This is part two of a retrospective on the 2018 Notre Dame women’s basketball national championship. You can find Part I here. Fair warning, this is a long read, even by my standards; feel free to take it in chunks.
Every sport has its list of great games. All-time classics that everyone who watched remembers where they were, and everyone who is a fan of that sport should know. Games that come to shape the history of their sport.
But even among the great games, a few rise above. Games that carry extra meaning, that remind us why those of us that choose to be sports fans make that choice. Games where the sports’ play and flow are masterful, but connect to something else, something deeper, as well. These are perfect games.
Perfect games embody everything that makes that sport great, games that defy anyone who watches one not to fall instantly in love with them. Each one of them on their own could be its own movie, contests where each team rises above themselves and achieves something more than a win or a loss. Perfect games matter, in some real sense.
If you’re a baseball fan, think the ‘75 World Series, Pudge Fisk’s home run of Good Will Hunting fame. Or Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, a late rally by pro sports’ most infamous losers winning the Chicago Cubs the ultimate prize. Soccer? Dramatic cup finals, preferably international games, with the weight of nations on the shoulders of their teams, that build and build and build to a dramatic climax — like, say, the 2022 World Cup final. College football? Wild rivalry games where the teams’ futures swing on the most dramatic of plays — 2005 Notre Dame-USC or the 2013 Iron Bowl spring to mind.
You get the picture. Perfect games check every box, and draw anyone who watches them into their unique fabric. They are iconic, even outside the realms of their sport. They become ingrained in the broader cultural mind.
There was a perfect game of basketball on March 30, 2018, at a little past 10pm Eastern time, in Columbus, Ohio, between the University of Connecticut and the University of Notre Dame women’s basketball teams.
Basketball is a sport tailor-made for tournaments. It is so good at creating end-of-game situations and drama that draw spectators in. In a tight game, a few hours’ worth of play can be swung by a few moments and a few key plays; when one team advances and the other goes home, these moments carry stakes like few games do. The sport’s frenetic pace makes sure that even with seconds to play, a team has a chance to score and alter the outcome. No team is ever quite safe; it’s what makes basketball tournaments fun.
It’s also tailor-made for rivalries. Basketball rivalries have a markedly different flavor to them than, say, college football rivalries, but they can be every bit as intense. Basketball is among the most intimate of sports. Teams will often play each other multiple times a year, or will make an annual game an event. When coaches or players stick around, how often teams see each other can spark intensity and passion like few other sports. They know each other, their best and worst tendencies. Players, coaches, and spectators are all closer to each other than in any other major sport, tightly packed into a sometimes hostile arena with almost no physical barrier between the court and the stands. If familiarity breeds contempt, basketball can deliver in spades.
Finally, basketball teams are small enough that they depend on chemistry, but also on exceptional individual performances. Even teams full of exceptional players need to learn to play together, their skillsets meshing and complimenting each other to enhance their teammates. The best players will amplify each other and facilitate those great performances.
So then, how fitting it is that Notre Dame and Connecticut meet here for the forty-eighth time, on the world’s most famous basketball tournament’s biggest stage. How fitting it is that this is their second matchup this season. How fitting it is that both teams are coached by Hall of Fame, national champion coaches, who have won so much in this tournament they have all but turned the Final Four into a vacation home. And how fitting it is that each team is loaded with future professional players who have gelled enough for their teams to arrive at the Final Four with over thirty wins apiece.
Notre Dame and Connecticut are used to this stage, used to contending for national titles. These teams have shared ownership of this tournament this decade like no other schools in the country. Though the Irish and the Huskies no longer share a conference, their late-season rivalry showdowns a victim of football-fueled conference realignment, they have kept up their annual series, a December measuring stick for each team to test themselves against another powerhouse. And those Big East days are hardly ancient history — both programs remember their bouts well. This rivalry isn’t a conference one anymore, but it is very much alive.
We’ll walk through the game in a bit, but there have been plenty of Final Four classics. Plenty of rivalry games, plenty of Hall of Fame matchups, plenty of heated, intense, tournament moments. To understand why this game is a perfect basketball game, you need to understand a few things about the UConn Huskies.
Basketball is a tricky game. Outside of baseball, it might be the most stats- and analytics-friendly major sport. We have a pretty good idea of what teams will look like over the long run; it’s what’s made the NBA postseason, decided in best-of-seven series, stale and predictable too often over the last decade or so. But college basketball isn’t like this. There are far fewer games, and the games are shorter. A team can find a shooting rhythm at just the right time and win a game against a far superior team. It just depends on the night. On the men’s side, no team has won every game in a season in nearly fifty years; that means the best team in the country has always lost at least once. In the forty-minute sample size provided to us, any number of things can happen. This is why millions tune in to watch March Madness every year, why it captures our attention even though only a few teams have a realistic shot at a national title — any one of those teams could go down in any given game. Even great teams lose basketball games.
UConn… does not lose basketball games.
The Huskies have spent the last five or so seasons blasting the rest of college basketball into intergalactic space. In this span, they have won four national titles, set an NCAA record of 111 straight wins, and racked up enough individual awards to open a trophy store. This year, they are 36-0, the only undefeated team in the country. And no, there hasn’t been a tremendous amount of luck involved. UConn doesn’t just win, they obliterate their competition. They’ve won their four national title games since 2013 by an average margin of 23.75 points. This season, they’ve broken 100 points seven different times. In the preseason, they beat the Netherlands — not an obscure college, the Dutch National Team. Twice, actually. By 16 and 22.
UConn is not, however, the defending national champion this year (though they just trounced them in the Elite Eight). In one of the biggest upsets in the history of college basketball, Mississippi State broke the Huskies’ record streak in overtime — and the game only went to the extra period after the Bulldogs survived a UConn rally from down 16. The Huskies even took the lead in the fourth quarter. Just as it looked like UConn might’ve met their match, the Huskies find a way to survive. It took an all-world performance from Morgan William, Mississippi State’s guard, who almost doubled her teammates’ scoring by herself, to even push UConn close to a loss. It was William’s rainbow buzzer-beater at the free throw line, a shot that Husky Gabby Williams was a hair’s breadth away from blocking, that finally took UConn down. With no time left, inches away from a turnover, the shot was good. Borderline miraculous.
That, friends, is UConn’s only loss in the last one-hundred forty-seven games. A last-second prayer. Before that, the last time they looked like a normal, mortal basketball team was right around March 2013. Since then, they’ve gone into god mode. Twice, they’ve gone wire-to-wire without a loss. Every year, they’ve been the #1 overall seed. Always, they are untouchable. This tournament, they’ve beaten their four opponents by nearly 40 points a game — and this might be one of their weaker teams.
This isn’t just a normal sports team. This isn’t even a normal sports dynasty. This is UConn, Destroyer of Worlds.
BUT WAIT! It gets worse.
Immediately before that record 111-game win streak, UConn rattled off a 49-game win streak that featured two national titles. You know, just in case you thought that the streak was a one-time sustained period of dominance. In fact, just a few years earlier, UConn rattled off a 90-game win streak, which stood as the longest such streak in college basketball history, men’s or women’s, until they broke their own record. And if you’re just counting regular season games, UConn hasn’t lost in 115 tries. They have been members of the American Athletic Conference since its inception in 2014, and no team in the league has ever beaten them.
