Lobo, Rebecca

Rebecca Lobo, the 1991 Massachusetts State Scoring Champion (2,710 points), attended UConn from 1991-1995. She averaged 17 points and ten rebounds per game, eventually scoring a total of 2,033 points. She played a huge part in the team’s 1994 and 1995 Big East Titles, and its most memorable victory over Tennessee to win the 1995 National Championship.

Lobo received almost every basketball award possible at the end of her collegiate career. She was the 1995 Consensus National Player of the Year, Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year, Honda-Broderick Cup Outstanding Collegiate Woman Athlete of the Year, Women’s Sports Foundation Woman of the Year (Team Sports), NCAA Woman of the Year, ESPY Awards -- Female Athlete of the Year, Female College Basketball Player of the Year, Ban/Naismith National Player of the Year, Wade Trophy National Player of the Year, Kodak 1 st Team All American, a unanimous Associated Press First Team All-American (top vote recipient), College Sports Magazine National Player of the Year, MVP of the 1995 NCAA Final Four, and Big East Conference Player of the Year.

In addition to excelling on the court, Lobo also excelled in the classroom. She was a Rhodes Scholar candidate, NCAA GTE/Co-Team Member of the Year ( one of the nation’s two top scholar-athletes), and GTE/CoSida Women’s Basketball National Academic All-American of the Year. In 1995, Lobo was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society and she was the only Big East player in history to earn the Big East Player of the Year and Scholar-Athlete of the Year honors in a career and she accomplished this twice!

After UConn, Lobo was selected as the youngest member of the 1996 U.S. Women’s Olympic Basketball Team which won the gold medal in Atlanta. In 1996, she signed with the WNBA’s New York Liberty where she was one of the original WNBA stars. In July 1997, Lobo won her 100 th consecutive game as a collegiate, Olympic, and professional basketball player. The streak ended at 102 consecutive wins, a most remarkable accomplishment in team sports history!

UConn Coach Geno Auriemma summed up Lobo’s career by saying, “Rebecca Lobo may have had the biggest impact ever by an individual in college basketball. Rebecca became the symbol for what is good and why we play sports. She was the first player to transcend the game of women’s basketball. She brought our game to the national media and she didn’t do it just with her talent. She did it with class, dignity, humor, wit and the way in which she carried herself!”