It was a loopy March to overlook for the Massive Blue Nation. After the Kentucky males had been shocked by St. Peter’s within the first spherical on Thursday, the Kentucky Girls’s Wildcats had been upset 69-62 within the opening recreation of the NCAA Championship by the Princeton Tigers on Saturday.
The No. 6 seed in Kentucky got here in excessive, having received her second SEC Championship title on this system—and her first since 1982—by defeating the South Carolina Gamecocks on March 6. The Wildcats, who weren’t even anticipated to succeed in the NCAA Championship in mid-February, entered March Insanity on a 10-game successful streak and regarded set to carry the NCAA Championship behind star Rhyne Howard.
As an alternative, the Eleventh-ranked Princeton membership moved its successful streak to 18 video games. The Tigers claimed their second win within the NCAA Championship for his or her program and third within the Ivy League; The opposite two had been by Princeton College in 2015 and by Harvard Crimson in 1998, the one time the sixteenth seed has received a first-place end on the NCAA Girls’s Championships.
Final season, Princeton and different Ivy League faculties didn’t play as a result of the convention selected to not play as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.
Was this the largest win in Princeton girls’s historical past?
“I feel at this level, with the seed we have and our win over Kentucky, the SEC champion… yeah,” mentioned Tiger coach Carla Beerup. “It’s positively there.
“It was positively a tricky time when the Ivy League determined to not play. We had been unfold throughout the nation watching the NCAA Championships [last season]. was unusual; it was arduous. We have stayed in contact and are available again actually grateful to be collectively once more and play the sport we love. There may be loads of pleasure for the gamers.”
In distinction, Kentucky appeared shocked that the season – in addition to Howard’s school profession – was over. Kentucky struggled the primary few months of the season and was 11th of September on February 10. However the Wildcats appear to have utterly modified issues – till Saturday.
Kentucky is the primary faculty during which a males’s workforce and a girls’s workforce lose their inaugural NCAA Championship video games in opposition to a double-digit seed in the identical yr since Florida in 2002.
Howard, two-time SEC Participant of the Yr, completed with 17 factors and eight rebounds however was solely 4 of 14 from the sphere. Junior Driona Edwards, who hit the successful ball within the SEC Championship recreation, scored 16 factors and 12 rebounds.
“I might say it was solely a type of days,” Edwards mentioned of what went incorrect in Kentucky.
Requested about being the SEC Champion in opposition to the Ivy League champions, Howard mentioned, “Princeton is credited, however we have performed higher groups and are on the prime.”
Edwards added, “I feel the SEC is the perfect convention in girls’s basketball, in order that’s all I’ve to say.”
Maybe, however that did not matter in Saturday’s ultimate rating for KFC. Of the eight SEC groups within the match, 4 — Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky and Ole Miss — misplaced within the first spherical. LSU was pushed to the restrict by Jackson State earlier than successful 83-77. South Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee additionally superior.
Princeton goes on to face No. 3 seed Indiana within the second spherical.
“We might wish to say that wasn’t annoying in our minds,” mentioned Abby Myers of Princeton College, who scored 29 factors. “We had been ready. We knew we’d be underestimated, as a result of we’re only a mediocre Ivy League workforce. We are going to set our sights on Indiana, put together as greatest we are able to and be able to shock the world once more.”
For Kentucky, this was this system’s fourth consecutive loss within the early spherical of the NCAA Championship. The Wildcats fell within the second spherical to Iowa State final season, to North Carolina State in 2019 and to Ohio State in 2017. They didn’t take part within the 2018 championship.
Howard is predicted to be one of many prime picks within the April WNBA Draft. She mentioned she did not give it some thought solely on Saturday.
“I do know it is coming rapidly,” Howard mentioned. “However I will take a while to have a look at the whole lot we have completed right here. And the whole lot I’ve carried out over the previous 4 years.”