There’s a rather large school of thought in American sports fandom that women’s basketball is all about the UConn Huskies. The most dominant program in the sport spends most of every season drubbing everyone in its path, and the theory goes that UConn’s brilliance shows a crippling lack of parity. How could such a top-heavy sport be any good?
However, UConn is not unbeatable, and this past Friday proved it. Notre Dame’s Arike Ogbunowale did this to the Huskies with one second left on the clock in their national semifinal:
As a result, Notre Dame will meet Mississippi State in the women’s title game tonight. Tip is at 6 p.m. ET on ESPN and streamable here. The matchup is a clash of two No. 1 seeds with an incredible combined record of 71-4 this season.
These are the last two teams to beat Geno Auriemma’s Huskies. MSU did it in the semifinal last year, and Notre Dame did it this weekend. They’re both really good, as evidenced by the fact that they’ve beaten the team that’s so good that it’s purportedly ruining women’s college hoops as we know it.
Everyone should be excited for the meeting of two powerhouse programs in the title game. And those who actually believed in the aforementioned and unfounded theory regarding UConn’s effect on the sport should be especiallyhype.
Here’s what to expect:
Mississippi State is trying to finish the job and get some redemption.
A year ago, MSU lived out the same kind of semifinal win against UConn that Notre Dame pulled off the other night. The Bulldogs won on a mid-range buzzer-beater, the epitome of onions, as a shocked basketball world tried to comprehend UConn losing:
Morgan William hit that shot, which came in overtime just like Ogunbowale’s. William is still here, and she’s now a senior leader, though she’s only the fifth-leading scorer on a team loaded with talent. MSU has one of the best scorers in the country in Victoria Vivians, a 40-plus percent shooter on threes who averages a team-high 20 per game. The Bulldogs are shooting nearly that well from deep as a team (39 percent), and they’ve ridden a smooth shooting stroke to success all season, not just in their semifinal thriller.
Last year, Mississippi State’s season was almost storybook, but it didn’t end right. After the Hollywood moment against UConn, the Bulldogs lost in the title game to South Carolina, 67-55. The MSU offense fell flat after outgunning UConn’s, and a season that included one of the more upsetting upsets in recent memory didn’t get to end with a championship. The vast majority of the principals from that MSU team are back, and they’re trying to finish.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, is trying to complete a storybook run of its own.
The Irish don’t want to meet the same fate MSU did last year. Beating a giant is fun, but it’s a lot more fun if it comes in a national championship season.
But the Irish are notable for other reasons. They’ve taken resilience to a new level this year, as injuries have tried time and time again to ruin them. They had seven healthy scholarship players entering the Final Four and won’t have any more than that on Sunday. They’ve had to get over so much. They’re a Notre Dame team that’s actually likable, which will be a foreign concept to anyone whose primary college sports viewing is football:
As a couple of players explained to Bleacher Report’s Natalie Weiner:
“We’ve proven again and again that we can overcome so much, whether that’s injuries or being down,” [forward Maureen] Butler said Thursday before practice while Thompson studied for a finance exam in the next locker. She cited a January game against Tennessee that the Irish won by 14 after being down by as much as 23. “We have the grit—the mentality—to come back and to find our win.”
”We got a little bit disrespected with people saying, ‘Oh, they lost so many players,’” [guard Marina] Mabrey added. “They thought we were going to get worn down and not be able to make it this far, but here we are—like it or not. We’re here, and we’re ready to get a championship.”
What the Irish have done already is incredible. It’s hard to get this far, period. It’s harder when you have to go through UConn, and it’s way harder still when you have four players sitting on the bench recovering from ACL tears. (Yes, that’s four ACL tears.)
Women’s college basketball has always had more than one great team. It’s always had more than one fun team. Two of the best will be on display Sunday, with everything on the line.
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