I know that most of the blog’s focus is on the men’s basketball tournament, but if you have not been watching the women play, you have missed out on some great basketball games. The final on Sunday featured two Pac 12 schools as Stanford and Arizona played for the championship.
Stanford jumped out to the early lead, but Arizona would keep fighting back. A great example is simply looking at the first two quarters where Stanford jumped out to a 16-8 lead at the end of the 1st, watched Arizona come back to take the lead in the second at 21-20, and then Stanford scored the next 11 points, before Arizona finished the scoring to cut the halftime lead to 31-24. Arizona continued to cut that lead down to 3 by the end of the 3rd quarter.
Every time it seemed that Stanford would get the game under control, Arizona would come charging back. Every time Arizona got close, Stanford would come up with an answer to hold off the Wildcats. With 3 1/2 minutes to play, Arizona’s Aari McDonald made a three-pointer from the top of the key to cut the lead to 51-50. But after a good defensive stand by both teams, Stanford’s Kiana Williams passed the ball into Haley Jones, who made the basket and was fouled. After Jones hit the free throw, Stanford had a 54-50 lead.
The last 2 minutes was a display of the great defenses of both teams. Arizona stole the ball twice, but couldn’t convert on the offensive end. Aari McDonald kept trying to will the Wildcats to a victory by getting to the free throw line on her drives – after making two free throws with 37 seconds left, the lead had shrunk to 1 point.
Arizona decided to play for the defensive stop. Stanford let the shot clock dwindle down, but when they started to initiate their offense, Arizona stepped in and stopped them cold, forcing a shot clock violation. Arizona was going to get the ball at half-court with 6.1 seconds to play and a chance to win the national championship.
The Wildcats got the ball into their star player – everyone knew it would likely be McDonald who would get the last shot. But this time, it was the Stanford defense that swarmed in and stopped her. In desperation with one second left, McDonald put up a heavily-contested fade-away jumper from near the three-point line, but it would not go in. Stanford had held on for the 54-53 victory.
It was a really fun game to watch for the casual basketball fan who had no rooting interest. The game was close, it had star players like Haley Jones and Aari McDonald, and the national championship came down to the final shot. You can’t ask for more out of a game. Both teams played their hearts out in a really, great basketball game.
Congratulations to the Stanford women’s basketball team – the 2021 women’s national champions!!!!