As Aari McDonald released her final shot—a last-second, potential championship-winning prayer of a three-pointer—Tara VanDerveer flashed back.
The Stanford coach did not think of her wait, denied a national title for almost three decades; she did not think of her legacy, the winningest coach in the history of women’s college basketball; she did not think of her season, spent almost entirely away from home in a grueling, weeks-long, pandemic-mandated road trip. Instead, she thought of the ending of a game from Feb. 22, 2019. A highly ranked Stanford team had almost been surprised by a rebuilding Arizona program.