Not many teams can say they end their season on a win.
Very few players can say the same about their careers.
Even fewer can say they end it with a championship.
The IU women’s basketball team and its seniors Tyra Buss and Amanda Cahill did just that with their 65-57 victory over Virginia Tech in the WNIT Championship on March 31.
As they walked off the court at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall in their cream and crimson jerseys for the last time, Buss and Cahill walked away from their storied careers at IU, champions at last.
“It’s definitely a bittersweet feeling. We’re obviously really honored that we got the chance to keep playing and get to go out on a win,” Cahill said. “But it’s going to be sad taking off that jersey and knowing we’re not going to be putting it back on and come back out in front of our home crowd with our teammates.”
However, the way in which they clinched their title was nothing new for the duo.
Not only has an indelible amount of fight become synonymous with Buss and Cahill’s four years of basketball in Bloomington, it has also become the story of their team’s improbable run this season from an 8-12 record in January to cutting down the nets less than three months later.
They’ve had to fight every inch of the way, and March 31's win was no different.
After a back-and-forth first half, the Hoosiers were able to take a 36-27 lead into halftime after holding the Hokies to 10-29 shooting and forcing 10 first-half turnovers.
However, in the third, the Hoosiers got dangerously close to a meltdown.
While shooting just 3-14 from the field and missing all five of their 3-point attempts, the Hoosiers only scored seven points in the quarter and let Virginia Tech claw their way back to take a 44-43 lead heading into the fourth.
It was the first time the Hoosiers had been down in the second half of a game during their entire WNIT run.
With the season and her career on the line, Buss said that’s when she and her teammates needed to fight to survive the most.
“Coach challenged us because we had to tough it out and needed to fight,” Buss said. “We weren’t really fighting in the third quarter and that let them go on a run.”
They needed to be reinvigorated. They needed new life.
That jolt of energy came in the form of freshman guard Bendu Yeaney early in the fourth quarter. She scored the first four points of the period and helped the Hoosiers retake the lead.
Then, with just under five minutes remaining and the Hoosiers having missed their first 13 3-pointers of the game up to that point, Yeaney hit a dagger three from the corner. Cahill then followed that with a three of her own on their next possession to stretch the lead back to nine points.
Like a passing of the torch, the veterans followed the freshman making big plays down the stretch. Yeaney said she credited her late-game confidence, along with her overall development throughout her freshman season, to Buss and Cahill leading by example.
“I’ve learned to always stay confident and always have energy because that’s what they do every single day in practice,” Yeaney said. “It’s impacted me in practices and you can see it games now too.”
Once the final buzzer had sounded and the Hoosiers had safely secured the victory, champions weren’t the only thing Buss and Cahill would leave as. As evidenced by the IU women’s basketball record crowd of 13,007 fans in attendance, the two had led the program to new heights, just like they had set out to do four years ago upon their arrival to Bloomington.
“They’re going to go down in history as two of the very best,” IU Coach Teri Moren said. “They’ve put us in a situation now where we want more. In order to do that, we have a lot of work ahead of us but we know we have a great foundation and that came from those two kids.”
One by one, IU’s players, still covered in red and white celebratory streamers, climbed a ladder to cut down the nets of Assembly Hall. The last two slivers of nylon were left for Buss and Cahill, with the entire net coming down on Buss’ final clip of the scissors.
Buss, with the net draped around her neck, walked off the court with nothing left to prove.
It had all culminated in that moment. The fight was over.
“We’re still going to be able to hang a banner and Amanda and I can come back and look up there and see that we helped get that banner and win a championship,” Buss said. “It was definitely worth it and I’m so happy with the way it ended.”
