Double Digit Underdog Marquette 2019 Rains in 3s vs. Tennessee 1989 in All-Time Midwest Women's Clash

First we will show the playing cards for our all-time Midwest game between our 15-seed Marquette 2019 team and our 2-seed Tennessee 1989 team. While double digit underdogs like MU in this game came in only 12-76 in our game, this was a thriller Value Add Basketball Game as you can see when you scroll down.

The three Tennessee teams in the game coached by Pat Summitt's, with the all time record of 1,098-208, are now 5-1 in our game.

We did catch on slight mistake on a card we will fix (the biggest reason we try to play every team once in the game). Marquette Center Erika Davenport was listed as Suggested Play 27-1. meaning the final 27 possessions of the game. We will correct that to have her suggested play be 44-30 (the first 15 possessions of a game) and then 11-1) which lets super sub and 3-point specialist Selena Lott stay on with a smaller line-up while Davenport is resting from the 29th to 12th possession counting down.

As you can see from the screen shots of the two teams' player cards, the 1989 Tennessee team is rated a +13 while the 2019 Marquette team is a -5, so we expect Tennessee to be about an 18-point favorite. This just means Marquette ranks as about 5 points worse than the average GREAT team in the game. Obviously they were a very good team and during the season they won their average game 82-62.

Above the actual Tennessee player cards you see other notes such as that we rank this as the 7th greatest all-time team in the game, and the fact that we only take one great team per school from a great program means we chose this 1989 team instead of the two other great teams from 1987 or 1991.

Double digit underdogs are 13-76 in our all-time Great Value Add Basketball games, but the Marquette 2019 team came out and did three things that can lead to upsets; 1) from the 40th to the 16th possessions they hit an incredible eight 3-pointers  (so eight 3-pointers in 25 total possessions); 2) They got the opposing superstar Bridgette Gordon in foul trouble early, and 3) they forced 21 turnovers. 

If you look at the suggested possessions played you will see that the five Tennessee subs all played the first seven possessions (44 down to 38) and Marquette's future WNBA player Natisha Hiedeman had just hit a 3-pointer to put Marquette up 32-24 when all the Tennessee starters came in to play possessions 37 to 1 and finish the game.

The Vols put on a tremendous run led by several of Bridgette Gordon's six steals in the closing minutes converted into baskets at the other end as the Vols won the last 3 minutes of the game 8-2 but Marquette held them off for a 68-64 win to advance as the big upset 15-seed winner.'

Freshman and future star Chloe Marotta score the first two baskets, and another bench player Selena Lott who always played most of games but off the bench had the four 3-pointers that sent Marquette to the double digit lead. However, down the stretch it was the all-senior starting five that held off the huge Tennessee run and will now await the winner of the Midwest 7-seed vs. 10-seed game between Ohio State 1993 and Vanderbilt 2002. While an underdog against an all-time great, this MU team rose to No. 8 in the polls and lost by only 5 points at #6 Mississippi State, beat a ranked DePaul team 2 of 3 including a 33-point win, and beat a ranked Rice team in Texas in the first round of the NCAA before losing just 76-78 at a ranked Texas A&M team to just miss the Sweet 16.

Pat Summitt's three teams in the game were probably due for one loss, as they were 5-0 and all three ranked in our top seven teams of all time before this loss, as tracked on our record of scores. Likewise the Marquette program was likely due for a win as the all-time great men's results nullshow the Marquette teams of Dwyane Wade, national champ Butch Lee and Bo Ellis and others are 8-9 in the game. 

The win shoots Marquette from 50th to 30th in our rankings, while Tennessee drops from 7th to 17th. This is a jump similar to when Mark Aguirre and Terry Cummings DePaul team shocked Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's UCLA team. With Tennessee dropping, UConn now has three of the top eight teams and four of the top 10 teams in history in our game. All 13 double digit upsets are listed here.

