COLUMN: Shot in arm for women’s basketball
On Tuesday following Notre Dame’s 61-58 win over Mississippi State in Sunday’s national championship game of the 2018 NCAA Women’s Tournament in Columbus, Ohio, I saw a man at Walgreens, and he was wearing a cap with the initials “ND” on it.
He smiled as he passed by, and I said, “Like your hat,” to which he replied, “Those girls are great, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are,” I answered, thinking that perhaps now — after two historic women’s semifinal games and one thrilling finals contest — women who play hoops might finally get their due.
And if it took Notre Dame junior guard Arike Ogunbowale’s amazing last-second winning shots against unbeaten Connecticut and then SEC coach Vic Shaefer’s Bulldogs to turn the tide, well, maybe these iconic moments in time won’t just be seen as the luck of the Irish and onlookers will come to truly appreciate the talents of female college athletes.
While Ogunbowale and her teammates deserve enormous credit for what they accomplished under great pressure and in the harsh glare of the spotlight, their unflappable coach merits our continued admiration. Muffet McGraw, nee Ann O’Brien, kept Notre Dame on track throughout a most difficult Atlantic Coast Conference season, despite having only seven scholarship players to rely on after four others went down with ACL injuries.
The cohesiveness and grit of McGraw’s five starters were sorely tested on Jan. 11 when they were No 2 in the country and lost 100-67 to the No. 3 Louisville Cardinals and on Jan. 18, when the No. 5-ranked Irish, overcame a 23-point deficit — the largest in program history — and beat No. 6 Tennessee, 84-70.
McGraw, the 2018 Associated Press and ESPN Coach of the Year, has an 800-229 record in
31 seasons at Notre Dame and has taken her teams to eight Final Fours. This year’s national championship came 17 years to the day of her first one when Ruth Riley, a senior, hit two crucial free throws to give the top-seeded Irish a 66-64 win over third-seeded Purdue.
In case anyone wonders, I am not new to the Notre Dame bandwagon, having long appreciated the emphasis McGraw places on basketball fundamentals — rebounding, passing, freethrow shooting, set offensive and defensive schemes, plus the know-how and instincts to adjust accordingly.
Only Geno Auriemma’s UConn squad and the Baylor Bears, under the tutelage of former Louisiana Tech All-American point guard and Olympic Gold Medalist Kim Mulkey, can match the efficiency of Notre Dame’s interior passing, selfless sharing of the ball and team-first approach. But this year, no one quite equaled Notre Dame players’ discipline and core belief in what they could do together.
Mulkey’s fiery personality is in stark contrast to McGraw’s more reserved on-court demeanor, but both have won two national titles and both have contributed considerably to the growth of their sport.
Even with the successes of coaches McGraw, Mulkey, Auriemma and Shaefer, along with Tara Vanderveer (Stanford), Joanne P. McCallie (Duke), Karen Aston (Arkansas native and Texas women’s coach), Dawn Staley (South Carolina), Sue Semrau (Florida State), Jeff Walz (Louisville), Gary Blair (Texas A&M), the late Pat Summitt (Tennessee) and the late Sue Gunter (LSU), television coverage, serious media attention and knowledge about the history of the women’s game are not always on a par with the men.
For instance, when the 2018 NCCA Women’s Tournament’s
64 teams were first announced, one self-ascribed online pundit asserted that there should only be a 32-team field because there weren’t 64 good women’s teams in the whole country.
Respect has been a long time coming.
At least for now, more people are paying attention.