5 thoughts from the national semifinals heading into Saturday's title game
NYU and Smith battle it out for the 2025 national championship this afternoon at 4 p.m. ET in Salem, Virginia
We have arrived. The final day of the 2024-25 Division III women’s basketball season is here. Inside Roanoke College’s Cregger Center, we will crown a national champion in the coming hours, as NYU aims at consecutive titles while Smith aims to unseat the Violets in their third-straight Final Four appearance. Every year, the Pioneers have taken one step forward. In 2021-22, they reached the Sweet 16. In 2022-23, they went to the Final Four for the first time. Last year, they won their first game at the Final Four, defeating Wartburg. The next step? A national championship. We’ll see how it unfolds very soon.
But as I sat yesterday reflecting on Thursday’s national semifinals, I came up with a few main thoughts, several of which are things to watch in this afternoon’s title duel as well. So I figured I’d put those thoughts into a post, as we progress through this Final Four weekend in Salem and gear up for what will hopefully be an excellent showdown to cap off this memorable season.
As a reminder, you can watch this afternoon’s championship game at 4 p.m. ET on ESPN+ (subscription required). Jeremy Franklin and Kelly Burke will have the call.
Hersey’s detailed preparation continues to stand out
Watching Smith play, it becomes clear very quickly just how well-prepared the Pioneers are. It’s in the way they read the opposing offense, the types of shots they take, and most importantly, the way in which they execute in late-game, one-possession scenarios. Having that dynamic helps overcome a good amount of the athletic and size disadvantages Smith has found itself stacked up against in the national tournament over the last few years, and that’s a credit to head coach Lynn Hersey.
Against UW-Oshkosh on Thursday, the lead was never more than four for either side through the entirety of the fourth quarter. But it seemed that more often than not, when Smith really needed a stop, they got it, including on the game’s final play, up 2 with 7.1 seconds left. While Oshkosh’s Alex Rondorf got off a fairly solid 3-point attempt from the left side, the defensive rebound from Smith’s Ally Landau was crucial, as an offensive rebound putback would have given Oshkosh new life in the overtime period to follow. Instead, Smith read the play well, blocked out, and Landau was in the right spot to secure the rebound in the 49-47 win. That’s a credit to Hersey’s exceptional preparation, something she talked about a bit in the postgame news conference.
“Well, we do our homework,” Hersey said, when asked about the final play. “We had an idea of a couple different options that could come our way. So we recognized the set up and were able to share what we thought was going to come. It’s one of those things were we still have to make the play defensively, get the rebound, contest without fouling. So the credit goes to the players on that.”
Indeed, the Pioneers do their homework. Back-to-back-to-back 30-win seasons are not a coincidence. Nor are consecutive title game appearances. Smith, from my perspective, is so tough to beat in these postseason scenarios because Hersey and her staff are so exceptional on the preparation side. Their players know what to expect, and then to their credit, react accordingly on both ends of the floor, winning possession after possession. I expect nothing but the same from the Pioneers against NYU.
“We need to recover and get our mindset ready,” Hersey said when asked about looking ahead to NYU. “We know them pretty well right now. Ultimately, we’re going to get to work and control our controllables. We have a great group of guards. I think that will be the early battle, and then it will go into many other battles following that. It’s exciting to have another opportunity, not just playing NYU, but to win a national championship.”
NYU does the little things right…and for a full 40 minutes
It seems NYU’s biggest strength is an element only seen when you watch the Violets live. Sure, there’s no denying the athleticism from their entire rotation, whether you’re talking about Belle Pellecchia, Natalie Bruns, Eden Williamson, and others. There’s also zero doubt in NYU’s ability to pressure the ball, as they did against Stout on Friday night, forcing 15 turnovers and holding the Blue Devils to a season-low four assists.
But NYU has this uncanny ability to stay patient while never seeming content. In other words, they don’t just sit back on defense and wait for things to come to them; they attack and apply pressure…every possession. And yet, they’re never overly aggressive to the point of picking up avoidable fouls or gambling on a steal attempt that opens up a wide-open driving layup for the opponent. They stay disciplined, put themselves in the right positions, and keep their heads on a swivel, pouncing on the first mistake made by the opponent. That’s true on either end of the floor. If there was an adjective to sum up the mentality of this NYU squad, winners of 61 straight heading into Saturday, relentless would certainly fit the bill. Bruns said the same after beating Stout, 74-55.
“Our whole team is just relentless for 40 minutes,” Bruns said. “I think a lot of teams can come out and give a punch, but with the way we’ve trained and the amount of time that we’ve given to get this program to where it is, it’s really, really hard to keep up with us for 40 minutes.”
Indeed it is. We’ll see how Smith handles that challenge for the second year in a row in just a few hours. NYU’s ability to put a full 40 minutes on the floor is overlooked at times, considering their sizable margins of victory. But you rarely see a let up from th Violets, even when they lead by 20+. So many coaches talk about wanting a “complete game effort” from their teams, but as most of those same coaches will tell you, that is far easier said than done. It’s hard to keep up the pressure, the awareness, the shot-making, the ball movement, for four quarters. Yet, NYU does that game after game. Their 30-0 record says all you need to know about the results that level of play has yielded.
