumni gathered in the hotel lobby with high hopes. 

Kayla Newman, who earned her undergraduate degree from UNCG in 2010 and her master’s of social work in 2011, came with her brother from Winston-Salem, where she works in care management for Atrium Health at Wake Baptist. 

James Lewis,’06, and his wife Ashley,’07, live in Asheville but came to the pre-party with their daughter Ella to cheer on their alma mater. Graduate forward Demetrius Davis’ entire family was here: his mother Chanequa, father Charles, significant others, and grandparents. 

Keyford Langley ’92 played on the Spartans basketball squad from 1988-1992. Both of his sons, Kobe and Keyshaun, also played for UNCG; they are now playing professionally in Europe. 

His friend and former teammate Greg Williams ’95 sat in the stands with him during UNCG’s loss to VMI. It was agonizing as the team fell behind, but they still remember the old days when the program was new. 

Langley started at UNCG for the 1987-88 season, when the school was in NCAA Division III. The next year they climbed to Division II, and by 1991 were finally a Division I team. Williams was one of UNCG’s first DI recruits when he joined the team in 1991. 

“We had no conference for those years,” he remembers. “We were an independent team. In 1991 we played nine home games and 19 on the road. That was difficult.”  

WOMEN WRITE THEIR OWN CHAPTER 

On Sunday morning the Spartans women’s team entered the annals of UNCG history as the second ever women’s team to win the SoCon Championship and earn a spot in the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament. The last time was in 1998 after the Spartans defeated Georgia Southern to face Alabama in a tough first-round loss. 

On Sunday, after beginning the match with a 3-point shot from Tasia Johnson and establishing an 8-0 lead, the women led 16-8 by the end of the first quarter. The two teams battled through regulation, necessitating an overtime period in which UNCG finally prevailed in one of the most exciting games of the season. 

The women’s basketball team will learn its fate in the 2025 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament during Selection Sunday on Sunday, March 16 at 8:00 p.m., which will be aired on ESPN. 

Story by Brian Clarey, University Communications

Photos by Denise Archetto and Brian Clarey