National Championship Saturday: NYU set to battle Smith tonight in Columbus
A champion is soon to be crowned for the 2024 NCAA Tournament
Welcome to Championship Saturday! It is top-ranked NYU vs #14 Smith with a national title to be decided this evening in Columbus, Ohio. The season has come down to one final game. Will NYU complete its dominant run through 2023-24 with 31 straight victories, accomplishing what the Violets set out to do in bringing back a number of talented contributors along with National Player of the Year Morgan Morrison and All-American Megan Bauman? Will Smith shock the nation and win it all?
We will soon find out.
This matchup is intriguing for several reasons, and while NYU is the clear favorite, Smith is here for a reason. The Pioneers, led by Lynn Hersey, are in their first-ever national title game, having done so after losing a pair of top-notch seniors from last year’s squad. That impresses me tremendously, and while I had Smith at #9 on my ballot at one point during the season, I admittedly felt that was too high. As it has turned out, Smith has won 16 straight with a 30-3 overall record, and recent wins over UW-Oshkosh, Bowdoin (who was on their home floor), and Wartburg in the last three rounds of the tournament.
That is a pretty solid resume, right there, and here’s the thing about Smith. All three of those games have been decided by five points or fewer. The win over Oshkosh literally came down to Oshkosh’s final shot, and Thursday’s victory over Wartburg came in overtime. It should be noted that Smith allowed a late Wartburg 3-pointer to push the game into OT, but regardless, the Pioneers have found ways to win the tight games in the tournament. I like seeing that in a battle-tested team, and it is clear Smith is a squad that doesn’t waver with the game on the line.
NYU enters this matchup as the team whose destiny all season has been winning the national championship. Make no mistake about it: NYU is the one with pressure on its shoulders tonight. Smith has nothing to lose. NYU has been #1 in every regular season D3hoops.com Top 25 Poll this season. The Violets seemed to breeze through a fairly strong schedule and while much of the preseason attention surrounded the additions of Morrison and Bauman, two All-Americans, it was somewhat lost in the shuffle of conversation that Natalie Bruns is still probably the most talented player on NYU’s roster. But the addition of Morrison seems to have eased some of the pressure on Bruns in the frontcourt, which certainly has the potential to spread out the opposing defense. NYU has more or less scored at will this season, and but to Transylvania’s credit, they really kept NYU at bay offensively in the semifinal. The Pioneers just struggled to score consistently.
Smith comes in shooting 49% from the field, and that honestly might be the matchup to watch. Can Smith shoot consistently enough and limit turnovers enough or will NYU’s defense step up like it did against Transy? For context of just how strong the Violets were on the defensive end on Thursday, the last time Transy scored 42 points or fewer in a game came at Rose-Hulman on Feb. 25, 2017. It will certainly be an uphill battle for Smith offensively, but the Pioneers have been tough to contain on that end of the floor throughout this season. And even in games like Thursday’s semifinal, when the total point production is low, Smith has still run quality offense and challenged the opponent by finding higher-percentage shots. I do wonder if in the midst of NYU’s high-powered offense, the Violets’ defensive capabilities have been somewhat overlooked by myself and others. NYU is a strong defensive team, especially in tournament scenarios, and I think another impressive effort on the defensive end against Smith might just seal up the national title for NYU.
There is also a very unique storyline here in that Morrison played four years at Smith, before transferring to NYU for her fifth year this season. Who would’ve thought, that in the biggest game of the season, she would be tasked with going up against many of her former teammates from Smith? What a story. We knew both programs would be strong this year, but I’m not sure I expected to see a matchup between Smith and NYU unfold. When you throw in the fact that Bauman is also from the NEWMAC, it means two of NYU’s go-to players have four years of familiarity with the opponent, despite the fact that these two programs last met on Nov. 25, 2018 in a 59-48 win for NYU.
Ultimately, this one will be interesting. NYU is the favorite, but that’s why we play the games. No game is decided on paper. I look forward to watching how it unfolds and both of these teams are capable of cutting down the nets tonight in Columbus. Tip-off is at 7:00 p.m. ET. Tune in here to watch the game live on CBSSports.com. (My understanding is that you can access the stream with a cable or streaming subscription, including YouTube TV, Paramount+, and others. And don’t worry…the game will be live on ESPN+ next year, which is much easier to access through whatever device you choose to watch.).