For the first time in the history of the program, the University of Washington women’s basketball team is going to the Final Four. That’s a fun sentence to type.
The Huskies defeated Stanford on Sunday morning to complete a semi-miraculous run through the Lexington Regional, one that included true road wins over No. 2 seed Maryland and No. 3 seed Kentucky before toppling the Cardinal. A group that finished fifth in the Pac-12 and was unranked in the final AP poll of the regular season is now one of the last four teams alive in the country, thanks to the play of its big three and the sideline wizardry of coach Mike Neighbors. In retrospect, replacing Tia Jackson with Kevin McGuff, who brought Neighbors with him to the UW as an assistant, might be the best thing Scott Woodward ever did as AD.
In case you spent the morning hunting for Easter eggs, here are the ten best things that happened in the UW’s wire-to-wire win.
1. The celebration
It’s always fun to watch people be happy. And from Neighbors seeming like he was about to cry to Kelsey Plum throwing up the dorkiest/most adorable three-point signal of all time as she yelled “We’re going to Indy!” to Chantel Osahor talking about how she was just trying to “do work,” the Huskies’ series of post-game interviews with ESPN reporter Allison Williams were seriously entertaining. I’ve just hopped on the bandwagon this past month or so, but this particular pack of Huskies is an easy bunch to root for.
2. Chantel Osahor in the post
And Osahor, the UW’s 6-foot-2, weight-unlisted junior, is the easiest to root for of them all. What a unique, enthralling player. She was the best women on the floor against Stanford, putting up a career-high-tying 24 points and 16 rebounds. Much of that damage she did down low, using an unorthodox bag of tricks to work her way into good position and displaying a serious knack for drawing contact. She was a monster on the defensive end, too. The Cardinal scored a grand total of 12 points in the paint, a statistic that can be traced directly to Osahor’s ability to contest shots and take up space without fouling.
3. Chantel Osahor from three-point range
Then there’s Osahor’s three-point shot, which I keep mistakenly referring to as a jumper. It is not a jumper. She does not jump. She barely moves at all. It might be the most static shot I’ve ever seen. Osahor simply raises the ball with her left arm, flicks her wrist, and fires a laser beam toward the basket before the defense can react. Three out of five times on Sunday, it went in, giving the Huskies a much-needed floor-stretching threat as Talia Walton had a rare off night from the field. I would watch Osahor shoot three-pointers in an open gym by herself for an hour. It is mesmerizing.
4. Chantel Osahor in general
My favorite moment of the broadcast was when ESPN showed a clip of the entire UW roster stretching and warming up on the floor before the game — well, the entire team except Osahor, who a slow zoom revealed was relaxing calmly on the bench. Play-by-play man Dave Pasch also revealed that Osahor has lost 70 pounds since coming to the UW, a fact of which I was not aware, and that she was once hit by a car while riding her bike. She also happens to be the UW’s second-best passer, a truly gifted rebounder, and one of the most creative offensive post payers you’ll ever see in women’s college basketball. Forget watching her shoot threes in an open gym, can we get a Chantel Osahor reality show?
5. The first three minutes
The game’s opening stretch was an encapsulation of this postseason run as a whole. The Huskies showed no fear, burying jumper after jumper to open up a 12-0 lead by the seven-minute mark of the first quarter, looking less like an underdog than a No. 7 seed playing in the Elite Eight has any business doing. Against Maryland, against Kentucky, and again against Stanford, the UW has just flat-out been the better team.
6. Kelsey Plum’s giddyup
Plum is a blur on the break, one of the more entertaining women’s players in the country in transition. When she has the ball in the open court, she often breaks out a little hop-step to set up her defender for whatever the next move may be — a crossover, a dish, a pull-up. It’s almost looks like Plum is too full of energy for her body to handle. She can’t stay still, has to do something, and the little stutter is what naturally comes out. Good thing, because it’s quite effective. The UW’s all-time leading scorer clearly wasn’t at her best against Stanford, but still managed to finish the contest with a game-high 26 points and eight assists.
7. The presence of a Kingma
It wouldn’t be a true Husky basketball team if there weren’t a Kingma involved. Kelli is this team’s representative from the Mill Creek basketball dynasty, and she came up huge on Sunday, burying a pair of corner threes in the first half that helped the Huskies grow their lead to double digits.
8. Mike Neighbors’ ATOs
Maybe it’s because I spend so much time watching the UW men’s team lob the ball up to a guard at the top of the key, but man is it fun to watch the Huskies actually execute a play coming from out of bounds. Neighbors was in peak form against Kentucky in the regional semifinal, drawing up a particularly sweet play to get Walton a layup out of an underneath inbound, and he was at it again versus the Cardinal, finagling Alexus Atchley free for a layup at a key juncture in the second half to prevent Stanford from getting too close. Good coaching can go a long way.
9. Debbie Antonelli’s thoroughness
Best quote from the broadcast, from our color commentator, a pioneer of women in sports media: “I watched all of Talia Walton’s three-pointers from this season this morning on Synergy.” Tip of the cap, Ms. Antonelli, tip of the cap.
10. The road ahead
So, the Huskies are going to the Final Four. In and of itself, that’s pretty awesome. Even better, though, is that the UW will face a very winnable game next Sunday in Indianapolis, against either No. 4 seed Syracuse or No. 7 seed Tennessee. The Huskies will likely be an underdog against either opponent, but shoot, that hasn’t stopped them so far. It’s completely realistic that the UW could play for a national title. Would they lose by 40 points to Connecticut? Almost without question. But it would still be a delight. The coolest UW sports story of the past decade still has a chance to get even cooler.