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

Lady Trojans Crush South Carolina for Final all-time Elite 8 Spot, 79-59.

 The Lady Trojans (1983) struggled through the opening round of our all-time great women's team, but dominated South Carolina (2017) in the second round in perhaps the matchup of the two greatest players of all time. This tournament is being played using the Value Add Basketball Game.

Cheryl Miller hit a 3-pointer to close out the first half and start an incredible 51-30 run to win going away 79-59. USC won in a block party - 12 blocked shots spread out over every starter except the point guard. While the underdog moving forward, USC next faces a UConn 2010 that struggled to a single digit opening round win.

The all-time Elite 8 is now set:

#12 Notre Dame 2018 vs #1 UConn 2016

#4 La Tech 1982 vs #5 Baylor 2019

#7 USC 1983 vs #2 UConn 2010

#3 Tennessee 1998 vs #6 Baylor 2012

Miller (16 points, 8 rebounds) hit four 3-pointers, while twins Paula McGee (11, 9 and 4 blocks) and Pam McGee (22, 7 and drew 5 fouls on South Carolina Center Alaina Coates) combined for multiple traditional 3-point plays. They even did one backward, with Pam hitting one free throw but missing the second one, but Paula grabbing the rebound and getting it back to her for a bucket.

USC advances to the All-Time Elite 8.

The 2017 South Carolina was not a dominant champ like the current team. They ended up not playing another top 5 team in the tournament due to upsets by eventual runner up Mississippi State and others. However they may have had the best player ever in A'ja Wilson - though USC could make the same claim with Cheryl Miller.

Wilson single handedly destroyed Ohio State 2016 in the opening round, but was held to 12 points and 9 rebounds against the Lady Trojans four dominant bigs.

Women's Basketball increasing Popularity Shown in Unique Visitors

We hoped to play Cheryl Miller and the 1983 USC squad against the 2017 South Carolina national champs to see which advanced to our All-Time Elite 8 in the Value Add Basketball Game - but too much work to finish tonight.. 

However, a good sign for the popularity of women's basketball was the 1,484 unique visitors on this page on Tuesday - easily the highest of the last three months and one of the highest since the huge audiences when we first released the game in 2019.  

This occurred after a stretch of posts on our first women's basketball tournament using the game - which now features 20 of the greatest women's teams of all-time. As shown on the blogger graph below, generally 100 to 200 unique visitors come to the page. The vast majority go straight to www.pudnersports.com, and we will hit a few hundred when someone takes an interest and reposts the page.

The other thing we cannot ignore is the impact of Notre Dame on the popularity of all sports. In our tournament, the Irish have pulled off the two big upsets to date to become the surprise team of the tournament.

This is just one of many good signs for women's basketball, which had five million viewers for their final last year (best since 6 million for Tennessee vs. UConn in 2004), several recent TV games have shown sell out arenas, and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley noted tickets for their visit to UConn were going for $700.

Here are the stats on the 15,800 unique visits the last three months, led by the 990 who clicked on the Value Add Basketball Game to bring that all-time total to 64,000 to date.

Cinderella Notre Dame Ladies Pull Miracle in OT Win Over Stanford and Elite 8

In the day the real Notre Dame Ladies overcame an injury to claim a share of another ACC title, their 2018 squad pulled off the first true miracle in our all-time great Ladies tournament ... 

Trailing Stanford 74-69 Notre Dame with 40 seconds to play, Notre Dame put all 3-point shooters in the floor in desperation. The normal line-ups is the top row of players in the Value Add Basketball Game, but we wrote the end of game positions from 1 to 5 with big circles on the team sheet below, along with each players stats. 

We also chose the strategy of trying for a 3-pointer. When this is done, each players 3-point made range is increased by 1 for every 1 2-point made at the top of the range that can be turned into a 2-pt missed and rebound automatically goes to the defense. However no player can more than double their 3-pt range. You do not need to use Advanced rules to play the game, but it does allow strategies like this.

In English, the Notre Dame made shot ranges on the cards below changed to:

8-sided	Name	3-pt made	2-pt-made	2-pt now missed, def reb
1	Cole	1-5	6	7
2	Thompson	1-6	None	7-8
3, 6 & 7	Ogunbowale	1-6	None	7-9
4	Mabry	1-7	None	8-9
5	Young	1-4	5-9	10-11
8	Poss TO

For the top square of the 1 possession (0:16 seconds) box the 8-sided die was a "5", so the ball went to Jackie Young, and the 20-sided die was a 6, which is a 2-pointer made. Note the 3-pointer range can only be doubled, so Young's 3-point range could only be increased from 1-2 to 1-4 since the Irish did not have a 5th player with a higher 3-point range. The 20-sided die was a "6," which meant Young made a 2-pointer, still leaving Notre Dame behind 74-71. 

