Women's Final Four memories? Buzzer-beaters, a dynasty and Minnesota ties

When it comes to picking out the best Final Four moments from the women's NCAA basketball tournament, the list would change depending on who's making it.

In the tournament's 40-year history — minus the canceled 2020 incarnation because of the pandemic — there have been hundreds of memories made, from stunning individual acts to improbable results to team triumphs. And this week's version in Minneapolis is bound to add more.

For South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, the devastating times made the victorious ones sweeter. Staley went to the Final Four as a Virginia player in 1991 but lost in overtime to Tennessee. Since she was a child, her dream was to win an Olympic gold medal and a national championship, and she only ticked off the first of those through her career.

That is, until she became a coach, something she hadn't really foreseen. And in 2017, she finally lifted that NCAA trophy.

"I immediately thought about my Virginia teammates and coaches. I immediately thought about when I first got into coaching 17 years before that happened [at Temple] and all the players and parents who believed that we could win a national championship," Staley said. " … I got them all miniature national championship trophies, and we got a little metal plate that says, 'Because of you,' and I signed my name to it."

Current Louisiana State coach Kim Mulkey — who has won as a player, assistant coach and head coach — echoed how those personal, sometimes even small moments, are what mean the most.

"The very first one in 2005 that I was in as a head coach at Baylor, and realizing that we were going to win," Mulkey said. "With seconds left to go in the game, I just kind of squatted there and just looked into the crowd and looked into the Baylor fans' eyes and the tears streaming down their face and the joy on their faces. And it was just so touching."

Other all-time women's Final Four moments include:

Longtime UConn coach Geno Auriemma has led the Huskies since 1985 and helped them to 11 national titles, including two dominant runs.

The first was a three-peat of titles from 2002 through 2004. Those teams featured future WNBA stars such as Sue Bird, Swin Cash and Diana Taurasi. Such a streak equaled Tennessee under legendary coach Pat Summitt, who had first recorded a three-peat from 1996 through 1998.

But the Huskies one-upped themselves and the Vols by winning four-consecutive titles from 2013 through 2016. Breanna Stewart was on all four of those winning teams, while current Lynx player Napheesa Collier was on the final squad. Stewart was the Most Outstanding Player in each of the Final Fours and finished her career with 2,676 points, behind only former Lynx player Maya Moore (3,036 points) on UConn's all-time scoring list. Collier is third with 2,401 points.

The Huskies' 11 national championships make them the winningest college women's basketball team.

One of the most exciting plays in all of sports is the buzzer-beating shot, and 2018's Final Four delivered two of them not just from the same team but from the same player.

Leading up to that Final Four, Notre Dame had always been this-close to a title. In the eight previous tournaments, the Fighting Irish had made it to five Final Fours and four title games, never finishing lower than the Sweet 16.

While the Irish finished the season with 34-3 record, they endured four major injuries, all ACL tears, which left the team with just seven scholarship players.

But they apparently only needed one.

Arike Ogunbowale was the undoubted star of the Final Four. She and her team took undefeated UConn to overtime in the semis, with the score eventually tied 89-89 with fewer than 30 seconds left. The Irish inbounded the ball after a timeout, passing it around until it reached Ogunbowale, who drove toward the corner and swished a jumper with just a second left on the clock, not enough time for UConn's final desperate play.

In the final against Mississippi State, the dying seconds saw the teams tied at 58-58, as the ball dramatically changed hands twice. Finally, with three seconds left, Ogunbowale caught the inbound pass, headed straight for the corner and recreated her semis shot at the buzzer for the national championship. Well, technically there was 0.1 second left on the clock, but that's all semantics.

One of the most impactful Final Four moments didn't even happen on the court. Back in 2019, Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw delivered an impassioned speech about gender equity in a news conference ahead of the games.

A story had recently come out from ThinkProgress with the headline "Muffet McGraw is done hiring men," and a reporter asked her what importance she put on being a voice in women's basketball.

McGraw came prepared, rattling of facts such as how the 1967 Equal Rights Amendment, which would make discrimination based on sex unconstitutional, failed to pass because it couldn't reach the 38-state ratification benchmark. She noted how despite a record number of women running for and winning seats in government, that still made up only about 25% of Congress. She said she was tired of women breaking into positions of power being a novelty. She said fewer than 5% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

"How are these young women looking up and seeing someone that looks like them, preparing them for the future?" McGraw said. "We don't have enough female role models. We don't have enough visible women leaders. We don't have enough women in power. Girls are socialized to know when they come out, gender roles are already set.

"Men run the world, men have the power, men make the decisions. It's always the men that are the stronger ones. And when these girls are coming up, who are they looking up to tell them that that's not the way it has to be?"

McGraw advocated for sports to be the arena where women see an equal share of 50% power, as millions already participate in and learn life skills from it. And that's why she vowed to only have women in her coaching tree.

"When you look at men's basketball and 99 percent of the jobs go to men, why shouldn't 100 or 99 percent of the jobs in women's basketball go to women?" McGraw concluded. "Maybe it's because we only have 10 percent women athletic directors in Division I. People hire people who look like them, and that's the problem."

Sheryl Swoopes put together one of the most impressive individual performances at an NCAA tournament during her senior season at Texas Tech. In that 1993 run, Swoopes set a tournament record for the most points with 177 through five games.

In the national championship game, where the Red Raiders beat Ohio State 84-82, Swoopes scored 47 points, which was the most in the Final Four for men or women and second-most in the tournament. Swoopes set eight records in that game, from the best tournament free-throw percentage at 81.2% to the most field goals made in a Final Four game at 16 buckets.

Swoopes has earned comparisons to Michael Jordan and went on to WNBA and Olympics careers, winning league MVPs and gold medals. She even became the first female player to have a Nike shoe, the Air Swoopes.

Minnesota has taken center stage at the women's Final Four two times before this year's event. The first was in 1995, the first time the championship came to Minneapolis. The Target Center hosted Connecticut, Stanford, Tennessee and Georgia, with UConn persevering for its first title.

ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo was a star for the Huskies and remembers looking up at the clock toward the end of the game when Tennessee was taking a free throw and realizing her opponent wouldn't have time to overtake her team.

"My life now would not be what it was if it wasn't for us winning that national championship on that Sunday," Lobo said. " … I remember back in the bowels of the arena after we left, talking to media. And I can remember sitting in our locker room at halftime and Coach Auriemma — we were down at the time — giving us a speech. There are places in this building that I feel like anytime I walk in here brings you back to the feeling of that moment."

Almost a decade later, Minnesota again had representation when the Gophers made it to the semifinals for the first time. Current Gophers coach Lindsay Whalen was on that team in New Orleans that ultimately fell 67-58 to eventual winners UConn in the semis. She recalled making the Final Four as "a dream come true."

"I always wanted to see how I stacked up against UConn or Tennessee and/or Stanford. Those were the teams that won multiple championships at that time, and they kind of set the bar for the women's game," Whalen said. " … I just wanted a chance to prove that I could play in those programs, in those moments and against those teams. And thankfully we had a group of young women who just took our moment."