 

	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	F
Marquette 2019	14	23	18	13	68
Tennessee 1989	14	13	21	16	64

Pos	Marquette 2019	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,Pts,Reb,Ast
1-PG	Danielle King	7	1	2	0	0	3	4	0	2	5'5, 11.9, 4.0, 3.6
2-SG	Natisha Hiedeman	16	2	3	4	4	1	2	1	2	5'8, 17.6, 6.1, 4.5
3-SF	Amani Wilborn	6	0	3	0	0	3	1	1	1	5'9, 11.5, 4.1, 3.3
4-PF	Allazia Blockton	4	0	2	0	0	5	0	0	2	6'0, 14.3, 4.3, 2.2
5-C	Erika Davenport	2	0	1	0	0	5	0	0	2	5'11, 11.9, 9.4, 1.1
Pos	Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,Pts,Reb,Ast
1-PG	Selena Lott	18	4	3	0	0	3	2	0	1	5'11, 7.1, 3.3, 1.4
2-SG	Isabelle Spingola	5	1	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'0, 5.2, 2.2, 0.5
3-SF	Chloe Marotta	6	0	3	0	0	2	0	0	2	6'1, 2.6, 2.3, 0.3
4-PF	Altia Anderson	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2, 0.9, 2.1, 0.2
5-C	Lauren Van Kleunen	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2, 4.5, 3.7, 0.8
	13 Turnovers	68	8	20	4	4	26	9	2	15
Pos	Tennessee 1989	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,Pts,Reb,Ast
1-PG	Tonya Edwards	4	0	1	2	2	1	2	0	1	5'10, 9.7, 3.0, 3.4
2-SG	Dena Head	5	1	1	0	0	3	1	0	1	5'10, 6.4, 3.0, 3.0
3-SF	Bridgette Gordon	18	3	4	1	1	7	6	0	4	6'0, 20.4, 7.0, 2.7
4-PF	Sheila Frost	12	0	6	0	0	9	0	5	1	6'4, 13.7, 6.7, 0.9
5-C	Daedra Charles	11	0	5	1	5	5	0	0	1	6'3, 9.8, 6.7, 0.7
Pos	Bench	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Ht,Pts,Reb,Ast
1-PG	Melissa McCray	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	5'10, 6.4, 3.1, 3.6
2-SG	Debbie Scott	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'1, 4.5, 1.8, 1.0
3-SF	Regina Clark	6	0	3	0	0	2	0	0	1	5'8, 5.1, 2.2, 1.1
4-PF	Carla McGhee	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'3, 5.3, 5.4, 1.2
5-C	Kelli Casteel	2	0	1	0	0	2	0	0	1	6'2, 3.8, 1.9, 0.1
	21 Turnovers	64	4	24	4	8	32	9	5	13

1st Big Upset - W. Kentucky Claims Final 4 Spot - History of other Final 4s

Our 7-seed Western Kentucky scored the first big upset of our 16-team tournament, dominating the boards in a 78-62 win over 2-seed Oregon State. 

We noted Oregon State's one weakness seemed to be low rebounding numbers, but it was not that big a risk in their 81-68 win against James Madison 2024, which is also a weaker rebounding team. However, WKU was a fantastic rebounding team despite the whole team being 6'5 or 6'6 except for the 6'3 superstar Clem Haskins. They dominated the glass with a 40-24 rebounding edge.

Senior center Steve Cunningham's aggressive play took advantage of the soon-to-be great freshman AC Green. With the Hilltoppers leading 60-55 and 5:49 (10 possessions to play) Cunningham drew the 5th foul on Green and hit the basket for an "and-one," sinking the free throw to make it 63-55.

We did not play Green with "soft defense to avoid the foul" because he had two solid backups on Greg Wiltier and Rob Holbrook with stamina left, but Cunningham finished with a double-double (16 points and 10 rebounds) to go with Clem Haskins 21, 8 for the win.

Western Kentucky, which had barely survived Buffalo 2019 in their first game 84-82, will now face Tulsa and Bill Self in one Final 5 game. They will try to spoil a potential match-up of two of the greatest coaches of the 21st century and rematch of the John Calipari (Memphis) vs. Self (Kansas) 2008 championship with two other teams in the game. This one could be Tulsa vs. UMass 1996. However, new Mexico State 1970 will try to eliminate UMass in the other Final 4 game.

In our March 2020 Final 4 from the original 96 all-time great teams in the game, Bill Walton's UCLA beat Mikal Bridges' Villanova 2018 and Michael Jordan's UNC beat Draymond Green's Michigan State. UCLA then won the title, and is now ranked No. 1 of our all-time teams.

In our June 2022 Final Four, Paul Pierce's 1997 Kansas beat 2001 Duke, then another surprise team and the last Big Ten team to win the actual title, Michigan State 2000 beat DePaul 1980 and Terry Cummings. That tournament featured many great teams who were left out of the first batch because we only allowed one team from each school per century. Kansas then won the title and is now ranked No. 2 of our all-time teams.

