A’Ja Wilson hoists the trophy. ESPN screenshot

All week I’ve been kicking myself for not going to Dallas for what was a truly historic women’s Final Four.  Sure, our flat screen TV gave me an up close view of Morgan Williams’ buzzer-beating shot that dethroned UConn. But to revel in the excitement of what turned out to be two watershed moments in women’s basketball history would have been amazing. Otherwise, here are my reflections from afar on this year’s Division 1 NCAA tournament.

I don’t subscribe to the “UConn was bad for women’s basketball” philosophy. But you have to admit that watching games in which the outcome is still in doubt in the fourth quarter is a lot of fun. Apparently, lots of others thought so too. According to an NCAA press release, the audience for the final game was 20 percent higher than last year’s and the number of people streaming the game doubled from a year ago.

The Women’s Basketball Coaches Association invited 61 graduating female players to a workshop during their convention last week titled, “So You Want to Be a Coach.”  Obviously, the WBCA is concerned that there aren’t more women coaching college women.  Dawn Staley’s leading USC to the women’s Division I championship is likely to have more of an impact than any workshop could.  Staley has been a pioneer and a game changer since her days as a point guard at the University of Virginia. The fact that she’ll be coaching the U.S. Olympic team in 2020 will also give her the opportunity to be a more public role model and spokesperson, some would say, in the mold of Pat Summitt.

I was initially quite critical, but now I’m thinking that Vic Schaefer’s decision to keep Mississippi State’s  “itty bitty” Morgan William on the bench in the final quarter of the championship game might have made sense. I don’t know the whole story, of course. But if she was completely spent from Friday night’s overtime win over Connecticut and all the subsequent media attention, the change was warranted. Maybe Schaefer deserves kudos for going with his gut — I still don’t think William would have hurt their chances, but I also don’t think USC was  going to be denied their championship.

South Carolina is on top of the women’s basketball world, but the Gamecocks still haven’t beaten UConn. Will they lack “street cred” in the minds of some potential recruits until they do? There are lots of good reasons for playing for Geno Auriemma. But I know I’d rather play for Dawn Staley. She seems to have a great basketball mind, the ability to get her players all on the same page, and the sense to surround herself with winners when it comes to her coaching staff. She also emphasizes the building of relationships in the Pat Summitt mold. I loved seeing her wearing her ball cap, dancing it out, sticking out her tongue, and just generally enjoying the moment after USC’s victory last Sunday.

 Next year’s tournament is in Columbus, Ohio, hosted by Ohio State. A limited number of tickets are already on sale, but you will soon be able to register to be notified when the bulk of them go on sale next fall. No regrets next time!

When Mississippi State and South Carolina tip off tonight in the NCAA Division I National Championship in Dallas, lots of fan may not have decided which team to root for.  Some will say that women’s basketball is the victor no matter who wins just because UConn will not be vying for its fifth title in a row.  Even South Carolina coach Dawn Staley voiced that sentiment in her pre-game press conference yesterday.

“Sometimes we lose sight of how good women’s basketball is because of UConn’s dominance… it takes UConn’s losing to appreciate what’s taken place (in the women’s game) over the past few years,” she said.

Staley went on to describe how hard she and other top tier programs have worked to create the “layers below what UConn has been able to do over the past decade.” When you’re up against a juggernaut like Connecticut, after all, it’s tough to compete for recruits, for attention, and for the hearts and minds of women’s basketball fans.

Coach Dawn Staley calls Allisha Gray “the silent assassin.”

Staley’s done a masterful job of getting South Carolina to the national stage, poised for a championship, in her nine seasons as coach of the Gamecocks. She took over a program in 2008 that was an SEC also-ran (because of Tennessee’s dominance). The program slowly but surely improved every year, but  things really started taking off in 2012, when the Gamecocks beat Tennessee for the first time in the program’s history and made it to the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA tournament. Staley credits the signing in 2011 of homegrown talent, Aleighsa Welch, with starting the turnaround. Welch, who graduated in 2015 and was drafted by the Chicago Sky of the WNBA, was a force inside, but more importantly, helped change the team’s culture.

“Once Aleighsa came to us, the majority of our team believed in our vision,” Staley said. “From a culture standpoint, it started to feel like family.”

Three years later, high school player of the year A’ja Wilson, who lives 13 miles from the SC campus, chose Staley’s program over Connecticut and Tennessee. Last year, Allisha Gray, whom Staley calls “the silent assassin” transferred from North Carolina.

“I don’t know if we’d ever get another No. 1 player in the country if she were not from our area,” Staley said of Wilson.  “Having top players in our backyard has made this dream (of making it to the final game) come true much quicker.”

Staley pleads her case in a game last December. She  will coach the U.S. Olympic team in 2020

Buying into Staley’s vision means loving basketball enough to live it 24/7, as part of a basketball family. That’s certainly been Staley’s way, from the time she was a kid growing up in the projects of North Philadelphia to her time at the University of Virginia — where she was a two-time ACC Player of the Year, two-time National Player of the Year, and three-time Kodak All-American

That vision matured in 1996 when she was a member of the U.S. Olympic team under the tutelage (or maybe thumb is a better word) of Coach Tara Vanderveer.

“I thought about how we sacrificed a year of our life,” recalled Staley during her induction speech into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. “We thought Tara was out to kill us, but it made us depend on each other…. Silver was not an option. She changed the way I approached the game.”

