UConn women fall to Mississippi
The Mississippi State women’s basketball team had the misfortune of playing the University of Connecticut in the 2016 NCAA Tournament.
UConn, the most-storied program in the distaff history of the women’s sport, won by 60 points — 60 POINTS! 98-38.
Sponge, meet rock. Guppy, meet whale.
Two weeks and five days later, this past March 31, the programs met again in the semifinal round of this season’s NCAA Tournament.
The Huskies came in riding a 111-game winning steak. No known basketball team at any level of college or professional sports had a streak of consecutive victories even approaching that number.
The result was what is being hailed as the greatest upset in the history of women’s basketball and, maybe, the greatest surprise result all time from any sport.
Mississippi State 66, UConn 64 in overtime.
That 60-point difference from the previous year? This time, the Bulldogs held UConn to 60 TOTAL points before the overtime session.
And, it all had a local connection.
Christina Richardson, who was on Ali Jaques’ staff with the Siena College women’s program as its director of basketball operations for the 2014-15 season, is Mississippi State’s graduate assistant coach.
Success seems to follow Richardson around. She was a freshman manager for the 2010-11 Texas A&M women’s program when it won that season’s national championship.
When Richardson was at Siena, the Saints finished 22-13 (their only winning record in the past 13 seasons) and went to the championship game of the the Women’s Basketball Invitational post-season tournament.
And, now, this, being part of an upset that goes down in the annals with Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson and the 1980 Olympic hockey team beating Russia and, then, winning a gold medal.
Mississippi State, though, didn’t use the springboard of its upset to win the national title, losing to South Carolina in the title contest.
But basketball fans will surely long remember that the Bulldog ended UConn’s 111-game win streak, much like many still remember that it was Notre Dame ending the Bill Walton-led UCLA’s 88-game string of victories in 1974.
“I don’t think we had a `hangover’ after the UConn
game,” says Richardson, in a phone interview. “South Carolina is just a good team (and, had beaten Mississippi State twice earlier in the season) and played better than us that day.”
But, two days earlier Mississippi State was better than UConn.
“That was just incredible … they are such an unbelievable team,” says Richardson. “The best part about beating them was that no one thought we could do it.
“We read all the articles (about UConn’s dominance). ESPN had something indicating that when Baylor lost (in the NCAA tournament), it pretty much clinched things for UConn … that Baylor was the only team with a chance to beat them. People were talking about UConn’s winning streak eventually getting up to 200.
“All of that kind of fueled our fire. As did the 60-point loss to them last year. That was the largest Sweet 16-round margin of defeat in tournament history. That never went away. We thought about it all the time, and that we got a chance to have some redemption … we took that very seriously.
“We never doubted that we could beat them. We knew they had one of the greatest teams to ever play the game. But we knew what we had, too. Our kids thought someone had to do it, so why not us?
“That was our mentality, and we shocked the world. It was so surreal to be part of that. It will probably take a while to realize the full ramification of what we did. At some point we’ll step back and see that we stopped the longest winning streak of all time.”
Things seemed to fall into place for the upset, starting with a Huskies’ team that, despite its success, was relatively inexperienced in big-game settings. And, then, there was Mississippi State’s opportunity to reverse the embarrassment of the previous year’s 60-point setback.
“It wasn’t anything we put in writing in our locker room … we didn’t need that because just the thought stuck with us so long,” Richardson says. “We didn’t have to remind the kids. This was our opportunity, win or lose, to show the world what we could do.
“We pride ourselves on locking up opponents with our defense, and this was a challenge any defensive-oriented team dreams about taking on.”
Challenge met. The 60 points scored by UConn in regulation was its lowest one-game production of the season.
Its 64 total points was just one more from its next-lowest one-game total, and 24 points below its per-game average.
Being on the Mississippi State staff was a homecoming, of sorts, for Richardson.
“Coach (Vic) Schaefer was the coach at Texas A&M when I was there, and five of the seven people on our staff were also together at A&M,” she says. “We have all worked hard to make the entire program there and here a family-type situation.
“When they had an opening for a grad assistant (prior to the 2014-15 season), and they called me … I couldn’t think of a better opportunity.”
Richardson’s role was mostly an administrative one, with responsibility for arranging travel, ensuring the transport of equipment, arranging for practice time, overseeing student managers and getting a group of competent male players together to occasionally practice against.
It enabled her to be part of something special.
“The reaction from large crowds there for when we left for the Final Four and upon our return … to see see how everyone in our community took such great pride in this … has been incredible,” Richardson says. “To see signs of support at business, in residents’ windows … for the people who go to school here, or live here, it means so much, so much more than we even know.”
Incredible, indeed. It enabled her to be part of something that likely will be remembered forever, part of the team that ended UConn’s 111-game winning streak.