Cheryl Burnett will forever be connected with Lady Bears basketball.
Case in point: the two Final Four banners hanging from the rafters at JQH Arena and two retired jerseys hanging of stars Melody Howard and Jackie Stiles.
Those were her teams and her players.
The month of March marks the anniversary of the Lady Bears’ two Final Four runs in the NCAA Tournament — first in 1992 and latest in 2001.
“Crazy, just crazy (that it has been this long),” Burnett said in a phone interview on Friday.
And ESPN recently aired then-Southwest Missouri State’s stunning of top-seeded Duke in the Elite Eight during its 2001 NCAA Tournament run, which took Burnett back to the old days.