No, UConn didn't make it. Let's get that out of the way first: The 2018 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament will not end with a Huskies championship. Notre Dame and Mississippi State, two really great teams and No. 1 seeds who happened to beat UConn the past two years, instead will face in the title game.
And that's great, because these two teams have a lot at stake and a lot of talent.
Mississippi State has never won an NCAA championship and in the midst of the best four-year run in program history -- the first time the Bulldogs have made the tournament four consecutive years. Senior guards Victoria Vivians, the star of the team, and Morgan William, the 5-5 sparkplug whose jumper beat UConn last year, drive this team's success, but 6-7 junior center Teaira McCowan has exploded this season and been the primary reason that the Bulldogs have improved.
Notre Dame has a title under its belt, in a 2001 run led by Ruth Riley. But Muffet McGraw, in her 31st year as Irish coach, has seen her teams lose in the title game four times in the past seven years -- twice to Baylor, twice to UConn. Juniors Arike Ogunbowale and Jessica Shepard give this team a potent inside-outside combination that can't match Mississippi State's Vivians-McCowan combo in size but has the skill to challenge. The team's top four players all return next season.
So what we have is the makings of a classic title game. How did we get here, though? Check out the full NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament bracket by clicking here.
