Whoop, there she is
Danielle Adams goes big-game Charles Barkley in dragging Texas A&M to nationaltitle
Danielle Adams played big in Texas A&M biggest games ever at the Women's FinalFour.
Texas A&M coach Gary Blair finally has a national championship.
Texas A&M looked like it was ready to collapse. Notre Dame had roared all the way back from a 29-16 deficit in the national championship game at the Women's Final Four.
Suddenly, the Fighting Irish somehow held the lead at halftime. The wobbly Aggies staggered into the locker room.
Fortunately, they have someone to lean on. Danielle Adams — a 6-foot-1, 230-pound power forward who's been compared to Charles Barkley — just wouldn't let her team fall.
Adams poured in 22 of her 30 points in the second half, kept making big plays, to push Texas A&M to a 76-70 win in an entertaining women's title game that produced 50 more points than the dud of a NCAA Men's Championship Game played in Houston Monday night. So A&M — a university that didn't even admit women until 1963 — is a champion in the biggest women's sport in the NCAA.
Whoop, there she is. Big-game Danielle.
"I knew they couldn't stop me inside, so that's what I did," Adams said in her postgame news conference. "I took it inside."
And battered the Irish, who many assumed would roll to the national title after they dispatched of UConn — the all-powerful giant of women's basketball — in the Women's Final Four semifinals in Indianapolis.
Texas A&M (33-5) ran through its own impressive gauntlet though, taking out three prominent Houston stars in the process. First, the Aggies beat Baylor and H-Town's college basketball giant, Brittney Griner, in the Elite Eight. Then, A&M knocked out Stanford and its star Ogwumike sisters from Cypress, the same sisters that Aggies coach Gary Blair relentlessly recruited only to lose out to the Cardinal allure. Now, the Irish are down.
Adams' personal ride is even more impressive.
Dogged by weight issues (she arrived at A&M carrying 280 pounds) and a reputation for coming up small in the biggest of games, Adams shattered both those notions on Tuesday night.
You want a big-game player? How about 22 points in the last 20 minutes with college basketball's ultimate prize on the line. You want an in-shape lesson in endurance? How about playing 39 of the 40 minutes in women's championship game.
The second most points ever scored in a women's championship game? That mark now belongs to Adams as well.
Whoop, there she is. Now get out of the way. Danielle Adams has a trophy to bring back to College Station.
