Monday 29, 2021. The fight was fierce, the stakes were high, and for Baylor, it all boiled down to one last shot. Though Baylor had the ball—one last chance to fight their way into the Final Four—UConn led. Driven left, DiJonai Carrington spun through the lane and rose for a jumper that could have been the biggest career shot available. She staggered instead, then struck the floor. UConn celebrated their 69-67 triumph running the other way. For Carrington, the event never faded. And as Angel Reese just revealed, she will never forget either. One element has kept the incident all the more vibrant.
Reese revisited that contentious last possession with Carrington herself on a recent episode of her podcast, Unapologetically Angel.
“The moment I will never forget,” Reese added, “was when y’all was in a bubble in the last shot. discuss it. Cause I believed it to be filthy. I felt it was foul. Bro.’s name is Bro.
Still weighed down by that incident, Dijonai consented. Girl. It was insane. And I still have to go back and check that game. I dead switch it off though as it reaches the last possession. Like me, I cannot watch it. She then said she had only lately, some four years later, seen the drama once more. “I recently watched it with Na Lyssa.”
That last run left questions even for Na Lyssa Smith, a former Baylor teammate and current partner. Years of thinking she was available for a pass, Smith and Carrington at last sat down to review the series.
“After that game, Liz tried to be mad at me,” Carrington said. For not handing her the ball. The play was meant to get it to her first. I became the second choice after that. But as so happens, Smith wasn’t quite open for the Dallas Wings player to pass the ball. She was left to anticipate the reality all those years later.
That NCAA contest in 2021 will live in history. Carrington sprang from the bench burning the defense with 22 points, 2 steals, and 3 assists; Smith dominated with 14 points, 13 rebounds, and 2 blocks. Until the terrible no-call altered everything, their efforts almost punched Baylor’s ticket to the Final Four.
Carrington considered it to be a defining performance. In retrospect, it was a lesson for Smith. For Angel Reese, it was almost startling—four years had gone before they eventually gathered to view the footage. Still, the drama is a flashpoint—once a national debate, now under closer examination via NaLyssa’s prism on a more intimate, team-specific level even after all those years.
