Saturday, March 19, 2022

Belibi Me, it's March Madness for College Woman's Basketball

March Madness is officially here for Women's Collage Basketball. And by officially here, I don't just mean on the calendar. This year, for the first time, the Women's game can use the words "March Madness!" For those of you that remember last year at this time (I know, it's been a long year), that the men got a full weight room and the women got a few yoga mats and a pyramid of dumbbells your granny would use. BTW, it was Stanford athletic trainer Ali Kershner who first brought the issue to light. I love looking back at this and seeing how the NCAA tourney officials responded the next day saying there was a lack of space and Oregon's Sedona Prince filmed ALL THE SPACE that was there. Ah, the power of social media to still keep fighting for something that should have happened in 1972 with the passing of Title IX.

But I digress.

For C and R are here to talk about the first round of the Stanford Women's Basketball team's win in the first round of 64 (now 68, with 4 play in in games, just like the men's) over Montana State. As you can expect, when a number 1 seed plays a number 16 seed, there will be a blow out (except for that one time...). Heck, South Carolina earlier in the day beat Howard by almost 60 points. Stanford doesn't typically blow out teams like that, with the final score in their game being 78-37, but they did do something historic. In the first quarter, they held Montana State scoreless. In fact, their first points didn't come until 9 minutes in the second. That was the first time Stanford has ever held an opponent scoreless in any time period, and you know Stanford has a lot of history. That was impressive.

But that wasn't even the most impressive thing that happened that night. The most impressive thing that happened that night was Fran Belibi's dunk! Well, a dunk is always amazing in the women's game, but she BLOCKED a three point shot first, corralled the ball, ran down court and then took two long, long strides and dunked, above the rim! Here see for yourself:

Check out the bench reaction at the end of the video!

Did we mention it was above the rim?


She got a 30 second standing ovation from the home crowd!

And yes, we all wanted to faint!


We love this quote from an ESPN article: "Thinking back on plays people don't remember, 'Oh, it was a really cool 3-point shot' or 'It was a great shot.' People remember the dunks," added  Lexie Hull. "I remember every single one of Fran's. To be right there was super cool and definitely a memory I'll have forever."

It's not the first dunk in women's NCAA tournament history. The first belongs to the peerless Candace Parker, followed up by Brittney Griner in 2013. It is the third but no less thrilling. Fran said later in an interview she was getting grief from her teammates because she had not dunked in a game this year so she was itching to do it. Fran dunked twice last year, but that being the Covid year, no one was in the stands to see it, let alone cheer for it.

This time she got her standing ovation and love from her home town crowd. Plus trending on Twitter. Something special to remember for a first round game! 


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