COLUMBUS, Ohio — There had been plenty of questions Saturday, the day after Notre Dame and Mississippi State had advanced to the national title game of the NCAA tournament in an instant-classic of a Final Four, as to how the two programs planned to top their thrilling semifinal games.
In its answer, Notre Dame decided not to mess with perfection.
On Sunday, in a packed Nationwide Arena, Arike Ogunbowale once again called for the ball in the corner of the key and with time running out launched herself, legs splayed in the air, to put as much power as possible into a three-pointer that sailed through the net just before the final buzzer went off. The shot — or perhaps, the shot, Part II — pushed Notre Dame past fellow No. 1 seed Mississippi State, 61-58, as the Fighting Irish earned their second NCAA championship 17 years to the day after winning the first.
Even before Ogunbowale’s heroics, which mimicked her winning shot in overtime against undefeated Connecticut on Friday, the title game was just as marvelous a display of basketball as both national semifinals had been.
Trailing by 15 points midway through the third quarter, Notre Dame turned momentum as it had so many times before this season. Sunday was the seventh time this season the Fighting Irish came back from a double-digit deficit.
They unfurled a 16-1 run to tie the game entering the fourth quarter, and two free throws from Ogunbowale tied it again, 51-51, with 5:35 to play.
Mississippi State used a floater from Teaira McCowan, a pair of free throws from Jazzmun Holmes and an ice-cold three-pointer from Roshunda Johnson to take a 58-53 lead with about two minutes to play. Notre Dame stormed back with a three-pointer from Marina Mabrey and a bucket from Jackie Young, who was the breakout star of Friday’s win over Connecticut with 32 points. With the game tied at 58, McCowan missed a layup with three seconds remaining and was forced to commit her fifth foul of the game at midcourt to prevent a Notre Dame fast break, which queued the set play off of which Ogunbowale got the ball one last time.
The final shot, which fell through the net with 0.1 seconds left, was Ogunbowale’s first three-pointer of the game; she finished with 18 points. Jessica Shepard, who had the unenviable task of defending the 6-foot-7 McCowan all game, led Notre Dame with 19 points, and Mabrey added 10.
Coach Muffet McGraw had used the adjective “resilient” to describe her Fighting Irish squad so many times this season, and even more over the past few days, that it became easy to grow numb to the word. The story was familiar — her team had played the majority of the season without four players, including a point guard and an all-American, all of whom had torn their anterior cruciate ligament, yet earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and upset U-Conn. in the Final Four to advance to a sixth national title game.
But they proved her right again Sunday, after a first half in which Mississippi State’s vaunted defense poked and prodded Notre Dame up and down the court and forced the Fighting Irish into 12 turnovers as the Bulldogs built a 30-17 lead by halftime.
Mississippi State had taken advantage of a Notre Dame dry spell early in the second quarter in which shots simply wouldn’t fall for the Irish and worked to frustrate them even more with lightning-quick Jordan Danberry and Holmes, whom Coach Vic Schaefer had sent off the bench seemingly for the sole purpose of bothering Notre Dame’s guards on defense.
The Bulldogs held the Irish to just three points in the second quarter — the fewest points in any regulation period in Final Four history. To say Notre Dame looked frustrated toward the end of the half might have been an understatement, considering how many times point guard Mabrey turned to her team with her palms held to the ceiling to ask, “What happened?”
After intermission, the Fighting Irish emerged from the locker room composed enough to end Mississippi State’s redemption tour.
The Bulldogs were in the title game for the second year in a row after defeating Louisville with their own overtime win Friday. This year had been about redemption and validation for Mississippi State, which has grown a women’s basketball fandom in Starkville that has far exceeded expectations.
Mississippi State had nine NCAA tournament wins in the program’s first 42 years — and now has 10 in the past two years. Senior players remember being able to pick out individual friends’ voices at games as freshmen. This season, the Bulldogs drew nearly 7,000 fans per game, which ranked seventh nationally.
The Bulldogs’ four seniors will graduate as the first class in school history to go to the NCAA tournament all four years.
One of them, Victoria Vivians, led Mississippi State with 21 points. Another, McCowan, had 18 points and 17 rebounds in her final game as a Bulldog.
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