Is it possible for a buzzer-beater to win the national championship to be the second-best shot of the weekend?
Former Notre Dame coach Muffet McGraw allows herself to have that debate four years after the fact. The 2018 Women's Final Four in Columbus, Ohio, made Arike Ogunbowale a house-hold name.
She hit a clutch shot with one second left in overtime to give the Irish a 91-89 victory against unbeaten UConn in the national semifinal on Good Friday. She topped that with a circus shot three-pointer at the buzzer for a 61-58 victory against Mississippi State in the national championship game on Easter Sunday.
It was a fitting finish that gave Notre Dame its second national championship under McGraw, who never tires of the ESPN promos this time of year that replay those two shots.
"As the Catholic kid growing up in the Catholic school, everybody seemed to be watching it because it was a family weekend," McGraw told Sporting News. "I know our announcer kept saying, 'The best Easter basket ever' with Arike."
So, which basket was better?
After all, that first game was against an unbeaten UConn team. The Huskies had won the previous seven meetings, including national championship games in 2014 and 2015. The Irish held a five-point lead in overtime, but UConn's Crystal Dangerfield hit a game-tying three-pointer. McGraw called a timeout with one possession left.
"I'm looking at everyone's face and I'm seeing four people who have their heads down and it's 'How could we blow that lead?'" McGraw said. "Then, I see Arike's face, and I think she's mad. She's mad she didn't have the ball in her hands. That was the moment when I decided whatever happens in the end, it's going to her."
Ogunbowale took the ball in the half-court set, isolated to the right wing and let a step-back rainbow fly.
"In some ways it was bigger than the second one because it was one of those seasons where everything kept going wrong," McGraw said. "We had all those injuries and things just never seemed to work out. To be in that moment of, 'We might win this thing.' It was just surreal.
"I think watching the shot go up over that defender who I didn't realize was so close until I watched it again," she said. "Then seeing it go through. It seemed like it took forever."
McGraw emphasizes "for-ev-er" as if it's three words. Two days later, Ogunbowale did it again. Mississippi State led 40-27 at halftime, but the Irish rallied again and were in position to take the game-winning shot at the end of regulation, this time from the other end of the court.
Ogunbowale fought through Mississippi State's Victoria Vivians and worked toward the sideline. She then flipped an off-balance three-pointer from the right corner with 0.1 seconds left in front of McGraw on the bench.
"I was on the ground crouching," McGraw said. "The shot went up right in front of us. It was right in front of our bench, so we saw the whole thing, the trajectory. You never know with those kinds of shots. I didn't immediately think, 'That's in.' I just watched it go, and just being in that moment of waiting to see what was going to happen, that goes down again."
It went in, and pandemonium ensued. The Irish pulled off the Easter Miracle, and Ogunbowale became an instant Final Four legend. Ogunbowale received congratulations from her idol Kobe Bryant, and McGraw celebrated what would be her final national championship. Notre Dame lost to Baylor in the national championship game the following season. McGraw stepped down after the 2020 season.
She looks back at that 2018 run, and McGraw still marvels at Ogunbowale, who has emerged as a star player with the Dallas Wings in the WNBA.
"She always had that confidence, and it was contagious for the whole team," McGraw said. "I thought she handled the moment. The year before she had the ball, and her shot got blocked in the Stanford game to go to the Final Four. She is the kind of person who can handle moments like that. She probably thought, 'I expected it to go in.'"
It's still a moment McGraw cherishes, and it's almost impossible to pick one of the two. The twin-bill buzzer-beaters worked hand in hand, and that's the lasting memory, one that separates it from the rest of the buzzer-beaters of its kind.
"Twice in a weekend," McGraw said. "That was the crazy part of that. She did it twice."
