Baylor calls foul on no-call at the end of Elite Eight’s loss to UConn

SAN ANTONIO – UConn is heading to her 13th consecutive Women’s Final Four – with a chance to win a 12th national championship – after a controversial no-appeal at the end of the Huskies’ 69-67 win over Baylor on Monday night at the Alamodome.

Trailing 68-67 with 5 seconds left, Baylor guard DiJonai Carrington appeared to be fouled by two Huskies players, Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia Nelson-Ododa, as she climbed for a shoot. No foul was called, UConn recovered the ball and Christyn Williams suffered a foul. She delivered a free throw with less than a second to go, which counted towards the final score, and the River Walk Region No.1 Huskies had survived behind rookie Paige Bueckers’ 28 points.

But the debate was only just beginning.

NBA star LeBron James tweeted: “Come on, man !!! That was a foul !!” It was a sentiment shared by several WNBA players, including Skylar Diggins-Smith, Kristi Toliver, Amanda Zahui B., Layshia Clarendon and Natasha Cloud. Even UConn coach Geno Auriemma’s daughter Alysa tweeted: “It should have been a foul.”

“What did you see? Then write it like this,” Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said when asked about the no-appeal. “You don’t need a quote from me. I have photos and videos from two angles. A child hits her in the face and a child hits her on the elbow.”

It wasn’t the controversial first call, or the lack of it, in the women’s basketball tournament this year. Three questionable last-minute calls were made against Troy in his first-round loss to Texas A&M, a game that could have been the first example of a No.15 seed beating a seed 2 in the history of the NCAA Women’s Tournament.

And it wasn’t the first time Mulkey has been on the losing side of a tough call in the NCAA tournament. In the 2004 Sweet 16, Baylor was called out for foul on a run for the ball, sending Tennessee to the foul line with less than a second to go in a tied game. The Lady Vols made both free throws for a 71-69 victory.

When asked if there was something to be done about questionable calls, Mulkey sighed.

“It will never happen. It doesn’t matter.” Well, we missed the call, “” she said. “It doesn’t matter what you write. It doesn’t matter what I say. It doesn’t matter what we’ve seen. It doesn’t matter what we think. Life goes on.”

For his part, Geno Auriemma said there are always questionable calls in every game.

Of James ‘tweet, Auriemma said: “I probably doubt that in his career he ever won a game and decided to give it back because he looked at it and said:’ It was a foul . ‘”

“It is what it is,” Auriemma explained. “I once asked one of the officials how did Paige end up on the ground with a Baylor player above her on a loose ball? He replied: ‘I don’t know.’ That was the answer.

“So you want to go back and check every call throughout the game? And then add them up and – you don’t. That’s the nature of the sport.”

It is also true that refereeing decisions in the closing minutes of matches are always subject to more scrutiny, as their impact can be so great.

“In the end, the officials did what they were going to do,” Auriemma said. “If they’d said it was a foul, I’d be on the other side saying, ‘You can’t make that call!’

“I’m not going to sit here and apologize. If people want to talk about it the rest of the week, you can do that. It won’t change the outcome. And it’s not going to make me feel bad that you said it was a mistake. “

The latest call grabbed the headlines, but the turning point of the game came with 2:37 left in the third quarter, when Baylor senior starter DiDi Richards suffered an apparent hamstring injury as Lady Bears led 55-45. Richards briefly returned to the game, but she wasn’t moving well and had to make it to the bench permanently and be replaced by rookie Sarah Andrews.

UConn took advantage of the absence of Richards, who was the national defensive player last year, to embark on a game-changing 19-0 run.

“Obviously you can never explain the injuries,” said Carrington, who finished with 22 points. “It was tough for us. Sarah was thrown into the fire. We just tried to weather the storm. We never gave up. We never thought we were out of it.”

And they weren’t. When Williams missed two free throws with 18 seconds remaining, Baylor recovered the ball, one by one, with a chance to win. What happened then, rightly or wrongly, has become the story of the night.

“Personally, don’t see it as a controversial call,” Carrington said. “I’ve seen the replay before. A girl got my face dirty, and a girl got my arm dirty. At that point, there is nothing else you can do.