This doesn’t happen in organized sports. Play enough games, and even the best teams will lose some here and there. The 111-game record isn’t just the longest win streak in women’s college basketball history; it isn’t just the longest win streak in college basketball history; it is the longest win streak in the history of college sports. A win over UConn isn’t a big deal — it’s like spotting Bigfoot astride a unicorn. The most successful women’s college basketball programs win somewhere between 75% and 80% of their games. Over this stretch, the Huskies have won 98.97% of their games. In statistics terms, a Husky loss is an outlier; it’s basically an experimental error. UConn wins. That’s just what happens.
And as a last mind-bender, here’s an extra kicker. You know the streak-ending loss was in overtime — but what if I told you the loss on the other end of the streak was also in overtime. Yes, you read that right — UConn has not lost a regulation-length game of basketball in five years. So when I say they don’t lose basketball games, I mean it. A child born on the last day a team bettered the UConn Huskies in forty minutes of basketball will be starting kindergarten in August.
All THAT is what our scrappy, banged-up Irish team is up against. Not just a dynasty — the dynasty. You don’t beat UConn. This isn’t David vs. Goliath, it’s David vs. ten Goliaths.
Whelp. This season’s been fun, hasn’t it? Making the Final Four with a handful of healthy players is no mean feat. Muffet should be a shoo-in for coach of the year. More than once this team looked down and out, but they’ve made it to Columbus anyway. There’s something special here. This team’s been a joy. That it will end in a loss to UConn? Ah, well. Sucks, but that’s how it goes these days.
No one will blame Notre Dame for losing this game. They are just another victim in the endless march of basketball armageddon that is UConn. Loses to UConn almost don’t count — the Huskies exist that far above everyone else in this sport. Thanks for playing, Notre Dame. You’ve had a great run. You’ve impressed everybody just by getting to this stage. We’ll getcha home in time for Easter Mass.
But if you peer down, down deep, real far down there at the bottom of this pile of history and impossible stats, you can find a burning ember of hope.
You’ll note I started this showcase of UConn’s dominance at a very particular time. Specifically, everything after the Huskies’ fourth loss of the 2013 season. Since that game, the Huskies are 194-2 with four national titles. So who beat them? Who’s sitting as the bookend to the greatest run of dominance college athletics has ever seen? Who managed to get one last lick in before the titan was unleashed?
None other than the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
Because Notre Dame basketball just can’t catch a break, they’ve spent the better part of two decades measuring themselves against one of the greatest sports dynasties of all time. While the Huskies have taken their dominance to another level recently, they’ve always been a powerhouse program under Geno Auriemma. As conferences foes in the Big East, Notre Dame met Connecticut at least once a season, and usually twice. Most of those games were comfortable Husky wins, but Notre Dame had a few moments, especially during their championship season in 2001. Overall, UConn leads the series 36-11. This is just kinda how this rivalry goes — the Huskies run the show, though the Irish can get some licks in when they have a contender. But the rivalry’s real character comes out in the NCAA Tournament, where the schools have a nearly unparalleled history.
So remember when Duke and North Carolina were set to meet in the men’s Final Four, and the men’s college basketball world thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread? Notre Dame and UConn fans must have let out the heartiest collective chuckle. “Y’all are losing your minds over doing this once?” At now seven NCAA Tournament meetings, Notre Dame-UConn is tied for the most played matchup the Big Dance has ever seen, men’s or women’s. You come to expect to see these teams square off on the sport’s biggest stage. What’s more, every one of these matchups has been played on the final weekend of the tournament. It’s synonymous not only with March, but with the Final Four itself. And how has the series split to date? Even at three wins apiece.
Wait, what? That can’t be right.
Nobody has even a .500 record against UConn in anything of note. Even the legendary Pat Summit, college basketball’s godmother, lost to the Huskies more often than she won. Notre Dame having a .500 record in March Madness? That’s impressive. Sure, the Huskies have won the last three, but Notre Dame has ended three Husky seasons. No one else can claim that. And get this — all those wins have come in the national semifinals. Notre Dame is 3-1 in the round they now draw these Huskies.
There’s a little more bright news for those hoping for a path to an upset. The Irish have more wins against the Huskies this decade than the rest of the country combined. Early in the decade, during Notre Dame’s last two seasons in the Big East, the Irish flipped the script on the series, winning a staggering seven of eight outings against the Huskies, including two national semifinals and a Big East Tournament championship game. No one has had similar success against the Huskies this century. And oh, what thrilling games they were, with three overtime games and one that went to three extra frames. That final in-conference meeting was UConn’s last loss before starting their 194-2 run. Since that game, the teams have made a combined ten Final Fours and six national title games, including two against each other. Connecticut has set the pace this decade but Notre Dame has been right there, nipping at their heels, dogging them every step of the way. If anybody in the country can beat this UConn team, it’s Notre Dame.
The only issue? Notre Dame hasn’t won a game against UConn in five years.
Here’s the problem with playing UConn — you know how good they are. Not in the “oh, let’s give it our best shot, what do we have to lose” way, but in the “oh, shit, we’re so screwed” way. You almost feel like you’ve lost before ever stepping foot on the court. These days, it takes a miracle, plus a little bit of extra basketball, to beat the Huskies; doesn’t matter how good you are, UConn is better.
Since that Big East final five years ago, Notre Dame has dropped seven in a row to Connecticut, including back-to-back national title games and that outing in Storrs earlier this year. The Irish may be UConn’s greatest foil but even they have not been getting it done of late. There’s not a lot of hope that this banged-up Irish team can do what four straight Notre Dame squads have failed to do.
I distinctly remember this feeling leading up to Final Four weekend. I knew by this point that I was gonna be courtside for the game, having somehow snagged a spot in the thirty-person pep band as a freshman. I remember watching the Elite Eight game Monday night to figure out my weekend plans in real-time, and figuring I’d be in Columbus for around a day or so. Not many had hopes for a long stay or, heaven forbid, a trophy. Heck, even by getting to this point Notre Dame had already exceeded expectations, outpaced themselves the last few years. No one thought this would actually be the time they’d take down Connecticut. We tried to talk ourselves into it, of course — there were more than a few clips of Kurt Russell in Miracle passed around on the bus ride down, let’s say. But we’d all seen the Notre Dame-UConn movie before, and it didn’t have nearly as nice of an ending. I genuinely thought I was gonna be home early Saturday afternoon.
So now that I’ve crammed just about the maximum amount of narrative weight into this single game I possibly can, the game better live up to it, right? Oh my, yes. Yes it does.
This game had everything. It’s a slow-boiling upset and a heavyweight fight all at the same time. It features huge momentum swings, clutch moments, incredible individual performances, a truly wild end-of-game sequence, followed by another, and finally a heck of a buzzer-beater to cap it all off. This game is so good it made its sequel, another semifinal matchup between these teams a year later, a Final Four classic in its own right, look like a knock-off by comparison. Even now, five years on, watching this masterpiece feels every bit as electric as watching it unfold live. Do yourself a favor and go watch it. I’ll be here.