In our all-time women's Final Four in March 2023, Pat Summit's Tennessee 1998 defeated UConn 2010 in one Final Four game before beating Louisiana Tech 1982, which included Dennis Rodman's sister Debra, in the title game. La Tech had beaten Notre Dame 2018 in the other Final 4 game.

We do have a Sweet 16 of newer teams more recently added we will get back to after this Final 4, and we still need to finish calculating the cards for our 16 new Women's all-time great teams who will also play a Sweet 16 tourament.

 

Pos	Western Kentucky	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Season Actual	Hts
1-PG	Dwight Smith	17	1	5	4	4	3	2	0	3	16.1 Pts, 9.9 Reb	6'5
2-SG	Clem Haskins	21	4	3	3	4	8	3	0	4	20.4 Pts, 10.0 Reb-NBA	6'3
3-SF	Wayne Chapman	9	1	3	0	1	6	0	3	2	13.3 Pts, 4.3 Reb-NBA	6'6
4-PF	Greg Smith	7	1	2	0	0	6	0	3	2	9.5 Pts, 10.3 Reb-NBA	6'5
5-C	Steve Cunningham	16	0	6	4	7	10	0	1	1	15.1 Pts, 7.4 Reb	6'5
1-PG	Mike Fawcett	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.1 Pts, 0.6 Reb	5'10
2-SG	Butch Kaufman	2	0	1	0	0	3	0	0	3	4.0 Pts, 1.0 Reb	5'10
3-SF	Norm Weaver	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.9 Pts, 1.7 Reb	6'5
4-PF	Pearl Hicks	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	2.3 Pts, 3.0 Reb	6'7
5-C	Jack Butler	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	1.8 Pts, 1.8 Reb	6'5
	16 Turnovers	78	7	23	11	16	40	5	7	19
Pos	Oregon St. 1982	Pts	3pt	2pt	FT	Att	Reb	Stl	Blk	Fl	Season Actual	Hts
1-PG	William Brew	7	1	0	4	6	2	2	1	3	6'1,9.2 ppg	6'2
2-SG	Lester Conner	19	2	3	7	10	5	2	1	4	6'4,14.9 ppg, NBA	6'2
3-SF	Danny Evans	14	1	5	1	3	3	1	0	3	6'5,11.3 ppg	6'6
4-PF	Charlie Sitton	10	2	2	0	0	3	0	0	1	6'8,12.9 ppg, NBA	6'7
5-C	A.C. Green	8	0	3	2	2	6	0	1	5	6'9,8.6 ppg, NBA	6'11
1-PG	Alan Tait	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'2,0.5 ppg	6'3
2-SG	Jamie Stangel	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'7,1.4 ppg	6'7
3-SF	Jeff Wilson	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'7,1.2 ppg	6'7
4-PF	Rob Holbrook	2	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	1	6'86.7 ppg	6'9
5-C	Greg Wiltjer	2	0	1	0	0	1	2	0	1	6'11,5.4 ppg	6'9
	13 turnovers	62	6	15	14	21	24	7	3	21

Pat Summitt's Vols Eliminate Griner's Baylor, 73-63

As an almost perfect rebounder, Britney Griner (1-9 offensive rebounder, 1-10 defensive rebounder) was held in check by the perfect rebounder in our Value Add Basketball Game in Chamique Holdsclaw (1-10, 1-10). 

As a result, Pat Summitt's undefeated 1998 Tennessee Vols won the battle of the boards 39-30 and pulled away from a 59-56 lead with five minutes to go to win 73-63.

Tennessee is our first Final Four team in the all-time great Women's basketball tournament, and will face UConn 2010, which barely survived 74-72 vs USC 1983.

The other Final Four game will be the winner of Notre Dame 2018 and UConn 2016 vs the winner of La Tech 1982 and Baylor 2019.

Griner is arguably the best player in the game, as an elite shot blocker and one of the few offensive players to score or draw a foul on rolls of 1-14 and only miss a shot on a 15-20. 

However, unlike the 2019 Baylor lineup where everyone was WNBA bound, point guard Odyssey Sims was the only true star in the 2012 team besides Griner, and that two on five was not enough for Baylor.

The Vols had an unlikely hero in point guard Ace Clement, who is a great shooter but rarely gets the ball to shoot. However this time Holdsclaw (14 points, 12 rebounds) grabbed several offensive rebounds and passed out to Clement who hit shots including a 3-pointer that made it 67-56 with 7 possessions (3:58) to play.

Clement scored 19 points in the game. Typically a trio of other Vols could all put up 20 in the same game - Holdsclaw, Tamika Cummings and Kelly Jolly.

