Purdue vs. Notre Dame
for NCAA championship
ST. LOUIS (AP) – No
matter what happens, the state of Indiana is a winner in the NCAA women’s
championship game.
Notre Dame and Purdue, schools
only 107 miles apart, will play in Sunday’s final. It’ll be
the first in-state final in the 20-year history of the tournament.
"Wow!" Notre Dame
forward Kelly Siemon said. "It’s great for the state, to show
everyone they should come out and watch ’Hoosiers."’
The Irish advanced to the
final for the first time in school history, erasing a 16-point first-half
deficit to beat defending champion Connecticut 90-75, and 1999 winner
Purdue knocked off Southwest Missouri State and shut down the Jackie
Stiles show with an 81-64 victory.
Adding flavor to the matchup
is the way the teams got to this point. Notre Dame (33-2) swapped the
No. 1 rating with Connecticut during the regular season. Purdue (31-6)
is ranked ninth and advanced as a No. 3 seed from the Mideast Regional
despite winning the Big Ten regular-season title.
Many viewed the UConn-Notre
Dame game, a battle of top seeds, as the true title game.
"Everybody’s probably
counting Purdue out," said All-American Katie Douglas, who had
25 points and seven rebounds for the Boilermakers. "We like being
the underdog. Keep making us the underdog because we’ve been successful
so far."
Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw
wanted to play down that angle.
"At this point, the
national final, I don’t think either team is the underdog,"
McGraw said. "I think it’s just two great teams going at it."
This is the 13th meeting
between the teams, and Purdue leads the series 9-3. But Notre Dame won
this season’s only matchup, 72-61 at home Dec. 9.
"They’re a much
better team than they were in December," McGraw said. "Hopefully,
we are too. I think it’s going to be a great game."
The teams have met twice
in the NCAA tournament, with each team winning once. Notre Dame prevailed
in the first round in 1996 and Purdue won in the Midwest Regional semifinals
in 1998.
Notre Dame’s Niele Ivey
had 21 points and Ruth Riley, The AP player of the year, rebounded from
a poor first half with 18 points and seven rebounds.
Riley got two early fouls
and was limited to 12 minutes in the first half, getting only three
points and one rebound.
The Irish shot 57 percent
after the break and finished 8-for-11 from 3-point range for a surprisingly
easy trip to the final. They’ve had only one close call in the
tournament, an eight-point victory over Vanderbilt in the Midwest Regional
final.
Notre Dame held freshman
Diana Taurasi, who had been carrying Connecticut lately, to 1-for-15
shooting.
"We definitely were
keying on Taurasi," McGraw said. "We thought about a box-and-one,
but she missed some shots at the start and we decided to take our chances."
Douglas and Camille Cooper,
who were starters on Purdue’s 1999 title team, starred in the semifinals.
Cooper had 16 points and 10 rebounds, her seventh double-double of the
season.
Purdue had one of its most
dominating inside performances of the season, and the best by far in
the tournament, against Southwest Missouri State. The Boilermakers had
21 offensive rebounds, scoring on numerous second chances, and had a
47-29 overall advantage.
Rebounding hadn’t been
a strong suit earlier in the tournament for Purdue, which was outrebounded
by UC-Santa Barbara and Louisiana State in the first two rounds, were
even with Texas Tech and had a 37-34 edge against Xavier.
"Our game plan was to
face them and get them out," said Southwest Missouri forward Carly
Deer, held to two rebounds. "We kind of threw that out the window.
"They are big and athletic,
and, you know, we just didn’t execute the blocking out that we
would have liked to have."
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