Three years ago at the women’s basketball Final Four, a small point guard with an oversized jersey and a ton of confidence stole the show, creating perhaps the greatest moment in Terrapin women’s basketball program history.
That player was Kristi Toliver, and the details of her game-tying shot on the sport’s biggest stage – the National Championship game – are well-documented.
Toliver won’t be on the floor in tonight’s title game. Instead, undefeated Connecticut will face Louisville, the team who eliminated the Terps in last week’s Elite Eight.
But even with her college career over and the next chapter of her life starting almost immediately with Thursday’s WNBA Draft, tonight’s game serves as a reminder of the moment that will likely follow Toliver forever.
It’s also a reminder of the dream – a second banner reading “National Champions” hanging in the Comcast Center rafters – that she fell short of in each of her final three seasons.
The Terps trailed Duke 70-67 in the 2006 title game. They had the ball with 15.4 seconds remaining. Toliver was a freshman. The Terps were the underdogs.
Toliver’s shot-making ability was hardly an unknown commodity to those on the team. The Harrisonburg, Va., native had been a McDonald’s All-American in high school, and the play call was explicitly made for Toliver to have the ball and a shot at the tying 3-pointer.
As the huddle broke, Toliver walked onto the court expressionless but seemingly unworried. She broke toward midcourt for the inbounds pass and started to her right.
She dribbled around a Marissa Coleman screen with 10 seconds left. But the Duke defenders switched, leaving no space to get off a shot. So Toliver kept going right, swooping around the 3-point arc.
Another screen, this time by Crystal Langhorne, led to another Duke switch. Toliver still didn’t have the space, and now the 5-foot-7 guard had 6-foot-7 Duke center Alison Bales hovering over her, arms extended.
But in the confident and determined fashion in which Toliver became the third highest leading-scorer and leading-assist maker in program history, she didn’t panic. Instead, Toliver stepped back, dribbling the ball from her right hand to her left before raising up for the shot in one fluid motion.
The ball went in, Duke failed to score with the 6.1 seconds remaining and the Terps went on to win their first ever national championship in overtime.
But Toliver never made it back to that grand stage.
Instead, she stood in a somber Terp locker room after their 77-60 defeat to Louisville last Monday, answering questions from reporters using hushed voices so as to not further disturb the players’ already damaged emotions.
“It’s just really unfortunate that we had to go out like this,” Toliver said. “I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to do in our four years here. When I was recruited here, this program was the most winningest team in the ACC, and that’s the reason why I came to Maryland – to bring it back – to have that winning tradition again, and be the first to win a National Championship.”
While Toliver cried with her teammates upon her exit from the Louisville game, she stood up straight and tall in the locker room as the members of the media swarmed around her.
The questions were hard, especially just minutes after her disappointing final career game in a Terp uniform. But Toliver, in her distinct matter-of-fact style, answered each one as best as she could.
“With regard to basketball, that’s exactly how she is – she’s not going to waste words to hear herself talk,” said sister Carli Toliver, who said that professional approach was ingrained in Kristi from an early age.
Toliver’s dad was an NBA referee, which not only encouraged her to watch a wealth of NBA games growing up, but also taught her the mental strength necessary to succeed in the game.
Toliver admired Michael Jordan, among others, and said it was a goal of hers to become Jordan’s point guard as a kid playing in her driveway and basement.
“A part of me still believes I’ll be the point guard for the Chicago Bulls,” Toliver joked.
While that won’t be happening, Toliver’s “basketball junkie” nature allowed her to develop some NBA-like passing skills in college.
“I’m a very visual learner,” Toliver said. “I see the play before it happens. … I can read things.”
That distributor role helped her break the ACC’s single-season assist record in 2008, and earned her the Nancy Lieberman Award for the nation’s top point guard in the same season.
It also did something else important for Toliver – help her show that there was more to the silky smooth guard than just one high-profile step-back jumper as a freshman.
“I think that was definitely a huge highlight, and is what put myself and this team on the map,” Toliver said. “But I think that anybody who knows anything about basketball knows that I’m more than just a player that made a shot in a game. I wouldn’t take it away for anything in the world, but I have more things in my arsenal.”
Although “the shot” was a hot topic of conversation again after Toliver hit a similar buzzer-beating 3-pointer to beat Florida State in a key February conference game this season, other parts of her game became more noticeable.
Besides her ability to stop off the dribble and knock down long jump shots, Toliver showed her penetration game. She also continued her role as the Terps’ quarterback, directing a group of first-year players on offense and bailing the team out in late shot-clock situations.
But Toliver understands she’ll always be tied to that roughly nine-second stretch of game in April of 2006.
Mike Patrick, the ESPN play-by-play announcer who called that game, will also call tonight’s title matchup. While his interaction with Toliver centers almost exclusively on that one moment, his reflections accurately portray the player Toliver has become – even without a chance to win tonight’s grand prize.
“When she wanted that ball, it’s almost like an instant attachment to her,” Patrick said. “It’s somebody you want to root for every time you see them play, because you admire the aspects of what they are, not just as a player. But you learn a lot about them as a human being as you watch them play: You learn if they have courage, you learn if they’re afraid of a situation, if they have character.”
Toliver will be in Secaucus, N.J., on Thursday for the WNBA Draft. She is projected to be a top-10 pick.
There is little doubt that the ESPN2 broadcasters working the event will reference Toliver’s shot. But she knows there was a lot more to her four years in College Park, both on the court and off.
“You learn from every experience, good and bad,” Toliver said. “I’m proud of the product that I’ve been able to give this university.”
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