STANFORD, Calif. — In the moment, there’s never a silver lining to a loss in the NCAA women's basketball tournament.
But give it some time — maybe days, maybe weeks — and the time will come when this Florida Gulf Coast University team will look back on the 2017-18 season and appreciate being a part of history.
With 7:39 left in the third quarter of No. 12 seed FGCU’s season-ending 90-70 loss to No. 4 seed Stanford on Monday night, China Dow sank FGCU’s 10th 3-pointer of the game, tying 2014-15 Sacramento State’s all-time NCAA team record of 424 made triples in a season.
A minute later, Dow’s next attempt was also true, leaving the 2017-18 FGCU Eagles alone atop the record books.
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When the clock hit triple zeroes in the fourth quarter, FGCU had made 17 shots from long distance on 47 attempts, their second-most 3-point tries of the season, bringing the Eagles’ record-setting final tally to 431.
“If you know (coach Karl Smesko), if you know our program; if you miss, just keep shooting because that's what we're taught,” Dow said. “Like, don't just get down on yourself. Just keep shooting. That's what I kept doing and they fell in the second half, so it worked out.”
The prolific output was the extreme culmination of the fast-paced, 3-centric offense that has defined Smesko’s FGCU program, and it was fitting that Dow was the one to put in the shots that first tied, then broke the all-time record.
Dow had been a career 26.8 percent 3-point shooter in her two years at Middle Tennessee State and was only 25.3 percent from distance last season, her first eligible at FGCU.
But after working throughout the offseason on improving her shot to better fit Smesko’s scheme, Dow finished her senior season with 56 makes on 135 attempts, a 41.5 percent clip, second on the team behind only Jessica Cattani. She had only made 52 total 3s in the first three seasons of her career combined.
“If you take a look at my percentage last year, my percentage this year is really amazing for me,” Dow said. “You know, I was working on my shot over the summer and it came through. So it's good.”
When nothing else was working for the Eagles against a big, strong, fast Stanford team that outblocked them 7-1, outrebounded them 52-18 and outscored them in the paint 40-12, FGCU, true to form, went down in a frenzied rain of 3s.
It wasn’t enough to earn them the first Sweet 16 berth in program history, but it did earn them a spot in the record books. It’s not the prize they would have wanted to take away from Palo Alto, but it was a noteworthy exclamation mark on a historic season.
“All season, we work on our threes and work hard to get open for good shots and we always try to take the open shots,” guard Lisa Zderadicka said. “So that's just the way we play. We knocked a lot of threes down this season, which helped us.”