WACO – Tucked within the closing credits of a favorite 007 or Marvel Cinematic Universe movie is a bold-typed line, which declares the titular character(s) will return for another adventure.
James Bond has appeared on screen 24 times, while the MCU currently is composed of 22 interlocking films.
But unlike Marvel's Avengers there will be no
endgame anytime soon for Abilene Christian Women's Basketball.
Julie Goodenough's Wildcats are built for another run to next year's NCAA Tournament, and perhaps again when a future wave of heroines takes command.
While each movie reaches the end of its run time, don't think of Saturday night's 95-38 first-round NCAA Championship defeat to No. 1 Baylor at the Ferrell Center as the final scene. This Wildcats' tale is an epic cliffhanger continuing straight into 2019-20.
Seniors
Breanna Wright,
Dominique Golightly and
Lexie Ducat all will be back alongside fellow starting post
Makayla Mabry. Yes,
Sara Williamson – and her three championship rings – will be gone (to graduation), however, the Wildcats return their entire supporting cast while introducing former Lady Techster
Anna McLeod, who redshirted this season due to NCAA transfer rules.
"I'm so proud of our team," said Abilene Christian head coach
Julie Goodenough during her postgame press conference. "People don't remember back in the fall, we were picked sixth in the Southland Conference, and here we are playing in our first-ever NCAA Tournament. Our team has really overcome a lot of odds and really exceeded expectations of everybody outside of our locker room.
"I can't say enough about our team and our program," she continued. "This is our sixth year to play Division I and we have won three conference championships, so we feel like we're headed in the right direction."
But looking back at tonight, it was uphill battle from the start as it took the Wildcats until the 5:14 mark of the first quarter to score their first basket – a three-pointer from junior
Breanna Wright. Their first points in the paint didn't come until the 1:19 mark of the second quarter against a Lady Bear roster whose average height is 6 feet - 1 inch.
"Coming from the Southland, the posts are normally the tallest on the court and we had some length out on the guards, as well," said Wright in a response to a question about Baylor's height advantage. "I think we were a little timid at first in the beginning of the game, looking for our open shots, being shot-ready to catch, but obviously that got better as the game went on."
The Wildcats (23-10) finished the first quarter 1-11 from 3-point range, trying to go over the top of the big, bad Bears but still came away with eight rebounds, and in the second quarter Wright and freshman
Madi Miller hit consecutive three-pointers while Baylor endured a brief cold spell (1-for-7 FG) from the field.
However, once the Baylor (32-1) starters were re-entered by head coach Kim Mulkey the home team took off an 11-2 run that featured a couple of treys and six free throws. Eight of Baylor's 23 second-quarter points were from the charity stripe even as the Lady Bears were limited to 40 percent shooting (6-15) for those 10 minutes.
Toward the end of the first half the Wildcats made their last three field-goal attempts, ending with junior
Dominique Golightly's layup that dropped in at the buzzer.
"
Dominique Golightly has been our leading scorer this year and she just has been tough as nails," said Goodenough. "She came so far from her sophomore year to her junior year.
"
Breanna Wright has been starting point guard since her freshman year," added Goodenough, "and that kid just exudes toughness and confidence. Those two, with Sara were the best guard trio in the Southland Conference this year, and I just really appreciate their leadership and them leading us to the NCAA Tournament."
Baylor's start to the second half resembled the first as its towering post players kept the Wildcats scoreless until 5:35 (Wright layup), but after the media timeout taken with 4:25 to go, ACU went on a nice run offensively and finished the quarter 7-of-8 from the floor. Williamson scored her first points of the game during this stretch, while junior
Lexi Kirgan dropped in three buckets over the last 2:48.
A native of Rowlett, Texas, Williamson totaled four points vs. the Bears on 2-4 shooting to finish her senior campaign with a .617 field-goal percentage. She also goes into the ACU history books as the winningest Wildcat (88 wins) of their NCAA DI era and its first to win three conference rings in four seasons.
"I don't know if I have the words to describe it except I just feel honored and blessed," said Williamson about player her final game in Purple and White. It has been a dream come true to play for ACU and under Coach Goodenough and alongside Brea and a couple of the other girls, it's been a heck of a ride. Three championships in my four years here, I would say is pretty successful, but I'll let you guys be the judge of that."
To begin the fourth quarter, freshman Lady Bear Nalyssa Smith scored her team's first seven points as Baylor once again regained a 50-point lead at 81-31. ACU, meanwhile, was held scoreless until 5:39 when sophomore post
Alyssa Adams rolled in layup. A minute later, Mabry banked a 3-pointer in off the glass to add to her five rebounds.
