The Women's Final Four is upon us. Four teams remain in the race for the national title, with only one able to cut down the nets when it's all over.
Over the three remaining games, we'll see big plays and big moments. Star players will step up and deliver mic drop moments that stamp them into the record books and the hearts of fans forever.
It happens every year, but sometimes these individual moments tend to be a little more memorable than other years.
Here are the five best mic drop moments in Women's Final Four history.
5. LSU shuts down Caitlin Clark's Hawkeyes
It was supposed to be the coronation of the Iowa Hawkeyes, the moment Caitlin Clark stamped her name in the history books. Iowa losing to South Carolina in 2024 wouldn't be a shock as the Gamecocks were the nation's best team, but one year prior, all Iowa had to do was defeat the No. 3 seed Tigers in the title game.
But Angel Reese and her LSU teammates slammed the door shut on Iowa.
Clark got her 30 points and eight assists and managed to shoot 40.9 percent still. In fact, Iowa as a team shot a very respectable 50 percent from the floor. But the defense just couldn't stop the Tigers. Jasmine Carson came off the bench to shoot 5-for-6 from deep, providing an answer to Clark's long-range shooting. Alexis Morris hit big shots when they mattered, leading LSU with 21 points.
For LSU, this game was about more than just beating Iowa, though. It was proof that Kim Mulkey made the right call leaving Baylor to take over in Baton Rouge. It was proof that a weak non-conference schedule didn't spell doom to a program's chances of winning a title. And in the process, the Tigers tied 1994 North Carolina and 1997 Tennessee as the lowest seed to win the NCAA Tournament.
4. Morgan William ends UConn's 111-game win streak
UConn looked unbeatable ... until UConn was beaten. The Huskies, fresh off a four-peat that might show up a little later in this article, entered the 2016-17 season with one major need: replace Breanna Stewart, who had just been drafted No. 1 overall in the 2016 WNBA Draft by the Seattle Storm.
It sure looked like UConn was going to keep rolling without Stewart. The team won its first 36 games, pushing its overall win-streak to 111 games. Napheesa Collier, who had come off the bench the previous season, stepped up as the team's lead scorer, while a freshman Katie Lou Samuelson paired with her to form a strong core, with both players being named AP First Team All-Americans.
But then came the Final Four and Mississippi State. The Bulldogs defense held Collier to just 11 points. Mississippi State's Victoria Vivians scored 19 to lead her team.
And Morgan William did this:
Samuelson hit a tech free throw to tie the game at 64. UConn had a shot for the lead late, but Saniya Chong lost the ball while driving to the basket, giving the Bulldogs the ball. Out of timeouts, the Bulldogs had to go the length of the court. With about five seconds to play, Dominque Dillingham gave the ball up to William on the logo. William immediately barrels ahead, a steam engine heading wherever she can get.
She gets to the right side of the free-throw area, where she stops and pulls up. Swish. Buzzer. Goodbye, UConn's winning streak.
Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, the championship game would result in a 67-55 loss to South Carolina as A'ja Wilson went off for 23 points and four blocks, but in that national semifinal game, Mississippi State did the impossible.
3. Sheryl Swoopes scores 47 in the title game
Newer fans of women's college basketball might think of Texas Tech as a lower-end Big 12 program, but once upon a time, women's basketball ran through Lubbock, Texas.
From 1992 to 1996, the Lady Raiders made five consecutive trips to the Sweet Sixteen, but only once in that span did the team get to the Final Four. In 1993, the Marsha Sharp-coached team took down Ohio State 84-82 in the national title game behind a championship game record 47 points from Sheryl Swoopes.
Tech finished the season 31-3 and posted an impressive 13-1 mark in Southwest Conference play — yep, we're going so far back that the SWC still existed.
The No. 2 seed Red Raiders knocked off Vanderbilt in the Final Four, setting up a huge showdown in the title game against Ohio State, a team led by future WNBA Finals MVP Katie Smith, a 2018 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Smith was good in that title game, scoring 28 points and pulling down 11 rebounds, but Swoopes was better.
The future Houston Comets star was undeniable, going 16-for-24 from the floor and 11-for-11 from the free throw line.
And this wasn't a one-off for Swoopes. She'd scored at least 30 points in each game of the tournament, so the dominant showing in the 84-82 win over the Buckeyes was just the cherry on top of one of the greatest March Madness runs of all time.
2. UConn achieves the four-peat
Imagine going through an entire college career and never knowing what it was like to not win the championship.
That's Breanna Stewart, the four-time NCAA Tournament Most Outstanding Player who led UConn to four consecutive championships.
Each title was impressive in its own way, from a freshman Stewie leading UConn to a title to a sophomore season that saw the team go 40-0, but there's no pressure like going out there and knowing it's your final chance to achieve the impossible. That was what happened in 2016.
But Stewart and the Huskies were unfazed by the pressure. The team went out and dominated the national title game, beating Syracuse 82-51. Stewart scored 24 points in the win while adding 10 rebounds, six assists and two blocks. Morgan Tuck added 19. It was a star-studded Huskies team and, in many ways, the end of an era. As of now, UConn hasn't won a title since 2016, though Paige Bueckers will look to change that in 2025.
If only the ending had a little more drama to it, UConn finishing off the four-peat might have ranked No. 1. But there was one more mic drop moment that stands above the rest.
1. Arike Ogunbowale hits two buzzer beaters in 2018
Not one, not two, not ... well, actually just two — two buzzer beaters for Notre Dame star Arike Ogunbowale to give the Irish the 2018 national title.
It started in the Final Four against an undefeated UConn team. Notre Dame almost won in regulation, but UConn forced overtime. Again leading late, UConn's Crystal Dangerfield hit a late three to tie the game at 89 points.
And then:
Arike gets the ball out near center court with eight-ish seconds to play. Jessica Shepard sets the pick up near the arc for a dribbling Ogunbowale, who gets to the corner, makes a few cool dribble moves and fires up a long 2-pointer to give Notre Dame the lead with just one second to play and the Huskies out of timeouts.
It was a huge moment for Ogunbowale, but then she went out and did it again two nights later.
This time, it was all just pure willpower from Arike. No time to run a real play. No time to get a good pick to open up space. It was just her, the ball, a circus shot from the corner that somehow, miraculously fell in to give Notre Dame the national championship.
Most people spend their whole lives dreaming of making just one big play like that. Arike Ogunbowale did it twice. In two days. To win a national championship. It was the best mic drop moment that the Women's Final Four has ever seen.