We start out with the exact opposite of the anticipated script. Notre Dame comes out swinging, jumping out to a 13-6 lead halfway through the first quarter, punctuated by a vicious Jackie Young block of UConn sharpshooter Katie Lou Samuelson’s attempted three-pointer. The Irish are hitting shots and forcing the Huskies into bad looks. The Huskies turn the ball over far more than they usually do, unable to solve the Irish defense early. And when they do get shots off, they miss. Meanwhile, Notre Dame plays loose, fast, together. They know they have not the slightest thing to lose.
Notre Dame’s lead stretches to 24-11 (24-11!) before Samuelson hits a stepback over Marina Mabrey to beat the first-quarter buzzer. It’s only the second time all season UConn’s trailed after one. After a quarter spent feeling each other out, now the Huskies know what they’re in for — a dogfight. Notre Dame is not going to roll over. If they go out tonight, they will go out on their terms. Notre Dame is going to control this game for as long as it can, and they are going to make the Huskies take it from them.
Speaking of Notre Dame controlling things… look, Geno Auriemma is a fantastic basketball coach. It’s almost self-evident. You don’t steer a program to the kind of success the Huskies have had unless you know what the hell you’re doing. This game, though, he’s committed an all-time error — deciding to just… not guard Jackie Young. I’m still not quite sure what he was thinking here; why, of all the players you could pick, would you pick the all-time leading scorer in the storied history of Indiana high school basketball? Buddy, they made a movie about it.
To be fair, it’s not like he had a good option for which of Notre Dame’s explosive starting five to sag off — but in choosing Young, he’s chosen quite poorly. Young has made him pay almost every trip down the court, dishing, dealing, rebounding, and above all scoring like a woman possessed. Young has almost matched UConn’s first-quarter total *by herself*, posting 11, adding a couple assists, and throwing in that nasty block for good measure. If the Irish can get this kind of production from the sophomore all night, they’ll have at least a puncher’s chance.
Now, in any world, Notre Dame takes a ten-point lead over Connecticut after the first frame, but it does feel like Samuelson’s shot has shifted the momentum some. And sure enough, come the second, UConn starts to do UConn things. They score the first basket of the second quarter, and the second, and the third. Notre Dame, conversely, can’t seem to find that same offensive spark, going three minutes without a score. That ten-point lead evaporates like a puddle on a sunny day. UConn’s absorbed Notre Dame’s best shot, and here comes the counter-punch.
Young (who else?) squeezes a layup past two defenders to finally give the Irish a bucket, but it’s not enough to stop the bleeding. UConn rallies and decimates the Irish defense, taking the lead and then pushing it… and pushing it… and suddenly Notre Dame’s down by 11.
Things are taking their natural shape now. We knew this would happen. UConn always posts a soul-eating run, the only question is when in the game it happens. All that good work from the first quarter? Irrelevant. If that was the best the Irish can do, the Huskies are gonna make this a long night. The Irish make a small rally before the half to get the deficit to seven, but they’ve still endured a 17-point swing in this quarter — and a 20-point swing dating back to that Sameulson buzzer-beater.
So yeah, that control thing? UConn’s got it.
But Notre Dame’s been here before. Heck, in this tournament, they’ve practically lived here. A third-straight second-half comeback doesn’t feel crazy. Of course, none of those previous teams were UConn; not many teams come back from down double-digits on them.
Notre Dame isn’t most teams.
At some point, you have to wonder how the Huskies felt about this matchup. Yeah, Notre Dame’s seen the UConn movie before, but the Huskies have read off the Irish script plenty of times themselves. Sure, it’s been five years, but even if no current player was on either roster the last time the Irish beat Connecticut, you can bet the farm everyone in the building knew this rivalry. What it meant. What it still means. There are, charitably, four programs in the country at this point that can so much as hold a candle to UConn’s success, and one of them’s on the other end of the floor. Here they are, in the same kind of dogfight as the year before, the kind of game that tests their aura of invincibility. Here they are, round five in the semifinals against a team that’s ended their season here three previous times, and a team that has every reason to play like they’re using house money. Here they are, at a place that expects to win national titles like clockwork, playing the one team that knows them, knows how to beat them, better than anyone.
As impossible as it might seem to an outsider, one has to wonder if the mighty Huskies aren’t just the tiniest bit… scared’s probably too strong a word. Apprehensive? Even nursing a 7-point lead at the break, the Huskies could be forgiven for being on edge.
Sure enough, they have good reason to be. Notre Dame responds just as they need to, playing their game, calmly working the ball inside when they can, hitting big perimeter shots to space the floor. The Huskies keep them at arm’s length but the Irish chip away, slowly, getting the game back to one possession. With just over two minutes to go and the Irish trailing 53-51, Marina Mabrey gets the ball at the top of the three-point arc off a Westbeld screen, shot fakes to avoid a block from UConn’s Azurá Stevens, and casually chucks in a three-pointer like she’s playing ball during middle school recess. Suddenly, Notre Dame leads.
How about that. We’re only in the third quarter and this game has already seen double-digit comebacks from both squads. It’s remarkable both that UConn was down double-digits in the first place, and that they then gave up a large lead of their own. Neither of these happens very often, but that’s Notre Dame and Connecticut for you. Expect the impossible. These teams are like those graceful swordfighters from old action flicks, dancing around and toward each other, always testing, always anticipating, never backing down. It’s everything you could want from a clash of college basketball royalty.
Still, though, something feels off. Despite nearly three quarters of evidence to the contrary, it doesn’t feel like Notre Dame can really do this. You figure the fundamentals of basketball math, from UConn’s shotmaking to Notre Dame’s short rotation, will take over sooner or later. UConn still feels like they’ll pull away at some point. What are the odds, really, that UConn loses in the semifinals in back-to-back years?
The teams trade blows for the rest of the third, though the Huskies retake the lead by three to end the frame. Notre Dame gets it down to one early in the fourth before the Huskies rip off seven straight — the last three of which come on UConn point guard Crystal Dangerfield’s first points of the night. That pull-away might just be coming.
Now down eight, Notre Dame looks on the ropes — and once again on cue, Ogunbowale hits an answering three on the other end of the floor. (She’s pretty clutch, that one.) UConn keeps it a two-possession game but the Irish answer them shot-for-shot. No pull away yet.
We’re now up to at least five huge swings in momentum, and neither team has so much as blinked at any of them. And we’ve still got half a quarter to play. No sign of letup anywhere. (Heck, Kristina Nelson’s out there taking two charges in the span of a few minutes, in case anyone thought the grad student wouldn’t make an impact tonight.) This — this is a battle for the ages.
As the clock ticks under five minutes to play Jackie Young drives to the hoop and draws contact from Katie Lou Samuelson as she makes the basket. At this point, if Notre Dame wins this it’ll be forever known as “The Jackie Young Game.” Young’s scored from everywhere on the court and just drew a critical fourth foul on Samuelson. At the same moment Young set a new career high for scoring, she sent one of UConn’s best players to the brink of fouling out. Young sinks the free throw and it’s a two-point deficit.
The Huskies still feel like they have the advantage, but the Irish stay in striking distance. Any one play could swing the game — and the Irish make one as Young takes the ball coast-to-coast off a Westbeld rebound to pull to within one. Notre Dame gets a stop and Ogunbowale hits a free throw line jumper to give her team the lead with just over three minutes to play.
