Kristina “Koko” Nelson logged 24 minutes in Monday’s national championship game for her Notre Dame Fighting Irish against a 37-1 Mississippi State team with unfinished business stemming from last season’s defeat at the hands of South Carolina.
Her career high prior to the start of the 2017-2018 season? 24 minutes.
“I just looked at it as a game,” Nelson told High Post Hoops after Monday’s title game. “When I get in the game, I want to do whatever is possible for my team to win.”
Head coach Muffet McGraw had a tall ask of their fifth-year senior in support of starting forwards Jessica Shepard and Kathryn Westbeld: Make things difficult for Teaira McCowan, Mississippi State’s 6’7 All-American center.
McCowan had been on an absolute tear in the NCAA Tournament — 21 points and 18 rebounds in the second round against Oklahoma State, 24 points and 15 rebounds against NC State, 23 points and 21 rebounds in the Elite Eight against UCLA, then 21 points and 25 (13 offensive) rebounds in the national semifinal against Louisville.
Perhaps most impressive of all? McCowan rarely leaves the floor. After her team’s first-round blowout of Nicholls, the junior center had spent just four minutes on the bench in the next four tournament games leading up to Monday’s title game.
Shepard, Westbeld and Jackie Young each spent time on the bench for the Irish at various points throughout Monday’s game due to foul trouble. Notre Dame only used six players. Nelson had to take on a bigger minutes load, even playing at times with Shepard and Westbeld in an ultra-big lineup.
Nelson did log 24 minutes or more five times earlier in the season, though none of those games were close, nor did they involve one of the most dominant forces in all of college basketball.
McCowan finished with 18 points and 17 rebounds (six offensive) Monday before fouling out in the final minute.
“I mean, to me, you took their biggest weapons and held them to 6 for 21 and 2 for 7,” Mississippi State head coach Vic Schaefer said postgame, referring to Arike Ogunbowale and Jackie Young, respectively. “You know, the two kids that we’re really concerned about that had such great nights the other night, Mabrey goes 3 for 9 with nine turnovers. I don’t know what else we could have done.
“Offensively, we got really good looks and couldn’t make a shot. The Achilles, we’re a great free-throw shooting team, and we go 10 for 17,” Schaefer added.
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The Bulldogs did do their part defensively, holding the Irish to a mere three points in the second quarter. Several minutes into the third, the Mississippi State lead swelled to 15 on a three-pointer from Victoria Vivians.
Both teams made 22 field goals Monday night. Both attempted 17 free throws. The Irish knocked down five more at the charity stripe than the Bulldogs, and Mississippi State was unable to make one more play with their seven extra field goal opportunities earned on the offensive glass and through winning the turnover battle.
“These games come down to one more,” Schaefer said. “That’s been our motto. It’s on our national finalist ring a year ago — one more. It’s been our calling card all year — one more. Notre Dame made one more play tonight, so we congratulate them.”
The loss stings for a multitude of reasons. Ogunbowale drilled the three-pointer from the right corner, sure. Morgan William looked to possibly have Vivians ahead of the pack seconds earlier to potentially give Mississippi State the lead instead. Marina Mabrey managed to poke the ball away, giving the Irish a second chance after she had just turned it over looking for Shepard inside.
The way the officials saw Mabrey’s play on the ball certainly ruffled plenty of feathers. Rather than re-hashing that, let’s take it back to the previous possession. Coming out of a timeout, Mississippi State looked to feed it inside to McCowan against Shepard in the heart of Notre Dame’s 2-3 zone.
“I’m going to let my All-American have a bunny,” Schafer said of that look. “She’s going to get a drop step dunk, and it just — it didn’t fall. She’s had a heck of a year. She had another double-double tonight. I’ve got so much confidence in her. And you know what, I think she got to her spot, not their spot on that one. It just didn’t fall.”
Schaefer was absolutely right to point out that his team was able to get it to McCowan at her spot, point blank, right at the rim.
So much of Monday’s game to that point, though, was impacted by Notre Dame’s ability to force McCowan into tougher looks than that one.
Notre Dame kept McCowan off her spots for the most part. Instead, they forced her to shoot contested hook shots and turnarounds over the outstretched arms of Nelson and Shepard.
“We had to be really physical with her — push her out, make sure she didn’t get 2 feet in the paint, stop her from getting as many offensive rebounds as possible,” Nelson said of the gameplan against McCowan.
Some of Nelson’s most impressive work Monday came in helping her teammates when they got beat off the dribble. She had to slide off of McCowan, get over in time to shut down drives and trust her teammates to gang rebound behind her. Nelson successfully forced several misses and drew two charges.
In the second clip above, you see perfect execution from Westbeld to slide over immediately to put a body on McCowan. Nelson slid over to contest Victoria Vivians in that third clip. Mississippi State had been running that overload action with great success earlier in the game. McCowan posted up but was really acting as a screener for Vivians to curl right around her for an easy jumper.
Notre Dame caught on to every trick the Bulldogs went to against their zone. Their ability to move on a string, cover up the right shooters and come away with enough defensive rebounds kept them in the game as their offense fell completely off the rails in the first half.
Back to McCowan. Her 7-19 shooting line doesn’t seem all that significant. It was, only because Nelson and Shepard were able to wall her off from completely burying them under the rim. McCowan shot 3-14 on contested looks that weren’t right at the rim. (She also drew four shooting fouls and turned it over twice on her other post touches.)
That means she was 4-5 on true bunnies, several resulting from her hard work on the offensive glass.
“We were trying to force her one way which was to her left hand,” Nelson said. “We had to keep her out of the paint. She’s really successful when she has two feet in the paint. The closer she is to the basket — she’s amazing.”
McGraw agrees with that assessment. Her unprompted final words from the postgame presser: “I just want to say, McCowan is an unbelievable player. She had a fantastic game. She’s so difficult to guard. She is definitely an All-American.”
Here’s McCowan’s shot chart from the title game:
McCowan shot 2-7 in the post against Nelson, drew one shooting foul and got tied up by Nelson on another shot attempt which forced a jump ball.
Many have already pointed out that the Irish may well be even more dangerous next season. They return their top scorers but will need to replace their two glue players who consistently managed to make winning plays that didn’t always show up in a box score.
Westbeld brought the spark in the second round against Villanova when the Irish appeared to be on the ropes, then delivered a career night against Oregon in the Elite Eight. Foul trouble may have forced Nelson onto the floor for longer than some anticipated, but she stepped up with the biggest performance of her career on the game’s biggest stage.
“I’m so incredibly proud of this team,” Nelson added in the locker room afterward, smiling from ear to ear. “This is amazing.”
Nelson shot 62% from the floor and 79% at the line as a senior. She posted a 4% block rate, a category in which she’s ranked in the top 12% nationally in each of the last three seasons per HerHoopStats.
Contributions to winning basketball can’t be perfectly encapsulated with numbers, especially on defense. What will Nelson be remembered for? ‘Making life tough for McCowan’ and ‘forcing McCowan to turn left into contested six-footers’ haven’t been featured in the most popular headlines.
Maybe they should. She and her teammates executed their plan of attack against one of the most dominant players in college basketball. Nelson and her teammates know that they are champions. That’s something we’ll have no trouble quantifying.
And now that the dust has settled after an incredible weekend in Columbus, it’s the only stat that matters.