With both the shot clock and the game clock running down at the end of the first half, Washington guard Kristen O’Neill drove the lane, split the Michigan defense wide open and launched a running lay-up from just inside the free throw line.
As O’Neill’s shot bounced off the glass and circled around the rim, the shot clock sounded. Assuming the half was over, all five Wolverines stood back and watched as the ball eventually rimmed out. But O’Neill and teammate Maggie O’Hara knew there were still a few seconds left on the game clock, and O’Hara tipped the rebound back to a wide-open O’Neill. She went right back up with the rock, laying it in from the left side of the paint to put Washington up 37-23.
And there it was – the dagger. O’Neill had just sealed the game, and there were still 20 minutes of basketball left to play.
“There is nothing that upsets (me) more than anything than when they get a shot and we just stop,” coach Cheryl Burnett said. “Up to that point, we felt like we were fighting to stay in it but we were close enough. But that particular basket made us go into halftime on a bit of a downer.”
Michigan was unable to contain the Huskies’ offense, giving up 45 points in the second half. The Wolverines were constantly switching their zone setup to try to contain Washington’s lethal combination of inside and outside scorers. Nothing the Wolverines did seemed to work, and they gave up 82 points on 90 shot attempts. The Huskies’ ability to rotate the ball around the perimeter and find one open player after another left the Wolverines helpless.
Michigan was unable to make defensive changes fast enough to adjust to Washington’s various offensive setups. In shifting among its assortment of zones, Michigan frequently got caught in Husky screens, and as a result its on-ball defense greatly suffered.
“We changed up into some of our zone looks and some of our three-quarter zone looks,” Burnett said. “But what Washington does such a great job of is what we call making the next pass. They dribble penetrate and then make the next pass off another open player. They are such a great shooting team and such a great dribble-penetrating team. They just find the open player really, really well.”
Washington’s most deadly combination was its ability to draw Michigan’s defense into the post only to kick the ball out to the wing. On many occasions, the Wolverines’ defense immediately collapsed on the post, but it was unable to rotate over to the outside shooter soon enough. The Huskies shot 41 percent from 3-point range while only turning the ball over 12 times.
“They are a very diverse team,” sophomore Ta’Shia Walker said. “They have a lot of flashers through the lane, and then (the flashers) kick it out for a three. We did a great job on the help side, but our recovery was a bit slow, and they hit the open shot.”
The Wolverines struggled to plug the numerous holes Washington was able to find in their defense as the game progressed. The Huskies slash penetration exposed the weaknesses in Michigan’s zone, and the Wolverines struggled to close the lanes and stop both Hicks and O’Neill from driving through the zone.
“We got beat on a lot of drives,” Clement said. “When that was happening, they were able to get either lay-ups or to level- two jump shots, and that is just something we are going to work on in the next couple of days – just really being in the right defense to make sure they don’t go by us.”