Dales-Schuman looks back on her own NCAA memories and gives her scouting report of this year's team. Oklahoma finished the season with a 19 - 13 record, losing to George Washington in the first round of the 2003 NCAA Tournament.

What are your memories of playing in NCAA Tournament?

Stacey Dales-Schuman
Mitchell Layton/WNBAE
Getty Images

Probably my fondest memories in my basketball career. Getting to spend those last college playing days with some of the greatest people and my best friends. And having gone to that pinnacle of the national championship game was an exceptional feeling, an electric feeling and one that I will certainly cherish forever. Competing at the highest level in college… You just work so hard for four or five years – I was there for five years at the University of Oklahoma – and you work so hard to get to those levels and knowing that we finished, despite the fact that we did not win, that we didn’t win a championship, but knowing that we got to that level, was very fulfilling for not only myself but the people associated with the University of Oklahoma women’s basketball program.

What was it like to be a part of what was the resurgence of women’s basketball at Oklahoma since they were thinking of eliminating the program a few years before you got there?
You’re exactly right. It was a resurgence. We had to reinvent women’s basketball at the University of Oklahoma. And a lot of people jumped on slowly, but by the end we had a wonderful fan base and I think it will continue to grow, hopefully continue to grow at the University of Oklahoma.

OKLAHOMA PLAYERS IN WNBA Player Year WNBA Team LaNeishea Caufield ‘02 San Antonio Rosalind Ross ‘02 Los Angeles Stacey Dales-Schuman ‘02 Washington

Is there a sense of pride in building something like that?
Tremendous sense of pride. You just cannot underestimate the opportunity and ability to turn something around for the better. And to change something for the better. And that’s what we did. And that’s one of the reasons I went to the University of Oklahoma. I wanted to make something that maybe nobody expected to be great or maybe wasn’t great, I wanted to make it great. I wanted to help and partake in that and compete at an extraordinary level for OU. And fortunately again associating myself with that program and with the people amidst it was very powerful development for me.

Do you think that the opportunity to have a part in building a program is an enticement for a lot of players when they're deciding where to go to school? Do players think that way?
For a girl from Canada, I sure thought that way. I saw the opportunity, I saw the Big 12 Conference, I saw Sherri Coale and her vision, I saw the chance to go in and play immediately and have an impact, and I saw a style that fit my style – fastbreak, run-and-gun. And all those things combined and meshed together and said let’s go to Oklahoma and see what we can do with it. And it turned out to be probably the greatest decision I’ve made in my basketball career.