Women's Basketball: Irish bring home championship
By TIM CASEY
Senior Staff Writer
Before the season, anyone associated with women's college basketball stated the obvious. Connecticut and Tennessee, the two glamour programs, the defending national champion and runner-up, would more than likely meet once again for the bragging rights (and another banner) on April Fool's Day, 2001.
How cocky was the always self-assured Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma?
"I know you're writing for Notre Dame and you want to write, you know, that I spent all summer worrying about Notre Dame," Auriemma said. "The only thing I spent all summer worrying about was where my next beer and my next tan was coming from."
Auriemma delivered that phrase nearly an hour after Notre Dame's 90-75 win over Connecticut in the semifinal games of the NCAA Final Four. Two nights later, on April 1, the Irish were national champions and the Huskies coach had had a few additional days to down his favorite post-season beverage.
What happened in the ensuing eight months, between the summer of 2000 and the spring of 2001? For one, the Huskies and Volunteers both lost returning All-Americans to season-ending injuries (Connecticut's Shea Ralph and Svetlana Abrosimova and Tennessee's Tamika Catchings) while the Irish maintained a relatively healthy lineup the entire season.
But that's only part of the story. Even if Connecticut and Tennessee's stars had not gone down, Notre Dame still would have been the favorite. In fact, the Irish beat the Huskies by 16 points on Jan. 15, when Ralph and Abrosimova were both healthy. Also, in that game, forward Kelley Siemon played with a broken bone in her left wrist.
The 92-76 win provided the first glimpse of what was to come. On Martin Luther King Day 2001, a group of women turned the normally quiet Joyce Center arena into a Notre Dame Stadium-type atmosphere. Plus, the victory catapulted Notre Dame to its first ever number one ranking and perhaps more importantly, gave the Irish their first win in 12 tries over the Huskies.
"To come out and see the Joyce Center full has been my dream forever since I've been here," McGraw said after the game. "It's one of those moments in my life that I'll always remember."
By season's end, McGraw would have a few more memorable highlights.
There was Senior Day on Feb. 24, the last regular season home game for Siemon, Ruth Riley, Niele Ivey, Imani Dunbar, and Meaghan Leahy. There was the 89-33 win over Georgetown in the Big East tournament, the largest margin of victory in tournament history. There were the first two NCAA games at the Joyce Center, in which the Irish outscored Alcorn State and Michigan by an average of 41.5 points per contest.
There was the 72-64 win over Vanderbilt in the Midwest regional final, a squad coached by Jim Foster, McGraw's former boss at St. Joseph's. There was the come-from-behind win in the Final Four, when the Irish trailed by 16 points late in the first half.
And then there was the national title game. For two hours, Notre Dame and Purdue staged a classic battle. It ended in storybook Indiana fashion, with Riley connecting on two free throws in the final seconds of the 68-66 win.
Save for Tammy Sutton-Brown's last-second block in a 54-53 Rutgers win on Feb. 17 and Sue Bird's buzzer beater in Connecticut's 76-74 Big East tournament title victory and Notre Dame would have been the first undefeated team since the 1998 Tennessee squad.
"I know we talked about it (winning a national title) last year," McGraw said March 31. "But it was sort of a hollow goal. I don't think the team was ready to achieve that, I don't think they were mature enough, I don't think they worked hard enough."
They also weren't talented enough. This year, though, the Irish featured the best trio in the country plus several other players who accepted their roles. Ruth Riley blossomed from a good (but foul-prone) center into the National Player of the Year. Ivey, the unheralded fifth-year senior point guard, finally achieved some national attention and made second-team All-American. Alicia Ratay, a streaky shooter as a freshman in 1999-2000, set the NCAA record for three-point percentage in a season.
And Siemon, junior forward Ericka Haney, sophomore center Amanda Barksdale, and freshman guards Jeneka Joyce and Le'Tania Severe helped the women's basketball team capture national attention.
Even President George Bush, who will address the graduating seniors on Sunday, praised them at a morning ceremony at the White House.
"I love what Coach McGraw said," Bush said on April 23. "She said, `Usually there are negative things that occur during the season. But this year I've had not to call a single team meeting. I've gotten no complaints from professors. We can't even yell at the players, because they do everything we ask.' I need your help with Congress."
All Sports Stories for Friday, May 18, 2001
