GAMECOCKS, BULLDOGS BATTLE FOR TITLE …
The Southeastern Conference has stormed to the pinnacle of women’s college basketball. In fact, this Sunday’s national championship game will be a repeat of last month’s SEC title tilt.
Sort of like the old Alabama-LSU football rivalry … only exciting.
The University of South Carolina – playing in its second Final Four in three seasons – punched a ticket to its first-ever title game with a 62-53 win over Stanford. Meanwhile Mississippi State University advanced to its first-ever championship game with a historic 66-64 overtime victory over mighty Connecticut – which lost for the first time in an NCAA-record 111 games.
The four-time defending national champion Huskies were last defeated on November 17, 2014 – losing to Stanford 88-86 in overtime. That’s a whopping 867 days without a loss.
Even more impressive? All but three of Connecticut’s wins over its record run were double-digit victories – and sixty-one of them were blowouts of forty-points or more.
How’d their streak end?
Morgan Williams – a 5-foot-5 junior guard from Birmingham, Alabama – hit a pull-up jumper at the buzzer in overtime to lift the Bulldogs, who prior to this season had never advanced beyond the Sweet Sixteen.
Here’s the climactic moment of what is already being called the biggest upset in women’s basketball history …
HAIL STATE! @HailStateWBK wins on an overtime buzzer-beater! pic.twitter.com/UZFvxAtfsR
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) April 1, 2017
Here’s another look …
Relive the final moments of tonight's game! And then relive it again! #HailState pic.twitter.com/G9Cs7EDu9e
— Mississippi State Women's Basketball (@HailStateWBK) April 1, 2017
Under head coach Geno Auriemma, Connecticut has won eleven national championships – six of them coming at the end of perfect seasons.
Not this year …
#HailState’s historic upset means South Carolina won’t get a rematch against the Huskies (36-1) – who defeated them in Storrs, Connecticut earlier this season by a 66-55 margin. Instead it will be Mississippi State seeking revenge.
The Gamecocks (32-4) and Bulldogs (34-4) have met twice already, with South Carolina earning a 64-61 win at home on January 23 and a 59-49 win in last month’s SEC championship. A three-peat would give head coach Dawn Staley’s squad the program’s first ever national championship.
Staley’s team has won three straight SEC regular season/ tournament championships, and eclipsed the 30-win threshold in each of those seasons.
Can they bring the title home?
Sunday night’s championship tilt is set to tip off at 6:00 p.m. EDT with ESPN televising the game nationally.
Banner via Travis Bell Photography