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How the 2002 OU women's basketball team nearly beat the greatest team the sport has ever seen
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- How the 2002 OU women's basketball team nearly beat the greatest team the sport has ever seen
Stacey Dales knows Connecticut's 2002 national championship team was outstanding.
Probably even the best ever in women's college basketball.
She still thinks OU should've beat it.
"We felt unstoppable," Dales said of that Sooner bunch. "We didn't feel like there was a single team that could stand in the way of us winning."
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This weekend, OU's 2002 Final Four team is being honored during the OU women's basketball's alumni reunion. Those Sooners, the first OU team to advance to the Women's Final Four, were set to be celebrated during a dinner Friday night, then lauded at halftime of the women's game Saturday afternoon.
Such plaudits are deserved.
Frankly, more are warranted.
After all, if not for the greatest team in the history of women's college basketball, that OU team would've been national champs.
"We had an incredible team," Dales said. "We had a great nucleus of people who understood their roles."
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Let's rewind a bit on those Sooners. Dales was the star, a lanky point guard from Canada who could shoot and pass and lead. Two of her fellow seniors, La'Neishea Caufield and Rosalind Ross, joined Dales to form a backcourt that could do just about anything.
Need a three?
Roz was money.
Need a drive?
Neish was tough.
Off the bench came freshman Dionnah Jackson, who kicked up the tempo on both ends.
Inside, the Sooners had Caton Hill and Jamie Talbert. Both were undersized post players, but both compensated for it with skills and smarts. They were as tough as old boot leather, too.
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But as talented as the pieces of that puzzle were, it was evident watching those Sooners that the whole was greater than the sum of the parts. That sounds like something Sherri Coale, the legendary OU coach, would have said, and frankly, there's a good chance she did say something like that about those Sooners.
It was bedrock truth.
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"The one thing that I know to be true about my teammates and that team that year was that we would have done anything for each other," said Jackson, adding that the camaraderie emanated from the seniors. "Those seniors set a tone. They set the bar."
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Jackson, who now goes by her married name, Jackson-Durrett, remembers the team meeting for a goal-setting session before the season started. The Sooners were coming off back-to-back years where they won the Big 12 regular-season crown, then advanced to the Sweet 16.
They wanted more.
During that goal-setting session, each goal was written on a puzzle piece.
"We were very specific about our goals," Jackson-Durrett remembered.
Among them was making the program's first Final Four.
So was winning the national championship.
"That's what we talked about every day and visualized it every day," said Caufield, who now goes by her married name, Caufield-Daniels. "But at the same time when you do get in those situations and those environments, it's unexplainable how it felt being at the Final Four in San Antonio."
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Caufield-Daniels remembers lots of nerves.
Ditto for Jackson-Durrett.
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But the Sooners didn't show any in the national semifinals, taking out Duke, then a powerhouse program. OU won going away 86-71 in front of an Alamodome crowd of 29,619, a women's college basketball record.
That set up a showdown with UConn in the national championship game.
The Huskies had already become a juggernaut, winning titles in 1995 and 2000, but their 2002 team was a buzz saw. It was undefeated and had won all but one of those games by double digits.
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Average margin of victory: 35.4 points.
"They were formidable," Dales said. "I mean, they sent an entire starting lineup to the WNBA Draft."
Every player in UConn's starting five became a first-round pick — Sue Bird , Swin Cash, Asjha Jones and Tamika Williams in 2002 and Diana Taurasi in 2004.
At the time, everyone knew how good those Huskies were, but as the years have passed, they look even better. Four of the starting five spent more than a decade in the WNBA. Between them, they combined to win 13 Olympic gold medals. And if you're doing a Mount Rushmore of women's basketball greats, Bird and Taurasi deserve spots.
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But on March 31, 2002, the Sooners went toe-to-toe with the Huskies.
Even though OU didn't start well, committing turnovers on four of its first eight possessions and falling behind by eight points early, the Sooners fought back. Again and again, they did. The Huskies would make a little run and threaten to blow open the game, but the Sooners never allowed it.
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OU cut UConn's lead to six with just over two minutes remaining in the game.
"We pushed them," Jackson-Durrett said. "It wasn't easy."
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Even though UConn outrebounded OU 44-25 and Cash scored in bunches and Bird made timely baskets, OU didn't back down. That seemed to rattle the Huskies, who found themselves holding onto that slim lead late.
It took an isolation play by Taurasi to seal the game. She backed down Jackson, then when Dales came over and tried to knock away the ball, Taurasi not only held onto it but also made a shot and drew a foul.
It was Dales' fifth.
"They fouled me out," Dales said, "and I still don't agree with it to this day."
UConn ended up winning by a dozen, 82-70, but if not for a great play made by one of the greatest players the sport has ever seen, the outcome could've been different. Likely would've been.
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That's not meant as a slight to the talent the Huskies had — "They were the best team," Dales said, "and they deserved to win because of that" — but rather it's an acknowledgement of how good the Sooners were, too.
That they didn't achieve their last goal of winning a national title, that they weren't able to put that final piece into the puzzle was disappointing. But it doesn't negate all that they did or all that they were.
Those Sooners were golden even if their trophy was not.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405-475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU's 2002 Final Four team took UConn's greatest team to brink
