Morgan William: “I was fine”. It held Mississippi State without a basket for over four minutes, and to only one field goal for over six minutes.
It was the last game of the season, that ended in the best way for the University of SC.
Coming off one of the biggest upsets in the history of sports, knocking off the undefeated number one overall seed Connecticut Huskies in overtime, the Bulldogs fall to SEC rival SC in the national championship game, 67-55. That came after she scored 41 points in an overtime win over Baylor in the Elite Eight.
To win their first national title, they had to go through the Bulldogs, who shocked UConn with a buzzer-beating 66-64 victory on Friday night.
Numerous team’s best players during its 34-5 season will be back next season, including point guard Morgan William who hit the buzzer-beater to knock off UConn leading scorer Victoria Vivians and 6-foot-7 forward Teaira McCowan.
Wilson had 23 points and 10 rebounds, and Gray added 18 points and 10 boards.
SC held a 40-27 rebounding advantage. The Bulldogs would pull to within 54-50, before SC would counter with a pair of baskets to take their lead back out to eight with 4:47 to go in the game.
The Bulldogs will home the tournament’s best moment, but SC will take home the trophy. “Again, y’all, it’s a long, hard grind of a year, of a season. We weren’t executing offensively”, Dillingham said.
“Let me touch that!” she yelled as her players passed around the championship trophy amid falling confetti. Then she got a little help from her teammates as Dillingham got a steal that led to an easy jumper by Okorie, making it 31-22 and a single-digit deficit.
There were plenty of UConn fans among the announced crowd of 19,229 in the arena.
Staley has been to the White House before, representing the U.S. Olympic team when George W. Bush was president in 2004.
SC has weathered an early surge from crowd favorite Mississippi State to take an 18-14 lead after one quarter of the NCAA women’s championship game Sunday night. Her jumper sparked a 12-2 run after the Bulldogs cut the lead to four.
LOS ANGELES (AP) – D’Angelo Russell scored 28 points and three Los Angeles Lakers had double-doubles in a 108-103 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies Sunday. It has been more than five years since she has seen her immediate family in Nigeria.
Down the stretch, State simply had no answer for Wilson on eitherr end of the court.
It looked like SC would start the second period up 16-14. During that span, SC turned a 14-12 deficit into a 25-16 lead, which it would never surrender. She is not surprised by her coach’s selection as head coach of the national team because of her work ethic and drive. She missed the first, but made the second, creating a difference of 10.
“It means I can check off one of the things that has been a void in my career”, Staley said.
Peck later became a basketball analyst for ESPN, and a few years ago, when she met Staley in that capacity, she offered a gift.
After tonight’s championship game, Staley remarked that the first and only other African-American female coach to win a national championship, Carolyn Peck, gave her a piece of the net from her 1999 win.
The title was the culmination of the Gamecocks’ climb under Staley, who was hired in 2008.
“She was a scoring sensation as a schoolgirl in Mississippi”, Voepel says, “and [Schaefer] felt that if Mississippi State was going to have a chance to be a great program, it was going to have to keep [Vivians] in state”.