Now we’ve reached the point in all potential upsets where it looks like it might actually be possible. The “change the channel” moment, if you will. With a lead and just minutes to play, Notre Dame might actually be able to pull this off. The Huskies do counterpunch, of course — but not before Notre Dame plays one of their best defensive possession of the night to force a wildly off-target Samuelson shot. At this point, it’s as much about limiting Connecticut buckets as it is about scoring. Notre Dame’s defense has been their weak point, but if they can lock in it might get them to the championship game.
The Huskies do reclaim the lead with about two to play off a Gabby Williams jumper, before Notre Dame takes it back on the other end with two Young free throws. (Have I mentioned how good she’s been tonight??) On UConn’s next possession, Kat Westbeld steals a pass, but the Huskies shut down any fast break opportunity. Notre Dame works clock with a 1-point lead before Young drives it inside. Her shot’s contested, and the ball deflects out of bounds off UConn with one second on the shot clock, and forty-four seconds to play.
Forty-four seconds for the season, for the rivalry, for the title game.
It is a phenomenally weird feature of basketball that, with its fast pace and high number of clock stoppages, it can make forty-four seconds feel like a small eternity. It probably will take me about forty-four seconds to type out this sentence, but it is more than enough time for an all-time ending. Great endings to games make everything that came before seem better in retrospect. Final moments have that kind of incredible power. This has already been a great game, but the end elevates it to an all-time classic.
Right now, Notre Dame has a slight advantage, but are in a really bad situation — to avoid a turnover and a free chance for UConn to set up a play, they must inbound the basketball and heft a shot that hits the rim within one second. Fail to, or miss to a UConn rebound, and the Huskies have thirty seconds to run their elite offense — thirty seconds to take a lead. The Irish need something really clutch here.
So of course Arike Ogunbowale gets the ball.
Barely pausing to catch it, Arike hoists a silky midrange that hits nothing but net. It’s an almost unbelievable shot — it’s not just good, it looks textbook as it swishes. Ogunbowale knows it too, shouting and thumping her chest as she celebrates down the court. Now, up three, forty-four seconds to play, having just shot their way out of the impossible, Notre Dame has all the momentum. A Notre Dame contingent that had been off-and-on most of the night, cheers perhaps lost in the tension of the moment, makes their presence felt. Enough of this. We are not losing to this team again. We are not ending this season with a loss to them.
This might just happen.
Now, the pressure shifts to the Huskies on the other end of the floor. They don’t need a tying shot but they do need a score. The Huskies try to work the ball to the post but the Irish challenge everything, contesting every dribble, every pass, forcing switch after switch. Eventually the ball gets in to Stevens, but she can’t get around Shepard. The clock ticks under thirty seconds. Stevens kicks the ball out to Williams, who passes to a cutting Samuelson. Twenty-five seconds. Samuelson can’t handle it. The ball goes out of bounds. Notre Dame ball. Shot clock off.
The Huskies have no choice but to foul. Notre Dame has not missed a free throw tonight. Everyone in the arena can do this math equation.
Ogunbowale draws the foul. She’s 80% from the line on the season. Geno Auriemma can’t even look.
She sinks them both. Five-point game. Twenty seconds to go.
Ok, I can tell what you’re thinking. “Alright EC, this has been lots of fun, but a *perfect* basketball game? I don’t know about that.” Hang on! Did the clock run out? No? There’s still time? Exactly.
This is the precise moment it all went wrong.
The Irish end of the arena is going berserk, five years of frustration venting, their team so close to finally breaking through against the hated Huskies they forgot just who it is they’re playing. After a timeout, UConn gets the ball to undersized guard Crystal Dangerfield, who uses her quickness to slip past Jessica Shepard and into the post, drawing needed help from Westbeld. Dangerfield flips the ball back out to Napheesa Collier, who buries a barely-contested three. Two-point game.
Six seconds. That’s all it took to play the Irish defense like a fiddle. UConn is not done yet.
Mabrey calls Notre Dame’s timeout to regroup and advance the basketball. In a vacuum, that might seem like a good idea — but now Notre Dame doesn’t have a backup plan if they aren’t able to easily inbound the ball. And they aren’t.
Shepard’s inbounds pass is tipped away by a darting Kia Nurse, who gets a step on Mabrey and can take her sweet time getting to a wide-open basket. Tie game. Upset hopes vanished like a wisp of cloud.
Well, maybe not quite. Notre Dame still has about twelve seconds, but has to go fast up the length of the court. And they’re inbounding the ball under their own basket, where a single mistake will all but hand UConn the game. Ten seconds ago this was a sure thing. Now it’s more precarious than a tightrope walker.
This inbound goes fine, and Mabrey pushes the ball up the court, the Huskies pressing on the way. She sees Shepard working on the perimeter and decides to get her big, who’s been dynamite tonight, a chance to drive in and win this. Shepard corrals the pass and drives inside… wait. Where’s the basketball?
It’s bobbling out of bounds. Shepard couldn’t quite set it. It bounced off her foot. Her goddamn foot. The ball careens over the sideline, sending itself back to UConn with three seconds to play. Oh, and the Huskies do have a timeout.
It’s Connecticut fans’ turn to go berserk.
This is UConn’s Thanos moment. Notre Dame has done everything it can conceivably do in forty minutes to win this game. Jackie Young has had a career night. They are perfect from the free throw line. They have defended as well as they have all season. Arike Ogunbowale has taken over in the second half. Kristina Nelson has drawn two charges, one on Katie Lou Samuelson to get her to four fouls. Shepard and Westbeld have been excellent rebounding and scoring inside against a rangy, persistent Husky defense. And the Huskies themselves have helped, missing some shots and taking too long to solve the Irish defense. Any semblance of a path to victory there is against UConn, Notre Dame has followed it.
It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.
UConn is inevitable.
One more crazy UConn stat, before we play out these final three seconds. Geno Auriemma has never lost a national title game. He is a perfect 11-0.
Of all the bananas stats that show UConn’s dominance, this might the most mind-boggling. Nothing better speaks to the basketball machine Auriemma has built. Eleven times, he’s taken the best shot of the best challenger March can provide; eleven times, he’s emerged without a scratch. Pat Summit’s never beaten him in the last game of the season; neither has Stanford’s Tara VanDeveer, or Muffet McGraw, or any coach.
If history is any guide, if UConn wins this game, they’re winning the national title.
You could feel that energy walking into the arena that night. I’m sure some of this is me projecting as a Notre Dame fan, but it sure felt like the will of all of college basketball was behind us. UConn is the ultimate sports boogeyman — pick a team you are sick of seeing win, double them, add a little bit of tax, and that’s the Huskies. Precisely no one without an affiliation to the state or school wants this. Recognizing that of all teams, Notre Dame has the best shot to take them down, recognizng the odds are woefully stacked against the Huskies’ title game opponent if UConn pulls it out, means this is the game to take them out. And remember, this isn’t football — Notre Dame is by and large not portrayed as the villain in women’s basketball. If you were neutral that night you were pulling for the Irish.
Whelp. So much for that.
UConn has the ball with a little over three seconds and a chance to take the lead. A bucket here and the Huskies win it. Geno Auriemma has a deep offensive playbook and a bevy of sharpshooters on the floor. Notre Dame has just seen a seemingly game-clinching lead evaporate in a matter of seconds. In a game of massive momentum swings, this is the biggest one yet. Is it a knockout blow?