Kirgan was the Wildcats' leading scorer tonight with 10 points on 4-5 shooting in 18 minutes off the bench, while Golightly was the team's top rebounder with seven and Wright recorded three assists.
Additionally, eleven of the team's 25 rebounds were off the offensive glass.
The Lady Bears had two players with double-doubles. Kalani Brown scored 17 points on 6-9 shooting and pulled down 11 rebounds, and Smith's 14 point / 10 rebound was registered in 18 minutes off the bench. Baylor additionally combined for nine blocked shots.
"We work out against a male scout team on a regular basis, and we don't even have guys on our scout team the size of Kalani or Lauren Cox and some of the other players that came in," said Goodenough. "They are just so much bigger than our players.
"We were trying to double- and triple-team post players and tonight, they shot the ball so well from the three-point line, as well. So it's kind of a pick your poison."
Baylor shot 47.8 percent from the floor, which included nine treys on 13 attempts (.692). The Lady Bears also succeed at the free-throw line, hitting 22 of 29 tries (.759).
With the victory, Baylor advances to play Cal in the second round of the NCAA Championship Monday night. The Berkeley Bears today eliminated North Carolina in Waco, 92-72, outscoring the Lady Tar Heels 81-50 over the final three quarters.
"We want to congratulate Baylor on such a great season and we wish them well," said Goodenough, who embraced her longtime coaching colleague during pregame greetings. "We honestly are huge fans of Baylor and hope they go on and win the national championship.
"I love Kim Mulkey, and she does a great job with this program, and hopefully they will stay healthy and make a great run through the tournament and bring the national championship back to Texas."
Mulkey later returned the respect and adoration she has for Goodenough during her time with the media.
"She (Julie) is everything that's good about women's basketball," said the two-time national championship winning coach (2005, 2012). "I loved her when she was at Oklahoma State. She's a family person. Those kids play hard for her. Those kids had a good year, and she's found in my opinion the place that she should stay until she retires.
"I just have always liked Julie. She just -- there's just some people you connect with, and I haven't seen her in a while. I connected with her when she was at Oklahoma State, and you know, there's just certain coaches you pull for, you really do. And I've just always pulled for her. We played them several years ago and she just does a good job."
It's difficult to imagine how things will turn out for a franchise after our idols ride off into the sunset, but success often follows. The Yankees won after Ruth and Gehrig (among dozens of other Hall of Fame players), as did the Lakers post Magic Johnson, and of course Connecticut basketball, which has enjoyed several distinct men's and women's championship eras.
When ACU's Big 4 (Lizzy and
Suzzy Dimba,
Alexis Mason and
Sydney Shelstead) won that first Southland Conference title, many who closely follow the program asked, 'can it get better than this?'
The answer? Yes! The Big 4 joined forces the following year with Wright – then a starting rookie point guard – to win a second regular-season crown followed by a WNIT triumph at Oklahoma State.
Again many wondered, 'can it get better than this?'
Of course! Two seasons removed from NCAA postseason purgatory, Wright and the Wildcats won the Southland's Tournament title to be seen on the biggest stage in collegiate basketball – March Madness!
Now that ACU is here in Waco and feeling the buzz of electricity that comes with being encircled by ESPN and grouped alongside DI royalty Baylor, North Carolina and Cal, the Wildcats are not going to lose this taste for the champion environment.
It's permanently fused into their DNA.
They'll come back next season hungry to win, determined to cut down the nets in Katy, and push their way further through the field of 64. Just like ACU, it's worth knowing UConn also lost its first NCAA game in 1989, as did Baylor in 2001, and that it took the Gonzaga women 20 years to reach its first dance in 2007.
Since 1982 NCAA women's championship environments have been born and bred in small cities across the country: Storrs, Conn. (pop. 15,344), West Lafayette, Ind. (46,269) and Waco (136,436) and College Station (113,564) to name a few, so perhaps Abilene (121,885) will be next?
Maybe. But here's what her team has to first accomplish according to coach Goodenough.
"(If) we don't want to be considered a 16-seed anymore … we can't drop games at home in conference play," she said. "We need to beat somebody big, someone in a perceived higher conference than us. We need to win the conference championship, the regular season, and we need to win the tournament so that we're not a 16-seed next year.
"We want to be able to jockey our position a little bit NCAA Tournament where we can win a ballgame, and as long as we're 16, it's going to be really, really hard. I think even being a 15 will be pretty tough.
"The conversations we'll have our players in the off-season and the summer is, 'We can't be okay with dropping games at home in conference play and we have to win games that we're not supposed to win. We've got to beat somebody we're not supposed to beat."
