Morgan William and Mississippi State are immortalized in UConn upset

DALLAS — With 12 seconds left in overtime, Mississippi State head coach Vic Schaefer called a timeout. He took in the situation — the game tied, his leading scorer fouled out, the opponent: the historic UConn Huskies — and then he looked at Morgan William.

“Morgan,” Schaefer told her in the huddle, “you can win the game.”

William nodded. When she eluded UConn’s defense and shot the ball with time expiring, her teammate Chinwe Okorie instantly felt it was going in. Okorie knew her team had just beat college basketball’s Goliath as William was mobbed in celebration moments. She was certain, as referees unsuccessfully tried to keep the teams on court as they reviewed the shot, that they would uphold it.

“I heard the referee blowing the whistle,” Okorie said in a joyous postgame locker room. “And I said, ‘I’m not going back.’ And I just kept running.”

But even William herself needed a moment for it to hit her.

“When I made the shot, I was in shock. I’m still in shock,” William said at the postgame press conference. “I’m over here like, ‘Hey, I just won the game.’”

Mississippi State ended UConn’s historic 111-game winning streak on Friday in a spellbinding back-and-forth that left the world stunned. For the first time in five years, the Huskies won’t reign atop college basketball as NCAA champions.

A year ago, Mississippi State played UConn in a game that ended quite differently — in a 60-point loss and embarrassment in the Sweet 16. It was a game that motivated the Bulldogs this summer and something their coaches hyped up to them whenever they could. It was personal, Schaefer told his players, and they should feel that way even if a rematch wasn’t on the schedule.

All of that helped produce a Mississippi State team that was special, and the coach felt it.

“A year ago, I’m showing the [2004 film] Miracle, hoping for it,” he said. “This year, I wasn’t showing the Miracle. We weren’t watching any movies. I wasn’t talking about the Philistine slaying the giant, although it was in the back of my mind.”

Make no mistake — the Bulldogs knew all about UConn’s almost unbelievable streak. Of course they did. It’s impossible to avoid it.

“We talked about it before the game. We talked about it yesterday when we were practicing. We talked about it two days,” Okorie told SB Nation. “And we said, ‘Look yourself in the mirror and answer yourself if you can do it.’”

With William’s shot, Mississippi State proved it could beat a team on one of the greatest streaks in sports.

It was quiet on the other side of the arena. Outside UConn’s locker room, head coach Geno Auriemma interviewed live on ESPN. Down the hall, Kia Nurse watched the interview, slightly tape-delayed, on a TV mounted to the wall. After a minute, she turned away and sat down next to Gabby Williams. Both faces were tear-stained.

Auriemma had frontloaded the Huskies schedule with the best teams in Division-I basketball this season, expecting them to lose one of them. He described himself as “flabbergasted” when UConn somehow wiggled its way past them all despite several tight games. He seemed to know the streak would end at some point this year. He was only hoping it would happen earlier than not.

“For some of us, this is one of our first losses, one of our only losses,” said Katie Lou Samuelson, who hadn’t lost as a Husky until this game. “We’ll always remember that we don’t want to be back here.”

Even 111 wins in a row couldn’t wipe away the sting of a season ending in disappointment. Like the hallway outside, UConn’s locker room was mostly silent. Even the interviews happening around the space felt as unobtrusive as possible.

Most of the players were still processing what happened. Samuelson, for one, didn’t know what to think on the court as Mississippi State celebrated around them.

“When she hit that shot, it was just kind of weird,” she said. “I didn’t really know how to act or what to act. Once you’re walking over here, it really hits you, and it hurts.”

This year’s UConn team was seen as more vulnerable than the years past, after its top three seniors graduated and were replaced by underclassmen. But there was only so much an undefeated squad riding an all-time streak could be looked over. A play or two in a different direction, and UConn could have even slipped by despite trailing 16 points early in the second quarter and eight at halftime. But Auriemma gave all the credit to Mississippi State and only offered this about his team.

“We’re playing way above our years and way above our experience level,” he said. “Tonight it caught up to us. When we really needed to be a little more mature with what we’re doing, we didn’t have it.”

The whiteboard was the first victim of Mississippi State’s celebration. “Upset Alert” is scribbled onto it sideways in red marker. Someone else wrote “MO is the G.O.A.T.” in reference to William. In huge lettering are the numbers “111-1” with the “1” circled several times. Mississippi State is that “1.”

“We made history last year,” Dominique Dillingham said. “But we made the good history (tonight).”

William had scored 41 points to help Mississippi State advance vs. Baylor one game before. After this game, she admitted she wasn’t sure how she’d get any sleep. That buzzer-beating shot — a high-arcing, pull-up jumper that couldn’t have splashed through the net any more perfectly — was still racing through her head.

“It’s March Madness,” the 5’5 guard said afterward. “They say get hot at the perfect time. I guess I got hot.”

Everyone saw how good of a game it was. The final minutes featured several clutch shots and lead changes, UConn temporarily saved its season thanks to an incredible Gabby Williams block to close regulation, and even Mississippi State alum Dak Prescott was freaking out on the sidelines. It was a thrilling representation of the sport that even UConn could see.

“Just to be in this moment and share that, you can see how much heart both of these teams have put in,” Samuelson said.

That UConn has appeared invincible for so long played into the dynamics that made this game great. When Mississippi State toppled the Huskies in that one fatal shot, it felt like nothing could be better than this.

Mississippi State knows there’s one more game left to play: the national championship. Every player talked about how their season and their mission wasn’t down after this win.

But seconds after the team buzzer, with the team running back to the locker room, one player shouted, “Championship, man! Championship, baby!”

In that moment, no one could have disagreed.