The Huskies still have to go quick. The ball is inbounded to Williams, who turns for a quick pop-up shot over Shepard. She leaves it short, the rebound bouncing into Westbeld’s hands. Westbeld hangs on to the ball for dear life as the buzzer sounds. We’re all tied up at 79.
Ready for five more minutes of this?
Of course this game’s going to overtime. It deserves nothing less.
Thing is, though… Williams had some time to work with. Not much, but she could’ve taken a moment to set her shot. If she does… this story has a much different flavor. Now the Huskies are in a spot, maybe the only spot, really, where they don’t have a lot of success. Because UConn doesn’t play a lot of close games, the thinking goes, they can have trouble when they find themselves in a fight this late. They’ve lost six straight overtime games they’ve played, and have never won an overtime game in the tournament. Overtime, unique among almost all things in basketball, is not UConn’s time.
On the flipside… man, how is Notre Dame feeling right now? It might be one time out of a hundred a five-point lead slips away in twenty seconds. The Irish are painfully living that reality on the biggest stage of them all. And not only that, they had the Huskies, those Huskies, dead to rights. A huge win, a season-defining win, a program-defining win, right there — and it slipped away. The moment Notre Dame had something to lose in this game they lost it. How do you regroup from that? How can you?
These are all intangibles, of course. Narratives floating around the simple act of dribbling a ball. Not quite imagined but not quite real, either. Whispers in the back of minds as the clock ticks ever closer to midnight. Neither of these teams are Cinderella, but the ball’s gonna end for one of them anyway.
In case anyone doubted Notre Dame’s grit, they come out swinging once again and grab a two-possession lead back two minutes into the extra period. The late-regulation slippage doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. UConn is able to push some but the Irish once again find themselves up five with under a minute to play on three straight free throws by Jackie Young — a career high 32 points for the sophomore. Up five this late, you have to like Notre Dame’s chances.
But hang on. Didn’t we just do this?
Down yet again, the Huskies need a score in a hurry. Geno Auriemma uses his overtime timeout to draw up a play and gets Collier a clean look inside. Three-point game. The Huskies elect to foul to extend the game. Unfortunately for them, they foul Ogunbowale, the best free-throw shooter on the team. With 38 seconds to go and needing just one-of-two to make this a two-score game, Notre Dame still looks strong.
So of course Ogunbowale clanks both free throws. UConn rushes down in transition, scattering shooters along the three point line. Nurse has the ball with Young swiping at it behind her. She dumps it off to an open Dangerfield. Young tries to close out but she’s not fast enough — Dangerfield takes the shot. It hits. The UConn end of the arena erupts. Tie game.
And again, a five-point lead has evaporated in a matter of seconds.
Welcome to playing UConn. Notre Dame might still win this but they will have to crowbar it out of the Huskies’ iron grasp. UConn’s become like the final boss of a video game now — just as you think Notre Dame’s beaten them, they evolve and come back stronger. It seems almost supernatural. There is some force that will not let this team lose.
Except…
Seemingly everyone on the Husky sideline is in celebration mode, relieved that their team has tied it with just seconds to go. Everyone, that is, except for Geno Auriemma. He’s almost frantic. Auriemma watches the shot go in, then glances at the clock, then whips his head around to look down the court at UConn’s basket. He raises his hands and shouts a command to his team. He looks anything but relieved.
Did he sense something? Did he know?
Notre Dame still has about twenty-five seconds to work with, and they get to take the last shot of the game. But the Huskies’ defense has clamped down this period, making the Irish work for every shot. Six of Notre Dame’s ten overtime points have come at the line — odds are they’ll have to make a shot from the field here. Muffet McGraw calls timeout with fifteen to play, gambling that there won’t be a repeat of UConn’s steal-and-score at this same time of regulation. Those basketball gods, they sure do have a sense of humor.
Out of the timeout, the play goes in to Shepard, but she can’t get a clean look over the rangy Collier. She kicks it out to Mabrey, who dribbles out on the wing, handing it off to Arike. Ten seconds.
Ogunbowale dribbles up the floor, drawing a switch off a Shepard screen. She pauses at the right elbow. Five seconds.
Arike pauses for a split second, sizing up her defender, Collier. She dribbles far to her right, as if she’ll drive in that direction, before kicking the ball back toward her body, taking a half step back and shooting it. One shot to end this surreal, epic game of basketball right here, right now.
The high, arcing shot looks good as it leaves Arike’s hand. It looks good as it curves down towards the basket and the arena holds its breath. Is it? Could it be?
It’s Ogunbowale with seconds to go. Of course it’s good.
This eruption from Irish fans is pure, simple joy. Five years of anguish, of disappointment, of futility, banished at the swoosh of a net. The dragon slain at last. That’s it. For real this time. Finally. FINALLY. Go home, Huskies.
Well… not quite. Somehow, against all laws of logic and reason, there’s still one second left on the game clock. UConn’s out of timeouts, though, so they can’t advance the ball. They will have to chuck it down the floor and hope to somehow get a shot off.
Somehow this Hail Mary full-court pass finds its way into Katie Lou Samuelson’s hands. There’s no one between her and the basket. It’s as open a look as you could expect in this situation, with the ball in the hands of UConn’s best shooter. It’s as if the basketball gods don’t want this night to end.
Samuelson quickly hoists it. It hits the right side of the rim and hovers for a split second before clattering harmlessly to the court.
The buzzer sounds, almost reluctantly. It doesn’t want this night to end either. But end it must. Time marches on, as impersonally as a ball bounces off a rim. At long last, UConn’s out of chances.
36-1.
Notre Dame’s actually done it. For the first time in five years they’ve done the damn thing. It took five extra minutes, a whole lotta angst, and enough heroics for an entire NCAA Tournament, but it’s over. They’re going to the title game. The Huskies aren’t.
A year ago, when Mississippi State beat Connecticut on that rainbow shot and sent the American Airlines Center into raptures, Geno Auriemma couldn’t help but crack a bit of a grin. Even he was impressed with what the Bulldogs had done, vanquishing his basketball war machine. Maybe, just maybe, he was a little bit relieved — no more record win streak to protect, no unprecedented twelfth national title to play for. Maybe an even greater fire for next year’s team to win it all.
Now it’s happened again. Another overtime, another buzzer beater. Another season, perfect to this point, ruined in the waning moments of a clock. Time has come, inevitably, for Connecticut.
Now, he’s lost, yet again, to Muffet McGraw. No coach has beaten him more. No team has ended as many of his seasons. No one can push him like Notre Dame can. No one beats him like the Irish beat him. Five times he’s seen McGraw’s Irish in the semifinals. Four times, he’s lost.
History doesn’t repeat. But it rhymes.
This year, there’s no smile. This year, he breezes through the handshake line, expressionless, barely pausing to say “good game” before leaving into the central Ohio night. He marches on, as he must now inevitably do, off the Final Four stage.
Notre Dame knows better than anyone how much a victory over UConn means. Nearly two decades spent sharing a conference with the Huskies has taught them the hard way. But in college basketball, no victory anywhere means as much as a win in the NCAA Tournament. On this stage, the wins are bigger, the shots more meaningful. Notre Dame just won an all-time rivalry classic, against a team that doesn’t lose, on the last weekend of the season — it doesn’t get more meaningful than that.
