Not that anyone here follows the woman's tournament, but they had a somewhat similar situation. About half the small number of games UConn has lost over the last decade has been to Notre Dame. Last year, this one girl was literally falling every which way while flinging the ball, and her threes just kept going in. She did that against UConn in the semis with a buzzer beater in OT, and then again in the finals at the buzzer to win the national championship. Then this year in the semis, she did basically nothing until UConn had a nine point lead with like three minutes to go, then suddenly she starts flinging threes again that you say can't possible go in but do. Bye bye UConn.
So that sets the stage against Baylor. I told a friend of mine who is a UConn grad that I guaranteed this same girl would miss her shot at the buzzer to lose this year. Baylor hits a drive with about three seconds left, to go up two. You just know this girl is getting the ball, and sure enough she does. She drives to the basket this time, misses the layup, but gets the foul with .3 left. If they played a replay of it, I didn't see it to know if it were a good call. Anyhow, her first attempt rolls around then clanks out (so give credit to the UVA kid for making all three of his shots under that immense pressure). Everyone is in total shock. She now needs to pull a UVA-- miss the foul shot on purpose, though with .3 all they can do is hope for a tip-in rebound. She flings the ball at the front end of the hoop to get a bounce back-- and it goes in. Doh!
OK, so maybe Notre Dame can intercept the inbounds pass and get off a simultaneous shot. On made shots, you can run the baseline to inbounds the ball. Notre Dame assigns someone to defend the inbounder, which you never see after made baskets, but I guess there to make the pass more difficult to complete. The Baylor girl doesn't run the baseline, throws the ball to who knows who, but this tall Notre Dame defender actually bats the pass back at the inbounder and out of bounds-- game over. Baylor is national champion. Doh!
- Jeff |
