Baylor digs deep to hold off Notre Dame for third women's national championship

TAMPA, Fla. — One by one, Baylor players and coaches scaled a ladder to trim away the net under the south hoop at Amalie Arena, a celebratory parade capped by coach Kim Mulkey, her daughter Makenzie Marie Robertson and Mulkey's grandson.

Perhaps sensing the moment, the in-arena DJ queued up "Circle of Life," the generational hit from the movie The Lion King. The Mulkey clan responded: Up the grandson went above his mother's head, like a young Simba, before coming back down, sliding into his father's arms and unleashing a burp down his chin and onto his Baylor shirt.

The Lady Bears' third national championship wasn't perfect — it was even sloppy, like a burp-stained championship shirt, and nearly dribbled away in the second half. It was a "battle," Mulkey called it, physically demanding and emotionally draining. It was in hand late in the third quarter, nearly blown after losing star forward Lauren Cox to injury and then won, in no small part thanks to the same player.

"We all wanted to win the game for her," said freshman forward Caitlin Bickle. "We wanted to carry that out for her just because we’ve worked so hard to get here and we wanted to win that for her."

The Bears' performance on Sunday night can be evenly split into two parts: With Cox and without. With the junior, the Bears thoroughly outplayed Notre Dame, the defending national champions, in what turned into a thrilling 82-81 win. Without Cox, it took every ounce of energy, a few fortuitous bounces and the reversal of recent Final Four history for Baylor to pull out its third championship under Mulkey.

"For us to win probably was a miracle in itself when you lose a player of that caliber," Mulkey said. "Not only the talent she has, but she's our leader, people."

Cox was the center of two turning points, one that seemed to shift the game in Notre Dame's favor and the other that turned the game back toward Baylor.

NOTRE DAME:Last year's hero Arike Ogunbowale comes up just short

With 1:22 left in the third quarter, Notre Dame forward Jessica Shepard corralled a rebound and banked in a layup, drawing the Fighting Irish within 12 points at 62-50. Meanwhile, two Baylor players had become tangled in the chase for the loose ball. One, center Kalani Brown — who herself battled a hip injury — was fine. The other, Cox, laid prone on the court, gripping her left knee and screaming, her voice loud enough to be heard clearly in a hushed arena.

Cox was in tears. Her parents, shown on the ESPN broadcast, were also emotional. As a wheelchair came onto the court and rolled Cox toward the locker room, Mulkey and her staff spoke to a huddled team: "It's sports," they said, Bickle recalled. "It happens. Take care of it."

Baylor players were stunned. "I felt like my whole face just shattered," junior guard Juicy Landrum said. Cox is "the heart and soul of our team," said Bickle.

It's no coincidence that Cox's exit was greeted by Notre Dame's run. To that point, Baylor had scored 42 points in the paint. Cox was well on her way to her second double-double of the Final Four, joining the Bears' win against Oregon in the semifinals. The Bears had found a formula: Pound the ball inside. It was no longer an effective option without Cox.

"We controlled that game from the start until the time she went off the floor," Mulkey said. "We were losing the momentum at that point with Cox gone."

Down by 11 points entering the fourth quarter, the Irish would go on a 19-8 run to tie the game at 74-74 with five minutes left. Mulkey called timeout. Fifteen seconds later, Cox hobbled back to the Baylor bench, her left leg in a brace and her arms on crutches.

To see Cox on the bench was "a little frustrating," Landrum said, but "it was a big lift," providing Baylor with a needed boost. You've got this, Cox told her teammates.

"It meant everything to us, just to see that she was alright," said freshman NaLyssa Smith, who replaced Cox and scored six of her 10 points in the fourth quarter. "That just gave us a whole bunch of momentum."

Momentum helped stem the Notre Dame run, altering what seemed like a preordained finish. A season ago, the Irish rode late heroics to the national title. Again in Friday's semifinal against Connecticut, the Irish recovered from a sluggish start to defeat the rival Huskies for the second postseason in a row. 

On Sunday night, however, the bounces went Baylor's way. Chloe Jackson's game-winning lay-up with 3.9 seconds left bounced twice off the rim — the left and the front — before falling through the net. Shooting two free throws with a chance to tie the game with a second left, Notre Dame's Arike Ogunbowale's first try did a similar dance around the hoop before falling off. Seemingly trying to miss her next attempt, Ogunbowale instead made the free throw. Notre Dame had exhausted its postseason magic, and Baylor would win by a point.

After the final whistle, Brown raced to embrace Cox, telling her teammate, "We did this for you."

"We had to pull it together, pull it out for her," Brown said. "The whole time, she was coaching on the sideline. She was still involved. I mean, she came out of that tunnel ... I think that speaks volumes of her character."

It helps to tell the story of Baylor's title. The program's last winners, in 2012, raced through the year unbeaten, becoming the first team in college basketball history to finish 40-0. This one may have cruised through the final two-plus months of the regular season but had to sweat out April, surprisingly pushed by Oregon and then nearly tripped up by Notre Dame. In the face of by far its biggest challenge — the talent of Notre Dame combined with the loss of its junior star — Baylor delivered the third championship in program history.

"It just shows that we have fight in us," Smith said.

Follow Paul Myerberg on Twitter @PaulMyerberg.