Paige Bueckers had a remarkably nuanced take on a critical call with 3.9 seconds left in their Final Four match that all but doomed the Huskies’ chances to triumph. They were down by one, but had the offense set up to get the ball in the hands of their transcendent star for a potential game winner. As she drove right off a screen from Aaliyah Edwards, however, the latter was called for an offensive foul for having illegally cut the path of defender Gabbie Marshall. “Everybody can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game,” she said in her post-mortem.
Bueckers is right, to be sure. And, in connection with her view, it’s also significant to note that Edwards did set a moving pick to prevent Marshall from crowding her. Had the whistle not been blown, the Huskies would have been able to take a questionable stab at the basket as she curled for either a shot or a pass. If there’s any knock on the stoppage of play, it’s that the development denied players the opportunity to decide the outcome of the set-to for and by themselves. Unfortunately, there can be no escaping the criticism either way given the stakes and the intrinsic partisanship in hoops competitions.
Contests are zero-sum games, especially in the NCAA tournament. As good as the protagonists may be, one setback is all it takes to eliminate them from contention for the championship. For the Huskies, the good news is that Bueckers will be staying on for another campaign. And with a full roster, their March Madness experience in 2025 figures to be marked different. The fact that Caitlin Clarke will have moved on to the pros by then cannot be understated as well.
For now, though, the Huskies will have to content themselves watching the Hawkeyes do battle against the Gamecocks in the final. And as they ruminate on what could have been, they will, no doubt, draw on their disappointment to motivate them next year. The one controversial moment that did them in the other day may yet serve them in good stead moving forward.
Anthony L. Cuaycong has been writing Courtside since BusinessWorld introduced a Sports section in 1994. He is a consultant on strategic planning, operations and human resources management, corporate communications, and business development.