Now Staley, who will be the head coach of the U.S. Olympic team in 2020 (replacing Geno Auriemma), is hoping to assume the mantle of head coach of a national championship team. To make that happen, South Carolina must defeat a team on a tremendous roll — and one that is also on a tremendous high.

In Mississippi State’s historic upset Friday night, the score was oh so close, but the Bulldogs dominated UConn rebounding-wise. South Carolina has an All-American on the inside to compete with 6-7 Mississippi State center Tiara McCowan on the glass. “We’ve gotta find a way to keep A’ja on the floor” and out of foul trouble, Staley admits.

For South Carolina to win, A’ja Wilson, left, and Bianca Cuevas-Moore, right, can’t be doing too much sitting.

The next big task is to find a way to slow down Mississippi State’s phonomenal guard “itty bitty” Morgan William, who hit the winning jump shot against the Huskies Friday night. In their first meeting of the season, which South Carolina won by three, William only scored four points on 2-11 shooting. In the second meeting for the SEC championship, William scored 14, as the Gamecocks won by 11. While Staley thinks junior guard Bianca Cuevas-Moore can keep William from scoring at will the way she did against Baylor and Connecticut, she also knows that, “If she (William) gets in a groove it’s going to be a long night for us.”

Whoever the winner tonight, a new light is being shone on women’s college basketball. And we won’t have to come away from the game saying, “same-old, same-old.”

“UConn’s run was a beautiful thing to watch,” said Staley. “But it’s great to know someone else is going to win the national championship.”

It was late in the third quarter and it looked like Connecticut may have righted the ship against Mississippi State. Its defensive intensity had picked up and the Huskies’ zone defense was forcing the Bulldogs to hang onto the ball too long, unable to get an open look from the outside, or to get the ball inside to their 6-7 center, Teaira McCowan. The predominantly Huskies crowd — that had watched UConn go down by 16 in the first quarter but then outscore Mississippi State in the third –was hopeful.

ESPN video capture

But then Mississippi State’s unflappable point guard Morgan William found the equally unflappable Victoria Vivians in the corner as the shot clock wound down. The money ball went into the net and restored the Bulldogs’ slim lead. The ESPN camera cut to UConn grads Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck in the stands and caught

Stewart slapping her knees in frustration and looking around as if to say, “This shouldn’t be happening.” But it was happening — and there was nothing Stewie could do about it.

You know by now that the game went into OT, where William hit the shot heard round the basketball world to win the game as the buzzer went off. Pundits are calling it the biggest win in women’s basketball ever! And certainly, the revenge was sweet. Having lost last year to UConn by 60 in the Bridgeport regional Sweet Sixteen game, Mississippi State  provided the unequivocally perfect end to UConn’s 111-game win streak.

After last year’s humiliating loss, Mississippi coach Vic Schaefer had said of UConn, “They are like piranhas at a roast. You can’t get that bone out of there fast enough.” But it was principally Breanna Stewart he was talking about.

Breanna Stewart has her eye on the ball in last year’s rout of Mississippi State

“It’s a nightmare,” Schaefer said about trying to stop Stewart. “It’s a challenge. That’s what great players do. That’s what great teams have.”

Breanna Stewart ended her Huskies career last April by leading UConn to its fourth championship in a row. She was the Final Four MVP in each of her four years at Connecticut. She finished her Huskies run on a 75-game winning streak, but even before her college career ended, Geno Auriemma began contemplating the end of UConn’s streak.

“Right now at this point in time, everything that she does, it hits me a little bit harder because I know I’m never going to see this again,” he said after the rout of Mississippi State last March.

That Connecticut won 36 more games without Stewart is a testament to Auriemma’s ability to get the most out of a young, mostly untested team that he admitted didn’t really have an identity.

To their credit, UConn rallied from a 16-point deficit, its biggest during its NCAA record streak, to take a 59-56 lead in the fourth quarter. And yes, UConn junior Gabby Williams came up big, with a (Stewie-esque) block with the score tied to send the game into overtime. But she and her teammates fumbled and stumbled, missed key free throws, and made bad decisions with the ball as the clock wound down, especially in overtime. They were ripe for this upset because they were, in many ways, rudderless.

When William (aka”itty bitty”) hit her shot to win the game for Mississippi 66-64, all Geno could do was smile. I half expected him to look up into the stands to catch Stewart’s eye.

I’m not saying the Huskies can’t win any more championships. The UConn players will be watching the tape of this game a few times before next season starts, I’m sure.  Duke’s 6-6 center, Azura Stevens, who sat out this year after transferring to UConn, (and would have been a big help last night) also will be on the court next year. By all accounts they have one of the best recruiting classes they’ve had, well, since they recruited Stewart.

South Carolina’s A’ja Wilson, left, will be going up against Mississippi State’s 6-7 center on Sunday night for the national championship.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State will be hoping to knock off their third number one seed Sunday night in the National Championship game against South Carolina. It’s a rematch between two powerful Southeastern Conference teams. Though South Carolina won their two meetings during the regular season, the outcome is by no means assured. I’m guessing  lots of people will tune in just to see who the first winner of the post-UConn-juggernaut-era will be.  I know some fans (including me) who didn’t go to Dallas this year because they couldn’t see spending that much money to watch another blowout.  Now that the sea has parted, (or until UConn figures out how to replace Stewie), it’s going to be fun to see what parity might mean for the women’s game.