Friday night, Samuelson, Durr, and Ogunbowale were on the floor at Nationwide Arena. Louisville was about to celebrate a berth in the title game until Roshunda Johnson drained a 3-pointer with 5.7 seconds left, extending the game. This is the first time in the 37-year history of the Women’s Final Four that both semifinals have gone to overtime. The Huskies were just 4-of-6 from the line. “What she did well in practice translated to games and she had a very good season for us”. “That explains our success, that’s the easy answer”, said Geno Auriemma, tongue firmly in cheek. In 2011, “we beat Tennessee in the regional, came in and beat CT”.
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They’ve been there, they’ve done that, they know CT like the back of their hand. We were spent. That was all the emotion that we had. “But to have an upstart like that go this far is not a disaster obviously, but not the best of all scenarios for us”.
UConn (36-0) found itself on the losing end in the national semifinal a year ago against Mississippi State, so the team has extra motivation this year.
Mississippi State plays superb defense and makes your life hard to get open.
“It’s all about the mind-set”, McGraw said. They have been for years. They know what it’s like.
“I know I just had to shoot it at the last minute”, Ogunbowale said.
Notre Dame’s opponent in the title game will be Mississippi State who also needed overtime to win its semi-final over Louisville.
“Yeah, we watched the UConn-Notre Dame game but then were able to get to sleep around 12:30 a.m.”, said William, who hit the buzzer-beating shot that dropped UConn last season. That’s the world we live in, ” Auriemma said. “For a long, long time, we made it look like it was easy, but it’s very, very hard, as it’s played out the last two years”. At this point in time, everyone’s sore. “Each team had a chance to prove what kind of team they were”. Ogunbowale missed her two free throws a few seconds later.
After Connecticut tied with game with 13 seconds remaining, Irish guard Arike Ogunbowale scored with one second left giving Notre Dame the win, and handing the Huskies their first loss this year.
Despite all those trips, the Irish have captured only one national title, in 2001. The winners play for the national title on Sunday.
A three by junior guard Marina Mabrey provided Notre Dame its first lead of the second half at 54-53, and it turned into ebbs and flows for both programs thereafter.
From the beginning, it was clear that the Irish came to play.
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The 11th seeded Loyola Chicago Ramblers meet the 3rd seeded Michigan Wolverines in an NCAA Tournament 2018 Final Four game at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on Saturday, March 31, 2018 (3/31/18). “So I feel like there’s a sense of letdown even that we didn’t win the ACC tournament this year”. “I think if we come out the way we should, we’ll be just fine”. We really focused on that. The first one gets underway at 6:09 EST between MI and Loyola. “It goes back and forth”.
