Welcome to the Coquese Washington Era.
Co-who? Call her Coco. Call her CoWa. Just make sure you call her Coach.
Washington is in her first season has a women's basketball head coach. She took over the once proud program at Penn State after coaching legend Rene Portland resigned this year in the wake of dogged allegations that she discriminated against her players based on sexual orientation. She'd taken the team to the Final Four in 2000, but no current player has gone to the NCAA tournament as a Nittany Lion.
Washington, formerly an assistant coach to Muffet McGraw at Notre Dame, took her first giant step toward turning around the Penn State program yesterday when her unranked squad upset No. 10 Duke, 86-84, on a buzzer-beater. It was the first time since 2004 that an unranked team beat Duke.
This Duke team isn't the nearly unbeatable Blue wall of recent years. That program's architect, Gail Goestenkors, moved on to the burnt orange pastures of Texas, and Joanne P. McCallie left Michigan State to take over. McCallie's Duke team doesn't have the sure hands of Lindsey Harding nor the size of 6-7 center Alison Bales, who both graduated to the WNBA. This was the Blue Devils' third loss in a row (they lost to ranked opponents Connecticut and Vanderbilt), its first three-game losing streak since 1996-97.
Still, Washington's Penn State win was impressive. Both teams were 5-2 going into the game. The Nittany Lions took the lead early in the first half on the same run-and-gun style that Washington used as a point guard at Notre Dame and in the WNBA with the New York Liberty, Houston Comets and Indiana Fever. They stretched the lead to as much as 15 behind the gritty play of -- fittingly -- point guard Brianne O'Rourke, who finished with a career-high 23 points. She went 15-15 from the foul line and assisted on the winning shot. Duke charged back in the second half with tough defense and timely shooting by Abby Waner and Chante Black. Waner finished with 23 points and shot 6-for-9 from 3-point range. Black had a career-high 21.
The game was tied at 84 with 8 seconds left when Penn State got the ball and Washington called her team into a huddle. She expected Duke to press. When they didn't, her team looked to the rookie head coach for guidance.
"They just said. 'Well, what do we do,' " Washington said. "I said, 'Well, go!' "
O'Rourke listened and drove the length of the court into the lane and found an open Janessa Wolff.
At the final buzzer, Penn State bounded onto the court with the jubilation of a late-March win. Washington smiled broadly, as she had through much of the game. It's an uncommon countenance for a coach. It was as if she knew something special was about to happen.
And she made it happen. This is a woman who finished her undergrad degree a year early while leading the Irish to their first NCAA tournament berth, in 1992. She went on to earn a law degree at Notre Dame and use those skills to help organize the WNBA players union and serve as its first president. After two years backing up All-Star point guard Teresa Weatherspoon with the Liberty, she went to the Comets and won a WNBA championship in 2000. Eight months later, she helped coach Notre Dame to the NCAA championship, becoming the first woman to hold those two titles simultaneously.
After eight seasons in the second chair on the Notre Dame bench, Washington knew she was ready when Penn State called. Now, she's preparing her team for the big wins. It was the first time in six tries that Penn State defeated Duke.
"It's probably the biggest win any of these players have experienced since they've been here," Washington said.
Expect bigger wins to come.