Smith’s ability to take away Vaile and Oshkosh’s inside scoring at times may have been the most pivotal aspect of the second semifinal
One of the more burning questions entering the second semifinal was how Smith’s small lineup—no starter is listed above 6’0—would handle Oshkosh’s post play, and more specifically, leading scorer Kayce Vaile. In last year’s 61-59 Sweet 16 win over UW-Oshkosh, Vaile had 12 points, shot 4-of-7, and hit a pair of 3s. But on Thursday night, the Pioneers completely locked down inside with well-placed help defense, limiting what Vaile was able to do when she touched the ball. The Titans’ leading scorer finished with just two points, 1-of-6 from the field, without a trip to the free throw line.
“I thought their post player, 34 (Vaile), coming into the tournament, was a big factor in their offense,” Hersey said. “She was 1-for-6 today and scored two points. So we did our job on the inside. That was a big focal point for us and then we contested a lot of their 3s. They got some good looks, but for the most part, we were able to put some pressure on those shooters.”
Despite a lack of size to defend Vaile and Sarah Hardwick one-on-one in the low post, Smith’s team defense was elite in its positioning for the game’s vast majority. But that’s nothing new. If you look at the Pioneers’ track record under Hersey, that has always been a noteworthy dynamic, and especially in their last three 30-win seasons. With back-to-the-basket scoring inconsistent for Oshkosh, it certainly seemed that it played into the decision for the Titans to take a 3 in the closing seconds, rather than working the ball inside for a game-tying 2.
“There were a bunch of plays where we kind of looked at each other, like, ‘Well, they’re not letting us get inside. They’re helping a lot. We just gotta knock one down,’” UW-Oshkosh head coach Brad Fischer said. “Unfortunately we didn’t knock enough down. But that’s Smith making us feel uncomfortable, the tension of the game, and all the factors that come into it.”
Sorensen put it all on the floor for Stout, closing a career that will be extremely hard to replicate
Less than two minutes into the second half, Raegan Sorensen drove to the lane and put up a jumper in the paint, scoring on back-to-back possessions for UW-Stout. The second score raised the senior guard’s total to 15 points on the day, the Blue Devils’ lone double-digit scorer for the game’s first 35 minutes. It pushed Sorensen into the Stout record books one more time in a decorated four-year career, making the 5’7 do-it-all guard the program’s all-time leading scorer. She came into the national semifinal against NYU needing 13 points to tie Julia Hirssig’s 1,738, set in 2010. The native of tiny Centuria, Wisconsin ended up with 29, and did so against the best team in all the land, the national title favorite, and the winner of 61 in a row.
“We knew that this was going to be a very tough team,” Sorensen said postgame. “That didn’t scare us at all. We were just ready to come out strong and were ready to give it our all, no matter what. It didn’t go in our favor, but that didn’t stop our effort and who we are. I couldn’t be more proud of how we finished and ended the game and the season.”
It capped off a remarkable career for Sorensen, one that saw her play a crucial role in Stout’s recent rise on the national stage. It was always going to be emotional when it ended, as it is for any player, but perhaps no player in this Final Four had as strong of a finish than Sorensen over the final month. It seemed to begin back on February 19, in ironically, Stout’s last loss of the regular season. In an 85-71 defeat at the hands of UW-Stevens Point, Sorensen did everything she could to keep Stout in it, scoring 33 points and shooting 13-of-21. That never really went away as the calendar turned to the postseason. She had 24 in a win over Oshkosh in the regular season finale. 33 in a WIAC Tournament semifinal against Whitewater. 32 to help Stout beat Ripon in the NCAA Tournament’s first round. 25 against Whitewater, 33 at Scranton in the Elite Eight, and of course last night’s 29. That’s an incredible way to a close a career, and she—along with Stout’s four other starting seniors—leave a void that will be difficult to fill next season. This was a special run from a special group for UW-Stout.
The stage is set for the first-ever title game rematch
So now we’re here. Our full attention turns to the title game, and Smith and NYU will do it all over again for the second year in a row. It’ll be in a different gym in a different city, and a handful of the key players that made last year’s matchup so intense—Morgan Morrison, Erica Miller, Megan Bauman, Jessie Ruffner, Ally Yamada—have graduated. But there are emerging stars at the same time, players who have stepped up this season as a result. That’s Ally Landau for Smith, a transfer from Haverford who has improved on both ends of the floor in her lone year with the Pioneers. That’s Brooke Batchelor for NYU, who missed all but three games last season due to injury, and has started 29 of the Violets’ 30 as a sophomore this year.
But the biggest storyline is the rematch. And rightfully so. For the first time in the history of this tournament, which began in 1982, our national championship game will be a repeat of the previous year. Adding to the historical elements, both Smith and NYU will make back-to-back title game appearances for the first time in each of their respective program’s history. After all, Smith’s first Final Four appearance came just a few years ago in 2023, and prior to last year, the only time NYU played on the season’s final weekend was 1997.
The trajectory of both programs is incredibly high right now, and that goes without saying. The coaching of Lynn Hersey and Meg Barber is elite. Both teams have been nationally-ranked in the D3hoops.com Top 10 since the preseason. They are the No. 1 (NYU) and No. 2 (Smith) rated teams in adjusted defensive efficiency. It’s hard to think of a better matchup when all of those factors are considered.
And to add one more note: a back-to-back national champion has happened a few times already in D-III women’s hoops history. A win by NYU would mark the sixth time that the national title was won by a repeat champ, with previous instances being Amherst (2018), Thomas More (2016), WashU (1999, 2000, 2001), and Capital (1995).