Hosting the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament at Williams Arena (aka “the Barn”), the No. 4 seed Golden Gopher women’s basketball team squeezed every ounce out of their homecourt advantage to advance to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2005.
First, there was Friday’s opener against No. 13 seed Green Bay, when the Gophers struggled for three quarters to find their rhythm and their shooting touch. Trailing 49-45, the team put together a fourth quarter for the ages, outscoring the Phoenix 30-9 en route to a 75-58 victory. Senior Amaya Battle led four starters in double figures with 21 points.
As it turns out, that was the “easy” game of the weekend. Playing No. 5 Ole Miss on Sunday, the Gophers took a 17-12 lead at the end of the first quarter on Mara Braun’s buzzer-beating three-pointer. But Ole Miss controlled the next two quarters and led 54-46 after three.
Cue the even-more-improbable comeback.
First there was a Braun three-pointer to tie the game at 61 with 1:17 remaining and partially raise the Barn’s roof. After layups by Minnesota senior Sophie Hart and the Rebels’ Latasha Lattimore, the Gophers got the ball with 3.5 seconds remaining. The inbounds pass went to Battle, who made a move toward the baseline then hit a fadeaway, falling-down jumper to put the Gophers up 65-63 as the clock appeared to expire. Pandemonium in the Barn.
But after a review of the clock, the Rebels were awarded the ball with 0.8 seconds remaining, and their desperation shot at the buzzer clanked off the front of the rim.
That sent the announced crowd of 10,763 to the exits drained and elated. And it sends the Gophers to next weekend’s Sweet 16 in Sacramento, where they’ll take on top-seed and Big Ten champion UCLA at 6:30 p.m. on March 27.
For Battle, the game was a perfect ending for her many games at Williams Arena. “We had a lot of ups and downs but we all stuck together and the fans stuck with us. They filled it out today when we needed them,” she said in the post-game press conference. “I'll never play at the Barn ever again, but … we're leaving it with a win and we're about to go to the Sweet 16, so what better way?”
Shades of the Final Four era
A generation ago, the Golden Gopher women’s basketball team was the talk of the town, literally. In 2004, the year after advancing to the Sweet 16 for the first time, the Gophers hosted the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament, and their second-round victory over No. 2 seed Kansas State drew a Mideast Regional record crowd of 13,425. The Barn was raucous, and it helped Lindsay Whalen, Janel McCarville and Co. to the team’s only Final Four appearance.
Twenty-two years later, the fans and the noise returned to Williams Arena for the first two rounds of this year’s tournament. Friday’s crowd was announced at 10,355, and Sunday’s seemed closer to matching that 2004 figure.
Battle said after Friday’s game that it was the probably the loudest she’s ever heard it at the Barn in her tenure. “It was a ton of fun,” she says. “It was nice to have them rally around us.”
As one fan commented after the game, “The Barn was rockin’ again.”
On Sunday, the din at 98-year-old Williams Arena might have climbed a few decibels.
“Shout out to the Minnesota fans that came out to support women's basketball and I know they got a treat by watching two good teams,” said Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin after the game. “I feel like their fans won them that game today. … You couldn't hear. Just an incredible environment.”
“The Barn is a really special place,” added Gophers head coach Dawn Plitzuweit. “There's so much history there and also it's loud. It's really, really, really loud. I don't want to say how many years I've been coaching but it's been quite a few years. As a player, as a coach, I have never been in an environment that was that loud.
And a boost from 'The Blanket Lady'
If you’ve attended a Gopher women’s basketball game or volleyball match in the last 20 years, you’ve likely noticed Elvera “Peps” Neuman — the women’s sports superfan very affectionately known as “The Blanket Lady.”
Since 2004 she hasn’t missed a game, and since 2006 she’s been rallying fans at key moments by running the length of the sideline and the baseline while waving a maroon and gold blanket. Peps’ run in the third quarter Friday — with the Gophers trailing Green Bay by nine points — tangibly brightened the mood in the Barn, if not altered the trajectory of the game. Her fame has grown during this year’s tournament, and on March 22 she was featured in a story in The Athletic.
During halftime of Sunday’s thriller, Peps granted another quick interview. The 81-year-old Neuman was a great basketball player in her own right, but in the pre–Title IX era grew up without an opportunity to play high school basketball. She did, however, join a barnstorming team and later started her own. When she had a hot hand she liked to shoot, and once scored 108 points in a game. (“That year I was averaging 80 points; I took a lot of shots,” she says.) Take that, Wilt Chamberlain.
Peps was asked if she ever imagined playing in a packed Williams Arena. “You know, when those girls are dribbling the ball, I’m out there dribbling. When they go for the rebound, [I’m doing that],” she says. “That’s what I have to do to keep peace in my mind. At first I was jealous … but then I changed my mind. I’m so happy for the girls, 200 percent.”
What does she most appreciate about this year’s team? “I love everything,” she says. “I love their strength, their defense, their offense and I like how humble they are.”
Peps is the embodiment of the connection between athletes six decades ago — before Title IX opened doors for women athletes — and the student-athletes that the Barn has opened its doors to. And for the record, she plans to bring her maroon-and-gold blanket to fire up Gopher fans next weekend in Sacramento.
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