Only a steal or foul results in the spot under the diagonal slash being used as a last possession, thus requiring Notre Dame to use the advanced strategy of going for a turnover or fouling to prolong the game. When going for the steal or foul the 20-sided shot dice is not used, and if the result of the other three is a steal or turnover that result stands with the extra possession created. Any other result is a foul and two shots. The 8-sided die was a "5" sending the ball to Haley Jones, meaning only a 11-16 could be a steal by Jackie Young, or a 41-42 as a turnover on Jones offensive card. It just missed that range as a 43, sending Young to the foul line needing 1 of 2 shots to seal the win.

Jones free throw range was 1-14, a decent 70%, but the 20-sided die came up "20" and then "16" to give Notre Dame one desperation trip down the court needing a 3-pointer to force overtime.

Instead, Arike Ogunbowaie was fouled for two shots. The normal starting five were put back on the court for Notre Dame since at this point the only hope was to make the first free throw, miss the second and then have the two best possible offensive rebounders in the game. In actual basketball the home team grabs an offensive rebound about 33% of the time on a regular shot, but only 17% on a missed free throw - so in the game a missed free throw resulting in an offensive rebound by the Point Guard, Shooting Guard or Small Forward goes to the defense instead. Only the Power Forward (in this case Jackie Young, with a good 1-6 offensive rebound) or Center (in this case Jessica Shepard, with an even better 1-8 offensive rebound).

With the first free throw cutting it to 74-72, the rebound chart was a "10" on the 20-sided die, and a 10 or 20 goes to the highest rebounding range on the entire court (ties go to offense). In this case, Shepard's 1-8 Offensive Rebound topped Haley Jones Defensive Rebound of 1-7, so Jones had the rebound, and on the roll of the four dice scored herself for an unbelievable 74-74 tie and the first overtime came in our women's tournament.

We wrote the stats by each players name on the Notre Dame team sheet above, and the Stanford sheet below, which is followed by the scoresheet which includes the running score through the 5-minute overtime off to the right.

Ogunbowaie's 28-point, 6-rebound, 3-steal, 3-blocked shots game included a 12-6 personal run that cut Stanford's lead from 51-43 to 57-55. 

The overtime went back-and-forth, with Ogunbowaie hitting the final bucket to make it 87-84, and then Stanford also putting in their 3-point shooters as indicated below. 

The Irish will try to continue their Cinderella run next against the #1 all-time seed, 2016 UConn in the Elite 8.

The last Elite 8 spot will be filled by the winner of South Carolina 2017 vs. Cheryl Miller's 1983 team - a USC vs. USC battle. 

Notre Dame Lady's Pull 1st Road Upset

 With the history of upsets by Notre Dame in multiple sports, perhaps the fact that their ladies pulled the first road upset of our all-time great Women's Tournament.

This Value Add Basketball Game was won 76-69 behind a dominant double double by Arike Ogunbowale (20 points, 10 rebounds), despite being fouled twice in the opening possessions on calls missed due to Texas A&M 2011 team being at home.

The 2018 Notre Dame team overcame those and another missed call and there would have been additional calls on Ogunbowale and Jackie Young except both players avoid all fouls on their card so even changing a 66 to 36 roll twice did not become a foul.

The lead was only 71-66 with 2:07 (4 possessions) to play. Ogunbowale then hit a 3-pointer to make it 74-66. Texas A&M scored to make it 74-68 and then put on a press, which entails not rolling the 20-sided die to men any result other than a steal or turnover becomes a foul and two free throws but creates and extra possession by stopping the clock.

Texas A&M got what they wanted, a 42 in the turnover range with a "5" on the 8-sided die to give the ball to Young (15 points, 9 rebounds, 4 blocked shots) who moved from power forward to center after a 5th foul on Jessica Shepard (11 points, 9 rebounds, 3 blocked shots). Note another rebound for each and the Irish would have had three players with double doubles.

However, because Young's turnover range is a great 41-41 the 42 was not a turnover but a foul. Young hit both free throws to make it 76-68, then at the other end of the court she rejected a 3-point shot by Danielle Adams that would have gone in (the 20-sided shot die was a 3 so in her 1-3 range for a made 3-pointer, but you always check defense as well and it was a 22, which any player in the court with a 21-26 can block). Young even grabbed the rebound and Notre Dame advanced 76-69.

The first 10 games of this tournament features the better seed as the home team, but then the rest of the games will be in a neutral court. The only remaining home game is South Carolina 2017 hosting Ohio State 2016.