Triumph: the act, fact, or condition of being victorious or triumphant. The 1998-99 Evansville women's basketball team will always be remembered for its success; an MVC Tournament Championship and a berth in the NCAA Tournament. But what might be even more significant is the success this group of Aces had in the face of adversity.

Heading into the 1998-99 season, Evansville was in just its fifth season in the Missouri Valley Conference, but had yet to make the conference's tournament. The 1997-98 campaign saw an improvement in the Aces' overall record, finishing 6-20 with a 1-17 mark in the MVC.

The upcoming season was expected to be an improvement, in fact, head coach Kathi Bennett said as much in an Evansville Courier & Press story on November 5, 1998 when the Aces' coach said the team was "definitely better" than previous seasons. Bennett was certainly right about that.

Evansville opened the regular season on the road with a narrow 77-71 loss to UT Martin, but bounced back, winning five of its next six games. After opening MVC play with a 75-72 loss to Missouri State, the Aces reeled off nine-straight victories. After splitting the next four games, the Aces faced their first dose of adversity on the season in the form of a four-game losing streak. 

Beginning with a loss to Drake, 73-62, the four-game slide spanned the final four games of the regular season. Because of the losing streak, the Aces entered the MVC Tournament as the No. 4 seed, facing the No. 5 seed Wichita State, a team Evansville had lost to, 82-72, just five days prior.

The Aces took control early in the contest, holding a 32-20 advantage at the half. After the break, Evansville continued to push its advantage, despite being hampered by an injury to its leading scorer. Rolling her ankle in the second half, sophomore Shyla McKibbon missed the remainder of the game. The lead only grew following McKibbon's injury as the Aces earned the 64-43 win.

"After winning the first game of the MVC tournament, we believed that we could achieve the unexpected," said Carmen Rohls, a junior center on the Aces' 1998-99 team. "This fueled our momentum into each of the next 2 games."

In the semifinals, Evansville's next test was a meeting with top-seeded Southwest Missouri State, a team the Aces competed with in both regular season meetings. With its leading scorer on crutches before the game, it wasn't decided until after pregame warm-ups that Shyla McKibbon would play and start in the game.

"This morning I couldn't walk on it I was still on crutches," said McKibbon in the postgame press conference. " I came out before the game and the adrenaline was just pumping. The decision to go wasn't made until after warm-ups."

Not only did McKibbon play; she excelled. The sophomore nearly recorded a double-double in the first half, scoring 10 points and adding nine rebounds as Evansville trailed by two at the break. The opening half saw the 1999 MVC Player of the Year Jackie Styles tally 17 of the Bears' 26 points, including the first six points of the game for Southwest Missouri State.

Styles continued to lead the way in the second half, scoring 14 more points in the first 10 minutes of the half and giving the Bears a 43-42 lead with 9:46 left in the game. The lead grew to three after a jumper from SMS, but freshman Tami Masterson tied the game at 45 less than 30 seconds later on a left wing three-pointer. As part of a 12-2 Aces' run, Masterson added another triple and McKibbon scored four points as Evansville's took a 54-47 lead with under five minutes remaining. 

With 50 seconds left on the clock, the Bears cut within one point on a pair of free-throws, but McKibbon, bum ankle and all, split a pair at the line to make the Aces' advantage two with 29.1 seconds left to play. Regaining possession, Evansville hit a free-throw to push its lead to three. Strategically fouling up three, the Aces sent SMS to the line with just three seconds left as the Bears missed both free-throws. McKibbon then went to the line on the other end and converted her first free-throw as the Aces upset top-seeded Southwest Missouri State, 59-55.

Certainly the headline of the semifinal showdown was Shyla McKibbon's 22-point, 18-rebound masterpiece on a sprained ankle, but the lead paragraph was Janine Moore's defensive effort in the final 10 minutes of the game. After scoring 31 points in the first 30 minutes, Moore held SMS star Jackie Styles quiet in the closing minutes of the contest, holding the conference player of the year to just one point.

"It was just a courageous performance by Shyla McKibbon," said Aces' head coach Kathi Bennett after the game. "Her ankle is the size of a grapefruit. I felt we competed so well. We played hard and our players believed in the game plan."

Facing another underdog in No. 7 seed Creighton in the MVC Tournament Championship Game, Evansville edged Creighton, 28-24, in the first half behind Shyla McKibbon's 14 points and nine rebounds in the opening half. Evansville built its advantage as high as 10 in the second half, but the Bluejays mounted a 24-12 run to take a 60-58 lead with 2:08 left to play. After tying the game at 60, the Aces appeared to run into trouble when McKibbon was whistled for her fifth foul with 1:44 remaining in regulation. The Aces remained strong down the stretch, but trailed by one with 25 seconds left. Freshman LaTasha Austin drew a foul with just 12 seconds remaining and split two free throws at the line, tying the game at 65 and sending the contest to overtime.

To begin overtime, junior Carmen Rohls hit an important three-pointer 13 seconds into the overtime period to give the Aces the early three-point advantage. The lead moved to five on a jumper by Lisa Eckart with under four minutes to play, but was cut back to two on the next possession. Rohls came up big again with 1:46 left in overtime, making a pair of free-throws to regain a five-point lead for Evansville. As the clock ticked under one minute, Creighton trimmed its deficit to one with 52 seconds left, but the Aces held off the Bluejays and Rohls went back to the free-throw line and increased Evansville's lead to three with nine seconds remaining. The Bluejays had one last opportunity as a three-pointer just before the buzzer was off line in the final seconds as the Aces captured the 75-72 MVC Tournament win.

"I remember the game against Creighton being extremely competitive," said Rohls reflecting on the 1999 MVC Tournament Championship Game. "I remember our team giving everything we had in order to win.  We knew what it was going to take to win.

"I was excited to get the opportunity to play down the stretch and felt confident that I could help our team get the win.  Even though four out of five of our starters had fouled out, our team still believed that we could win.  The faith that we had in our teammates was awesome.  The excitement that we all had when the final buzzer sounded was an affirmation of all of our hard work and commitment to the team." 

The run to win the tournament championship marked the first conference tournament championship in program history and sits as one of two conference tournament championships in program history, along with the 2008-09 team.

"Our team pulled together and found a way to win. This team was special," mentioned Rohls. "We always had each other's backs and and we were willing to give everything we had. We were servants to each other and committed to the cause." 

Evansville's 1998-99 team will make its return to campus for the alumni game on February 1 as the Aces take on Indiana State at 6:00 p.m. inside Meeks Family Fieldhouse. Both the 1998-99 team and 2008-09 team will be honored at halftime of the contest for the 20th and 10th anniversaries of the team's conference tournament championships.