Notre Dame Women That Ended UConn's Streak Go OT vs. Va Tech's 2023 Final 4 (note, replaced Va Tech 2024 in Game)

 The Notre Dame 2001 team that won the national title after ending UConn's 7-year run as Big East champ did not lead for a single second of regulation against Virginia Tech's 2023 Final Four team. However, Niele Ivey stole the ball on the last two Tech possessions and on the second one passed ahead to Kelley Siemon, who was fouled and sent to the line for two shots. As a 45% free throw shooter (1-9 is a made free throw, 10-20 is missed), Siemon hit one of two to tie the score 71-71 and the Irish won 80-76 in OT.

We had a couple of card clean-ups before the debut game for both teams. First the rebound range of Ruth Riley, who we ranked as the 31st best player in the history of women's college basketball, has her offensive and defensive rebound ranges increased slightly to 1-6. She led the Big East in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots to end UConn's 7-year run of Big East regular season titles and come within three points of an undefeated season. Notre Dame lost by 2 at Rutgers, then by 1 at UConn in the Big East tournament, but then beat them badly in a neutral court on the way to the title game.

We also realized we had inadvertently put the Virginia Tech 2024 team in the game (see third set of cards below), which was also very good but lost in the second round and finished 13th in the final AP poll and was a 4-seed. Instead, we played this game using the new Virginia Tech 2023 cards for the team that went to the Final Four after finishing 4th in the Final AP poll and being a 1-seed. As noted on the cards now in the Value Add Basketball Game, only three of this year's players were on the Final Four team.

Last year's team actually was not quite as good as this year offensively, but was even better defensely.

#20 LSU 2023 with Angel Reese is the only top 20 team in the game we have not yet played.

Virginia Tech 2023 Starters Pos Stats Georgia Amoore 1-PG 5'6,16.3 Pts Kayana Traylor 2-SG 5'9,11.0 Pts Cayla King 3-SF 6'0,8.3 Pts Taylor Soule 4-PF 5'11,10.9 Pts Elizabeth Kitley 5-C 6'6,18.2 Pts.

 Virginia Tech 2023 Bench Pos Stats Ashley Owusu 1-PG 6'0,5.1 Pts Charlise Dunn 2-SG 6'2,1.4 Pts Taylor Geiman 3-SF 6'0,0.6 Pts D'asia Gregg 4-PF 6'2,4.8 Pts Clara Ford 5-C 6'3,0.7 Pts 

 Notre Dame 2001 Starters Pos Stats Niele Ivey 1-PG 12.1 pts, 5'8 Alicia Ratay 2-SG 12.9 pts, 6'0 Kelley Siemon 3-SF 11.3 pts, 6'2 Ericka Haney 4-PF 11 pts, 6'0 Ruth Riley 5-C 18.7 pts, 6'5 

Notre Dame 2001 Bench Pos Stats Jeneka Joyce 1-PG 5.2 pts, 5'9 Monique Hernandez 2-SG 2.6 pts, 5'9 Le'Tania Severe 3-SF 1.9 pts, 5'8 Meaghan Leahy 4-PF 3.1 pts, 6'4 Amanda Barksdale 5-C 1.4 pts, 6'3