On Arike’s shot the Irish seized a lead in NCAA tournament games against UConn they hold to this day. No other program that’s met Connecticut multiple times in the Big Dance has a winning record against the Huskies. For the fourth time, UConn’s dreams of a national championship are dashed by the Fighting Irish.
No one could have ever expected this Notre Dame team, of all the great ones that couldn’t notch a win against UConn over the past five years, to finally land a blow. Short rotations don’t win easily in March. But even teams that tighten their rotations often have other players to go to if they need them — Notre Dame has a true freshman and a walk-on. Being within ten points of UConn that night would’ve been a moral victory — and as a Catholic school, we’re big on those. To actually win on the scoreboard? Couldn’t have dared to dream.
But it’s reality.
That — that was basketball poetry. Two great teams, playing with toughness and finesse in equal measure, constantly upping the ante. A clash of elites and an all-time upset at once. Sudden, wild momentum swings and dramatic end-of-game moments. Multiple players on both teams rising to the occasion and the teams still managing to play cohesively. About four different occasions when it looked like one team had it in the bag, only for the other to somehow claw back. Big shot after big shot, clutch moment after clutch moment. The game itself was phenomenal. But the stakes, the coaches, the rivalry, the fact it was those two teams playing in that environment — perfection. A privilege to have witnessed from the sideline, and the crowning achievement to the kind of season no one thought Notre Dame should be having.
This game also de facto ended UConn’s god-mode stretch. Oh, don’t get me wrong — they still made the next three Final Fours — but the next season they, amazingly, lost some regular season games. They even finally lost a game in regulation. Now, a couple of UConn losses are kinda expected each year. A Husky loss isn’t by itself a newsworthy event anymore. Mississippi State broke the glass a year earlier, but it was this Notre Dame team that shattered it, proving that the Bulldogs’ victory was not a one-time affair. The Huskies have not looked their inconquerable selves since this game. At a time when UConn’s dominance was often used as a lazy excuse to denigrate women’s basketball, Notre Dame breaking the dynasty in dramatic fashion came not a moment too soon. I said at the top that perfect games matter — this game mattered.
It’s close to midnight now, or maybe a bit after. It’s hard to tell through the utter delirium of the Notre Dame section of Nationwide Arena. No one’s in a particular hurry to leave, except arena security. As the postgame celebrations wind down, we slowly make our way back to the staging area, the bus, the hotel. No one’s calm. This night has gone from hopeful to epic to magical about three separate times.
We wait in the back hallway of the hotel for our team, everyone in that weird place between exhaustion and ecstasy that only big sports wins can truly bring out. Without any prompting, fans, band members, cheerleaders, everyone forms a long human tunnel stretching back to the lobby to welcome back our resident dragon-slayers. High-fives, hugs, handshakes… it’s been a night five years in the making.
Sleep feels like a distant concept — this is a night to cherish. After all, we have all day tomorrow to…
What’s that?
We have to play another game?
Here’s the other problem with playing UConn — it takes such a Herculean effort to beat them that it feels like you shouldn’t have to play another game after. They are the best team. No doubt. No ifs, no buts. Beating them is basically like winning the national title. Why should we have to turn around two days later and *actually* win the national title? We just beat UConn, baby!
But, as seemingly everyone had forgotten by midnight Friday, that classic was only the national semifinal. We’ve got another forty minutes before we hand out any hardware.
Suddenly, just as Notre Dame summited one mountain, they’re left gazing up at an even higher one. Their white whale finally vanquished, it feels like that oughta be a wrap on things, but that’s hardly the case. In the span of under forty-eight hours — heck, by the time the festivities conclude early Saturday morning, it might be closer to thirty-six — the Irish have to rest, regroup, and refocus to play a team only slightly less dominant than the one they just went sixteen rounds with.
A year before, Mississippi State learned the hard way how tough the turnaround from beating the unbeatable to playing for a title really is. The Bulldogs just ran out of gas against South Carolina, trailing by ten at halftime and being unable to close the gap, ultimately falling by twelve. And they aren’t alone — since the turn of the century, precisely one team has gone on to win the national title after beating UConn in a semifinal.
And now, fittingly, Mississippi State and Notre Dame will square off for the ultimate prize. Two teams that won overtime thrillers in the Final Four to get here. The last two teams to defeat mighty UConn. Two teams that have dealt with their share of title game heartbreak.
Well, in Notre Dame’s case… it might be several shares. This will be title game number five for the Irish this decade, and they have lost every one of them. Some of the greatest basketball teams South Bend has ever seen have been right here, on the same climb these Irish are now on, and haven’t made it to the top. First it was that Texas A&M loss, capping an otherwise magical run against some of college basketball’s powers. Then it was against a Brittney Griner-led Baylor team that nobody in the country could touch. Then they ran smack-dab into peak UConn in back-to-back years, falling by double-digits in each. No one has a history anything like this. The Irish have come up just short time… after time… after time… after time. It makes for a special kind of agony to be so close so often and never win it all.
This team has surprised us at every turn. First it was the ACC that would beat them. Then Texas A&M. Then Oregon. Then UConn. All are down for the count. But history is against the Irish here, brutally so. While, rationally, this team has absolutely blown past expectations, defying their circumstances at every turn, there’s no way a runner-up finish wouldn’t feel… hollow. Not a fifth one in seven years.
We’re gonna go through the game now, and you have to promise me you won’t think about the ending. You know the one. We’re not gonna talk about it before we’re ready. You’ve been with me so far, you can go a little bit further.
It’s important to note a few things about this Mississippi State team. Yes, this is their second-straight title game — Notre Dame and Connecticut are the only other teams to make consecutive finals this decade. And yeah, after shooting a dagger into UConn’s heart last year, the Bulldogs are highly motivated to finish the job this year and add a trophy to cap this two-year run. It would establish them firmly among college basketball’s elite. And this run has shades of last year’s — they played another overtime semifinal, knocking out the same Louisville team that’s beaten the Irish twice.
The Bulldogs are led on the sideline by Vic Schaefer, who’s cultivated a reputation as a defensive ace (and somewhat inexplicably just won Coach of the Year over Muffet McGraw), and on the court by 6’7” center Teaira McCowan. McCowan is, to put it mildly, a matchup nightmare. She stands a head taller than anyone else on the court, and has a healthy wingspan to match. She has spent the first five games of this tournament launching the all-time tournament rebound record out of a cannon, blowing past it in the Elite Eight. And oh, she also leads the team in scoring.
From the opening tip it’s immediately clear how difficult playing McCowan is going to be for the Irish. Jessica Shepard is not a small woman, and McCowan makes her look like she walked off the set of Snow White. How, exactly, do you defend this game? How, exactly, do you rebound? Notre Dame is already dealing with post depth issues, and this is about the worst inside matchup imaginable.
Just like the semifinal the Irish get off to a hot start, scoring the first six points of the game, before Mississippi State settles in a bit. The clear Bulldog advantage inside means they can play more aggressively on the perimeter, which gets the Irish out of a rhythm the like to play with. That early lead evaporates quickly as Mississippi State goes on a 11-0 run to take the lead. Notre Dame’s turnovers start piling up and the lack of a true point guard looks like it might finally be catching up with the Irish.
