AUSTIN, TX –The University of Texas plans to celebrate the retirement of Longhorn great Annette Smith-Knight’s jersey number 15 on Sunday, Nov. 27, 2022, in a pre-game ceremony before Texas vs. Princeton at the Moody Center. Tipoff is at 1 p.m. Central Time on the Longhorn Network.
Smith-Knight played at the University of Texas from 1981-84, donned a redshirt in 1984-85, and finished his senior year in 1985-86 as a national championship first-team basketball player. NCAA Women’s Undefeated (34-0). She is the all-time leading scorer in UT women’s and men’s basketball history with 2,523 points, a record that will be hard to erase.
Smith-Knight led Texas to a second-place finish in the AIAW National Championship in 1981-82 as a Bay City rookie. As a junior in 1983-84, she was a Kodak All-America selection, despite a spectacular season cut short by a serious knee injury suffered during practice in late February. She also earned USBWA All-American honors and was a Wade Trophy finalist. Smith-Knight had led her team to No. 1984 in Los Angeles. Smith-Knight had been a member of the gold-medal winning USA National Team in 1983 for the World University Games team in Edmonton, Canada.
Smith-Knight missed the entire 1984-85 season as she rehabilitated her knee injury. That year, Texas was also ranked No. 1 and hoped to play in the NCAA Final Four in Austin, but fell to the NCAA Midwest Region semifinals in western Kentucky. The Longhorns avenged that loss a year later with Smith-Knight back on the court in the 1986 NCAA Semifinals at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Ky. Texas defeated USC in the NCAA Championship Game.
Smith-Knight has been touted as “the best little center” in the country during her career. At 5-11, she was a prolific goalscorer in the post and an end-to-end speedster in the Longhorns’ all-court pressing defense and fast-breaking offense. She started in 131 games and her teams have never lost a regular season or postseason game in the Southwest Conference, winning four SWC regular season and playoff crowns between 1982-83 and 1985. -86. SWC competition only started in 1982-83 for women’s basketball. In 1982-83 and 1983-84, Smith-Knight was first team All-SWC and All-SWC Tournament (Tournament MVP in 1982-83) as well as SWC Player of the Year. She still holds the Texas record for double-digit consecutive games (55). She has scored 20 or more points in 64 games. Smith-Knight also still ranks first in goals scored (1,052), second in career goal average (19.3) and seventh in career rebounds (966).
Smith-Knight graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in voice communication in 1986.
Smith-Knight was inducted into the Texas Athletics Hall of Honor in 2002, the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Knoxville Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013.
She spent time as an assistant coach for Texas under her coach, Jody Conradt, both in 1990 and from 1993 to 1998. She later served as the director of women’s basketball operations from 1998 to 2003. After her basketball duties, she worked on the Texas Athletics administrative staff in student-athlete support service areas, retiring in 2015.
