The Daily Cinderella: More Maryland Magic

Did you know turtles are cold-blooded? Plus a thrilling Division III ending and a Fight Your Teammates game.

We’ve reached the end of the line.

With the loss of the South Dakota State Jackrabbits in the second round of the women’s tournament, every single mid-major school has been eliminated from the men’s and women’s tournaments. The lowest ranked team left is 10-seed Arkansas in the men’s tournament, an SEC program coached by one of the most famous, winningest coaches in the history of the sport.

Every first-time NCAA participant—gone. Every team which went on a thrilling run to win their one-bid league—gone. Every team we’ve celebrated here—gone. My idealist worldview that the little guys actually have a chance—dumb as hell.

Sorry for spending so much time getting you guys excited about mid-majors. Can’t wait to do it again next year.

Scheduling update: We’re getting 4 Sports You Missed tomorrow, then a day off on Thursday, then we’re back with The Daily Cinderella again on Friday after the men’s tournament starts back up again.

Buzzer-Beater(s) of the Day: A 3, then 3-for-3

Turtles are cold-blooded, which explains how Maryland made March magic on back-to-back days. Sunday, the men’s team won on a play which went exactly to plan; Monday, they forced overtime with a play where nothing went right.

After Alabama’s Sarah Ashlee Barker hit a go-ahead three at one end of the floor, Maryland fooled around with the ball until the clock almost expired, got the ball to Kaylene Smikle, whose shot was absolutely smothered by Barker. But Smikle rebounded the block, nearly fell out of bounds, and saved the ball haphazardly to teammate Sarah Te-Biasu. Bang.

Overtime was bad news for Alabama. The team’s second- and third-leading scorers, Zaay Green and Aaliyah Nye, had already fouled out. The entire burden of winning the game fell on Sarah Ashlee Barker, who you have to call Sarah Ashlee Barker “Sarah Ashlee Barker” every time. The Terps had a three-point lead with seconds to go when Barker was fouled on a 3-pointer.

I don’t think people get how unlikely it is for even a good shooter to hit three straight free throws. Treating each shot as an independent event (math terms.) even a 90% shooter has just a 72 percent chance of hitting all three. A 70% shooter like Sarah Ashlee Barker has about a 34 percent chance of hitting all three. This, however, implies that each of these is just a regular free throw, and not THE MOST IMPORTANT SHOT OF YOUR LIFE, TO FORCE DOUBLE OVERTIME IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT. I’d throw the ball into the third row and collapse in a puddle.

She didn’t seem to think about the odds, either. Three names, three shots, three swishes, two two OTs.

In double overtime, Alabama’s fourth-leading scorer, Essence Cody, also fouled out, leaving Sarah Ashlee Barker out there with players who barely saw the court in the regular season. In my head, I was thinking “man, they should give players more fouls when games go into more overtimes.” There was no room for that thought in Sarah Ashlee Barker’s head—just the phrase “get buckets.” She finished the game with 45 points, a school record and the fourth-most ever in an NCAA Tournament game.

The Tide never led in double OT. Trailing by three with seconds to go, Alabama let somebody besides Sarah Ashlee Barker shoot a game-tying three-point attempt, which was a mistake: Maryland won 111-108.

Bummer-Beater of the Day: Bad Juju

I’m petitioning the NCAA to simply turn injuries off in March.

On Tuesday, USC’s JuJu Watkins won the USBWA’s Player of the Year Award, which is nice. Unfortunately, on Monday, Watkins tore her ACL in Monday’s second-round game against Mississippi State, robbing college basketball of one of its brightest stars and drastically shifting the national championship picture.

Watkins will remain a major part of the NCAA Tournament through her dozens of commercials, but it’s unclear how USC will replace her scoring or playmaking. She’s been scoring somewhere between 20 and 40 points a night for the Trojans since arriving on campus last year, almost singlehandedly re-establishing the Women of Troy as one of the premier programs in the sport after decades in the wilderness. Her 38-point, 11-rebound, 8-block game against UCLA is probably the best game I’ve seen any college basketball player have all season long. It’s hard to even imagine what this basketball team looks like without Watkins.

And tearing your ACL in March is way different from tearing it in the offseason. At least that only wipes out a single year! This almost surely keeps USC from winning this year, and probably leaks into the 2025-26 season, the last of her mandatory three seasons between high school and the WNBA—but I get the sense JuJu isn’t leaving until she’s done all she can to get USC a title. (Note: As Sabreena noted in the comments…. JuJu actually won’t be eligible until the 2027 WNBA Draft. I’m a dummy.)

Valiant Defeat of the Day: Jayda Curry

Jayda Curry had what I like to call a “Fight Your Teammates” game. Entering Sunday’s matchup with TCU, her career high was 30. She had 41 against TCU… and her teammates only had 29 points as TCU beat the Cards 85-70 to make their first NCAA Tournament ever.

(Unbelievable that two players had 40-point losses in one round of one tournament—it had only happened four times before in NCAA Tournament history.)

Curry, a senior, is now done at Louisville, and she was just starting to play the best ball of her career down the stretch. She was doing everything out there–you may remember her game-winning charge against Nebraska in the first round. She shot 13-of-24 from the floor with six threes; the rest of the team shot 11-for-43 (five of which were assisted by Curry) and only hit two threes. So the bad news is Curry will have to say goodbye to her teammates, but, well… if it was me, that would be good news.

Oh yeah, there’s other basketball too: Bantam Buckets

The Division III men’s national championship game was a showdown between two teams that had never won a national title before—must be nice—NYU and Trinity College. The Violets (oooh flowers!) were up by four points with about a minute to go, but the Bantams (oooh chickens!) scored the final eight points of the game.

Down four, Henry Vetter drilled a three, then on the next possession, Trinity airballed a three, got the rebound, had a putback swatted by NYU, got that rebound, and kicked it out to Vetter behind the line for the biggest Trinity bomb since Oppenheimer.

You absolutely cannot let a school called “Trinity” get open behind the arc. They’re all about threes! The father, the son, and the holy SPLASH!

Trinity’s Wikipedia page does not have any references to any of the school’s athletic programs, but does include a list of notable alumni which features the nightmare blunt rotation of Tucker Carlson, Jesse Watters, and George Will. Absolutely brutal stuff. I’m no longer happy for them.