Worth noting that as a freshman Griner first made her true mark by stunning a much weaker Lady Vols team with 27 points and 10 rebounds, and then dominated them again two years later in the last game coached by Summitt. However, that last team was 27-9, not 39-0 like the team in our game.

Pat Summitt's 1998 Lady Vols 80, Liebermann's 1980 ODU 55

Even against perhaps the best women's team in history, ODU's Nancy Lieberman was spectacular with 17 points and 6 steals. However, all five starters scored in double figures for Pat Summitt's 39-0 Tennessee squad from 1998, and center Chamique Holdsclaw scored 12 points with 14 rebounds and four blocked shots as the Lady Vols started the second half on a 12-1 run to pull away for an easy 80-55 win.

For those who play the game, the table in the game instructions showed as overwhelming Vols edge. Tennessee's "51-54=Layup" combined with ODUs defensive "adjust opp LU by 4" combined to give the Vols an uncontested lay-up on a 51-62 on the 11-66 roll each time they had the ball. The suffocating 39-0 Tennessee national champs played out in their -3 on on their adjustment - since ODU had no lay-ups their offensive cards, the -3 on the Tennessee cards meant on rolls of 51-53 the Vols had an automatic STOP meaning missed shot on defensive rebound.

The game took 37 minutes to play as we start from a 20-20 tie and give each team 44+ possessions. With the reserves in for the first seven possessions, ODU's Noreen Kemether hit a 3-pointer immediately, and when the starters came in for both teams with 37 possessions left ODU was within 26-28. However the Tennessee starters were just too much.

Below the starters we show the box score on the game followed by a photo of our first scoresheet in women's play.

Tennessee had home court advantage as the #3 seed, but for the first time in one of our games the 18-seed ODU did not get a single bad call. This was our first Value Add Basketball Game with our new all-time great women's team cards. Tennessee is one of 10 teams to host an opening round game, and will be one of six teams to get a buy to the quarterfinals as one of the top six seeds to advance. The bottom four seeds to advance will be the only teams with a 2nd round game as they will play second round games against each other to get to the quarterfinals.

Here is the box score.

at #3 Tennessee 80, #18 Old Dominion 55

#18 Old Dominion 1980	Pts	Reb	Steals	Blocks	Fouls
Nancy Lieberman	17	2	6	2	4
Angela Cotman	3	1	1	0	2
Rhonda Rompola	6	4	1	0	2
Inge Nissen	2	5	0	0	4
Anne Donovan	13	8	0	3	1
Chris Critelli	2	1	0	0	1
Sue Brown	2	2	0	0	2
Noreen Kemether	6	4	0	0	2
Linda Jerome	2	2	0	0	2
Susan Richardson	2	1	0	0	1
Old Dominion 1980 Totals	55	30	8	5	21

Turnovers: ODU 15, Tennessee 14

 

#3 Tennessee 1988	Pts	Reb	Steals	Blocks	Fouls
Kristen "Ace" Clement	16	3	1	0	1
Kellie Jolly	11	4	1	1	2
Tamika Catchings	10	5	3	0	1
Semeka Randall	13	5	1	0	1
Chamique Holdsclaw	12	14	0	4	4
Laurie Milligan	2	1	0	0	1
Brynae Laxton	3	2	0	0	1
Niya Butts	5	1	0	0	2
LaShonda Stephens	6	2	0	0	1
Teresa Geter	2	4	0	0	1
Tennessee 1988 Totals	80	41	6	5	15

Based on our calculation of the cards, Tennessee was actually a 31-point favorite in the game with the top four seeds heavily favored. South Carolina calculates as just one point better than Ohio State based on their player cards, but with home advantage being worth three points they are favored by four.

Match-up	Home Favored	Actual
#20 Long Beach St. 1987 at #1 Connecticut 2016	34
#19 Duke 2006 at #2 Connecticut 2010	32
#18 Old Dominion 1980 at #3 Tennessee 1998	31	W 80-55
#17 Texas 2018 at #4 Louisiana Tech 1982	25
#16 Louisville 2014 at #5 Baylor 2019	14
#15 Oregon 2019 at #6 Baylor 2012	13
#14 Washington 2017 at #7 USC 1983	9
#12 Mississippi St. 2018 at #8 Stanford 2021	9
#13 Notre Dame 2018 at #9 Texas A&M 2011	7
#11 Ohio St. 2016 at #10 South Carolina 2017	4
2nd round
Bottom 4 winners in 1st round face off
Quarterfinals
Two second round winners join Elite 8