money Seton Hall women's basketball in WNIT final after textbook game-winning play
It was the kind of play they should show in basketball coaches’ clinics.
Trailing Thursday’s WNIT semifinal by one point with 16 seconds left, Seton Hall assistant coach Jose Rebimbas drew up a plan with three options.
Option 1: Get fleet-footed point guard Lauren Park-Lane going downhill off a dribble-handoff.
Option 2: If Park-Lane’s drive isn't there, swing the ball to sharpshooting wing Andra Espinoza-Hunter for a jumper.
Option 3: If the defense’s reaction creates a mismatch for 6-foot-4 center Sidney Cooks as she rolled to the hoop after screening for Park-Lane, feed the post.
MORE SHU: Shaheen Holloway takes over his dream job
The Pirates executed the sequence to perfection — four passes, four different players touching the ball, capped by Cooks’ game-winning layup off a crisp Espinoza-Hunter assist with two seconds left. Final score: Seton Hall 74, Middle Tennessee State 73.
“Jose designed it well and the girls trusted each other,” head coach Tony Bozzella said Friday. “Earlier in the year, we didn’t trust each other.”
The result is a berth in the WNIT final Saturday at South Dakota State (3 p.m., CBS Sports Network). The Pirates (24-12) have a chance to raise a banner.
“Next to winning the (2015) Big East regular-season championship, this was the most important win we’ve had,” Bozzella said of his nine-season tenure. “This was tremendous.”
Travel upgrade
The Hall’s postseason run has been quite an odyssey. After winning the quarterfinal by three at Columbia Monday, the team flew commercial to Nashville and faced a raucous crowd of 4,000. On Friday they upgraded to a charter, a “30-seater,” as Bozzella described it, to South Dakota.
The Jackrabbits are 28-9 with wins over UCLA, Alabama and Minnesota. Frost Arena seats 5,200 and has been selling out.
“I’ve got some coaches texting me saying, ‘You don’t understand what you’re going into there; fans are literally hanging off the railings screaming at you the entire time,’” Bozzella said. “It’s like their (version of the) Yankees.”
Seton Hall is peaking at the right time in part due to Cooks, a grad transfer from Mississippi State who scored 28 points on 10-of-13 shooting against Middle Tennessee State.
“She’s happy and she’s confident,” Bozzella said. “She gets along with every single player on the team. Next year, when she gets a full summer (in the program) under her belt, she’ll be special.”
Then there’s Park-Lane, a junior who is logging a whopping 38.4 minutes per game — the most in Division I.
“Last night someone said she had an off game,” Bozzella said. “Off game? She had 17 points and 10 assists and they were mugging her the whole time.”
No matter what happens in the final, Bozzella believes his program can build off this run for next season — and that it will help the Big East, which has been fighting for respect in women’s hoops. The league sent four teams to the NCAAs and two to the WNIT. UConn is playing in the Final Four, Creighton made the Elite Eight and Seton Hall is still going in April.
“Our goal is to get what the men’s league does,” Bozzella said. “We don’t have the respect that the men’s league has earned, and they’ve earned it. We want to get there.”
Here's the game winning layup by Seton Hall's Sidney Cooks.
Beautifully designed. After Lauren Park-Lane draws two defenders off a screen by Cooks, Cooks rolls to the low post with a mismatch. Andra Espinoza-Hunter see it and delivers a perfect pass pic.twitter.com/OUSkmZGwCZ— Bryan DeNovellis (@bryandeno) April 1, 2022
Jerry Carino has covered the New Jersey sports scene since 1996 and the college basketball beat since 2003. He is an Associated Press Top 25 voter. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Seton Hall women's basketball in WNIT final after textbook game-winner