Things get even worse in the second quarter as the Bulldogs press their advantage. To say the Irish look out of sorts offensive might be charitable. They can do nothing in the halfcourt, missing shots and turning the ball over in equal measure. It all culminates in one of the most brutal blocks of all time, as McCowan emphatically swats aside a Marina Mabrey layup attempt, careening the ball off Mabrey’s back out of bounds so the Irish don’t even keep the ball. Fortunately, the Irish clamp down on defense to keep themselves hanging in the game by a thread, but it appears the post-UConn effect is very real. This team has finally run out of gas. Notre Dame goes into halftime down thirteen, having scored a scant three points the entire second quarter.
The Irish just had to dig themselves one more hole, didn’t they?
No team has ever come back from two double-digit deficits in the Final Four. The gap grows in the third, and Notre Dame finds itself trailing by fifteen midway through the third, That’s it, pack it up… oh what the hell. I’m not even gonna pretend to keep you in suspense at this point. If you are surprised that this team is gonna scratch and claw and fight to find its way right back in this thing you haven’t been paying attention.
In a rock fight like this game’s turning out to be, fifteen points looks like a steep mountain. Notre Dame barely blinks. They just slowly chip away at it, taking the fight to Mississippi State and finding points by winning one-on-one matchups. As the Bulldog lead narrows to eight, the strategy plays off in an evern bigger way as Teaira McCowan picks up her third foul and Vic Schaefer sits her. With MSU’s advantage inside now gone, the Irish sense the opportunity and attack. The lead goes to six, then three. The next time down the floor, Jessica Shephard picks up an offensive rebound and buries the putback as the third quarter winds down.
Tie game. Ten minutes to play.
It’s a whole new ballgame. Just like that, Notre Dame’s erased every once of Bulldog momentum. The Irish score the first bucket of the fourth to finally re-take the lead. Somehow, Notre Dame has gotten the Bulldogs in more foul trouble than they are, and they’re in a lot — Westbeld and Nelson are both playing this stretch with four fouls. But Mississippi State is deeper and can absorb some of it. McCowan, having sat for long enough, comes back in. It’s not long before the Bulldogs rally and pull back ahead. They’ve fought for this tooth and nail as well.
The teams trade blows for most of the quarter before Mississippi State pulls just ahead going into the final stretch. With a two-point lead, Mississippi can afford to work clock and wait for a good look. With how the defenses have played tonight, any score puts Notre Dame in a tough position.
The shot clock winnows to two as Mississippi State’s Roshunda Johnson launches a three with just over two minutes to play. It’s good. The Bulldog faithful go absolutely berserk.
It looks like a dagger. It feels like a dagger. There’s still time left, but it sure seems like Notre Dame’s season de facto ended on that shot.
It will be Mississippi State’s last score of the game.
Notre Dame comes right back down on the other end of the floor and Marina Mabrey hits the first Irish three of the game to answer. Mississippi State feeds McCowan on their possession, but she misses and draws an over-the-back call going for the rebound. It’s her fourth. The Irish know it and attack. Jackie Young finishes inside to tie the game with forty-four seconds to play.
Timeout. If Notre Dame can get one more defensive stop, they’ll get the last shot of the game to win a national title.
You can cut the tension in the arena with a butter knife. It’s no great mystery where Mississippi State wants to go with the basketball — the only question is, can the Irish stop it? This game has shown that if McCowan gets position inside, the play’s over, but if she doesn’t, Notre Dame can force bad shots and misses. That’s exactly what happens here — Shephard stays with McCowan and forces a turn and shoot attempt, which misses. The Irish box out in textbook fashion and corral the rebound. Shot clock is off. A clean look might win it all.
The Irish don’t get it. The turnover bug rears its head again and a Mabrey feed inside is tipped to a Mississippi State defender. It’s a fastbreak. Mabrey’s in position to force a steal and the ball winds back in Jackie Young’s hands. She heaves a pass downcourt to a wide-open Ogunbowale… but wait. There’s a foul call with three seconds left.
It’s McCowan. McCowan had to foul Young. With no time left, if Young gets this play off, Notre Dame wins on a walk-off layup. Instead, McCowan fouls out to keep Mississippi State in the game for another three seconds. But they’ll have to defend now without her back there. It’s Notre Dame ball with one more chance to get a title winning basket.
Three seconds. Three seconds stand between Notre Dame and history. Three seconds for the Irish to finally get to where they’ve seen, but not been all decade. Three seconds that will determine how everyone watching remembers this team.
One more thing, before we play out these last three seconds. That lone team that managed to win it all after beating UConn in a semifinal? Notre Dame in 2001.
History doesn’t repeat itself — but it does rhyme.
I’d conservatively set the over-under on how many times I’ve watched this shot at 500. In all likelihood, it’s closer to several thousand. It gets more ridiculous every time I watch it.
Every neuron in my brain, conditioned by years and years of experiencing the laws of physics on Planet Earth, cries out that there’s no way this shot should go in. None.
I mean, just look at Ogunbowale as she shoots this basketball. If a prayer for a miracle looked like a basketball shot, it would look like this. You barely even need to think about the physics of this — Arike’s body mechanics say it all. Expecting this to go in the basket is silly.
The play, wisely, wasn’t designed to go here. With McCowan out, Notre Dame has the advantage inside and Shephard is the natural choice. So Mississippi State double teams here, sagging off Jackie Young. There’s no window inside. So Arike takes over, beating her defender and shouting for the ball. She takes it and dribbles, trying in vain to create separation. There’s no time to pass. There’s no other option than to shoot this off balance, fading away from the basket, while being face guarded. This is basically a broken play — Arike’s just hoping against hope she can clean it up.
It hangs in the air for what feels like thirty seconds. It arcs high and long, moving down to the basket, feeling almost like a leaf from an autumn tree. But it arcs down, bending towards the rim.
No way.
It is clearly gonna hit something. Maybe there’s a bounce and Notre Dame gets lucky. That’d be appropriate, luck of the Irish and all. They’ve had plenty of that.
But no, it’s pretty clearly going right to the rim. This…
No way.
This is gonna be a good basket.
NO. WAY.
It just gently grazes the far side of the rim and drops through, smooth as can be. And that’s it.
61-58. Notre Dame wins. On that shot.
That image of Arike shooting this impossible shot will more than likely be the defining image of Notre Dame basketball until the university shuts down. You can probably count on one hand the number of shots that even belong in the same conversation as this one since James Naismith first hung a peach basket on a wall. Don’t believe me? Let’s go through it quickly.
First, how many shots aren’t three pointers? Between history and current game mechanics, you can eliminate a majority right there. Second, how many are in the last seconds of a game? Of an elimination game? How many come off an out of bounds play where the shooter takes one dribble? How many come while being face guarded? How many come this off balance? And of course, how many win a title?
Oh, and by the way, Arike did this in back to back games, an individual feat nearly unparalleled in the history of the NCAA tournament. (By the way, no disrespect to Sports Illustrated, but “Ice Twice”? C’mon guys, the game was on Easter Sunday… “Easter Basket” was *right there.*) Given all of that, this shot is special. How many players, how many teams, how many programs, never see a moment like that? It’s undoubtedly one of the greatest shots in the history of the game, maybe, dare I say, the greatest shot. And it belongs to this team.
