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Boilers missed their shot, but they made their point
INDIANAPOLIS – OK, OK, OK. So they are better.
By a twitch of betrayal between muscle and angle, they are better.
By the faithless irrefutability of physics, they are better.
By an ounce or so too much air in a basketball … by an instant’s too much hurry in releasing it … by whatever it took to make it turn softly in the air and hit the glass and come off just hard enough to shatter hearts here at the end …
By that much, and that little, Ohio State is the best women’s basketball team in the Big Ten.
By that much, and that little, it is better than Purdue; it wins the Big Ten tournament 63-60; it wrenches away an artifact that has the Boilermakers’ handprints all over it.
Seven times in 11 tries Purdue had played in a Big Ten tournament championship game, before Monday night. Five times it had won. Twenty-two times in 28 tournament games it had owned the thick end of the scoreboard.
But Ohio State was better, on this night. It has been better all year – the Buckeyes are 28-2 now, they went 15-1 in the Big Ten, they haven’t lost since New Year’s Day – and it deserved what it got Monday night.
But only because Sharika Webb’s last three-pointer, released under pressure as the clock leaned hard toward the tape, banked too hard off the glass.
Only because it didn’t die quickly enough to settle in overtime’s arms, but instead caught a brush-stroke of orange paint and kicked long off the front rim.
Only because Purdue could not quite make up for a horrendous first half with a stirring second half, though heaven knows it tried.
An 8-of-28 first half became a 14-of-29 second half, and a 17-point Ohio State lead melted before in a dizzying show of arc-welding from the kids in Purdue black. Purdue was 1 of 9 from three-point range in the first half, then 8 of 12 from there in the second; in one blazing four-and-a-half minute spasm, it hit 5 of 6. A 39-22 deficit withered to 43-39 in that time, and it would go to the finish the way it should have.
With Ohio State hearing the jackhammer thud of Purdue’s footsteps again. With it feeling the familiar heat of Purdue’s breath on its neck.
Yes, the Buckeyes were better again, barely. Yes, they got what they deserved Monday night. Yes, 17-point halftime lead or no 17-point halftime lead, it was always going to come down to dry throats and desperate chances down at the end, because the proud program that has been stalking them all year was going to remain proud, and keep right on stalking.
And so when Marscilla Packer’s last shot went down and Sharika Webb’s didn’t, we got tears from Katie Gearlds in the postgame, and a certain unbending fierceness from her coach, Kristy Curry. You forget sometimes, because she’s a tiny woman with a tiny, Disneyland voice, just how much fire there is inside her. You forget until, late in the first half, you see her in full wide-eyed rage on the sideline, playing for the “T” and getting it just when it seemed all the fires were out for her team.
Not a chance.
“We’ve got as good a chance as anybody,” she declared, when someone asked about Purdue’s chances in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.
And the technical?
A hard smile.
“It’s about a little bit more intensity,” she replied. “We’re a tight team and we get along pretty well, and I think they felt my intensity.”
Sure they did. Why, a few more moments before, after all, someone asked Gearlds about the near miss, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. Tried to say something and then stopped. Buried her face in her bicep. Struggled there for a moment as Curry leaned close and whispered, “It’s OK, it’s OK.”
At last Gearlds’ head came up.
“You know, you come to Purdue to hang a banner,” she said, the words finally coming. “We were determined this year to put ourselves in a position to hang a couple of banners. But Ohio State just got the best of us.”
She paused, suddenly dry-eyed.
“With the effort we showed in the second half tonight, I think a lot of teams around the country should fear Purdue,” she went on. “Because we’re gonna do everything in our power to get to Boston (the Final Four site).”
Beneath those words, faintly, the sound of footsteps.