That impossible shot, that shot’s good for a national title. But it’s good for so much more.
That’s not just a title, that’s a shot to cap one of the most exciting weekends of basketball in the history of March Madness. While bemoaning the lack of parity in the women’s game in the run-up, due to all four participants being #1 seeds, the games showed the other side of that coin — namely, that having the four best teams in the country play three basketball games is probably gonna be really really fun. And it sure was — both semifinals went to overtime, and the title game saw a historic comeback, sparked by this shot. Especially contrasted with a simultaneous and underwhelming men’s Final Four, this Final Four sparked a surge of interest in women’s basketball that the game is still benefitting from today
That’s not just a title, that’s the first title ever won by two straight double-digit comebacks. The first title ever won by a team that has more players on its roster with torn ACLs than losses. The first title won by a team that had to claw back from half time deficits four times in the NCAA tournament. That’s the first title won by a team that’s faced a season anything like this. At every turn, when Notre Dame looked down and out, they found another gear, until college basketball had nothing left to throw at them.
That’s not just a title, that’s the better part of a decade of almosts and what-ifs, couldas and shouldas, near misses and runners-up, consigned to the past. A decade of national title dreams dashed. Not this team. Not this time. This year, of all years, after every torn ACL and every thriller and every comeback, the Irish get across the finish line. Notre Dame is your national champion.
Most sports fans dream they’ll get lucky enough to see one perfect sports moment in their lives. This was mine.
So, uh, yeah… this team means a lot to me. Just being in this team’s orbit was special. I spoke back in Part I (remember that?) about how this team made me into a basketball fan through the excitement generated by the quality of their play, but to me this team embodies something even deeper. There’s a kind of infectious spirit around Notre Dame women’s basketball that this team exemplified, a joy in each other and a pride in what they can accomplish together. It’s a kind of swagger, but not swagger for the sake of having it. Rather, it’s rooted in a kind of tenacity that reflects Notre Dame as its best self — the kind of confidence that comes from being sure enough of yourself that you don’t need to show it. That comes from being sure you have what it takes to overcome any challenge and make something special.
“What Though the Odds,” right?
The Notre Dame Victory March is, at its heart, an ode to perseverance. Whereas most college fight songs are transparent triumphalism, the Victory March centers struggle and challenge. And it’s fitting for the place and the kind of experience it provides. Institutionally, Notre Dame likes to throw people in at the deep end and let them figure out how to swim. There are people around to dive in and save you if you need it, there are others to help show you the way, but no one’s going to do it for you. You have to do that part yourself. It take some people a long time to figure it out. Some never do and wind up transferring to Boston College (oh Pitt now? Huh. And he’s a tight end? Interesting.) But when you do learn, you not only learn how to swim, but how to figure out how to swim. You know how to swim your way — the results are the same, but the process to get there is what works for you. It helps you find strengths that are entirely your own. That this team in a nutshell — they knew how to swim their way.
The 2018 women’s basketball team, to me, will always be about this idea, the power of forging your own path. They were always a great team, but from the outside, it was hard to picture them as a national champion for much of the season. Especially after so many near misses for the Irish, it was hard to imagine that this would be the team to finally cut down the nets. They couldn’t do many of the things teams that win national titles traditionally do. They couldn’t go deep in their rotation, or absorb a lot of foul trouble, or play with a traditional point guard. There were too many times to count in the season or in the tournament where, if they had followed any traditional basketball logic, they would have folded. But they never did. They kept finding another gear, and then another, and then another. They did it so often it became a habit. “Finding a way to win” can be a tired old sports cliche at times, but this team redefined it. In the end they found a way to win it all in a way no other team has ever done.
I haven’t dwelt on the injuries here because it feels contrary to the spirit of things. This team is so much more than the injury struggles they faced. But it is worth a little more clarity, because this run has absolutely ruined injuries as an excuse. Everytime somebody makes a (usually valid) point about key injuries affecting a team’s performance, my mind immediately goes to “well, Muffet McGraw won a national title with seven healthy players.” Is that an unrealistic standard? Sure, but that only speaks to just how incredibly this team navigated its injury challenges. The banner headline for this team’s injury woes will always be “more ACL tears than losses,” but that’s not the whole story. Jackie Young broke her nose at a practice and had to wear a protective mask for around a month (I have this very clear memory of her throwing it to the side in the middle of a game, but I cannot seem to find when or if this actually happened). Jessica Shephard nursed a “grumpy” ankle for much of the year, and almost rolled it badly at the Final Four. But also, let’s not gloss over those ACL tears either. Not only losing an All-American forward, but another veteran, your starting point guard, and another key rotational play to the same injury has got to have a psychological impact. Not only does the team feel snakebitten, but also how are the healthy players going to play? Will they be more cautious with their knees? If you just took the injury report, this would feel like the opposite of a team of destiny.
In fairness, it’s not like there was a total lack of injury luck — the Irish were a bad Ogunbowale landing or a sprained Shepard ankle away from being in real big trouble. Heck, Kathryn Westbeld had to miss about a game and the Irish were suddenly in a dogfight with Villanova for a while. But that’s what made the run so special — they refused to let it define them. The injuries are a part of this team’s story, but they are by no means all of it. When I think of the 2018 team, injuries might be the fifth or sixth thing that comes to mind. I think of an incredible comeback against Tennessee. I think of an all-time classic against UConn. I think of back to back Final Four comebacks. I think of that shot. Notre Dame spat in the face of the injury gods and won the whole damn thing in such a way that made sure the ACL tears were a footnote.
It wasn’t just that Notre Dame defied the odds, it was that they resolutely ignored them. Whether they were great or small didn’t even enter into the equation; you were never gonna convince this team that they were not the best team in the country. Every narrative around this team, from the short rotation to the invincibility of UConn to the need to come back from down double digits in back-to-back Final Four games, crumbled the moment it looked like the narrative would finally win. At every turn, Notre Dame saw the path the universe had laid down for it and promptly went in the exact opposite direction.
In the end it didn’t matter if they won the title by a ridiculously awesome shot or by twenty points (though, to be clear, the ridiculously awesome shot is much preferred). What mattered is that this team refused to let themselves be remembered in any other way than as national champions. They played their own destiny, their own legacy, into existence. They wouldn’t let themselves do any less. The thrilling classics on Final Four weekend captured this team’s essence, but it was always there.
I said last post that these were a quite long-winded way to express what this team means to me. Now, though, I realize it’s more of a thank you. Thank you for the gift of the sport you love, and all the joy and inspiration it has given me since you showed me how to love it. Thank you for showing what perseverance looks like and never thumping your chest about doing so. Thank you for never giving in to excuses, for telling the oddsmakers and prognosticators to shove it. Thank your for playing together, for playing tough, for playing with an edge. Thank you for shaping your own narrative rather than being shaped by those of others. Thank you for living out the words of the Victory March every day, for reminding us what character looks like, for showing us that no one has any business telling us when to quit, or how to be, or what not to dream. Thank you for showing us what you can do when you figure out how to swim your way.
Thank you for being you.
– EC
Emergency Caffeine 
Leave a comment