HENDERSON, Nev. — Gracie Gallegos began dribbling toward the UC San Diego bench Saturday as the final seconds ticked away, UC Davis resigned to its fate and no longer fouling to stop the clock.
Four … three … two … one.
It was maybe 50 feet to the bench and the pile of bodies that mobbed her as the horn sounded, the final confirmation that the Triton women’s basketball team, with a 75-66 decision against the Aggies, had won the Big West Tournament title and earned an automatic berth to the NCAA Tournament in the school’s first year of full Division I hip.
The journey to get there was far longer.
The Tritons were dominant in Division II, going 188-55 over eight seasons at that level under coach Heidi VanDerveer, a staggering 83-11 in the last three.
Then came the purgatory of a four-year “transition” to Division I, where they weren’t eligible for the Big West or NCAA tournaments. They struggled, at least by their lofty standards, with four straight losing seasons: 23-7, 28-5, 30-1 and 25-5 to 6-9, 13-14, 13-17 and 12-19.
They continued to struggle this season, opening with a win against Division III Occidental followed by eight straight losses.
Since: UCSD is 19-7, including three wins in three days in the Big West Tournament.
Championships are nothing new in the VanDerveer family. Heidi’s older sister, Tara, reached the Final Four 13 times and won three Division I titles at Stanford before retiring last year.
“I won a national championship my first year at Tennessee, and my sister said it’s not going to get any better that this,” said Heidi, who was a graduate assistant under legendary coach Pat Summitt. “Honestly, she was wrong, and I don’t say she’s wrong too often. This is better than that.
“This is about legacy. I tell these young women all the time that it is your legacy, and they left it. They left it.”
Senior guard Parker Montgomery came to UCSD in 2020, thinking she would never play in a postseason tournament during the four-year transition. Then the pandemic hit, and the NCAA granted student-athletes an extra year of eligibility.
“This feels unreal,” Montgomery said. “Like, I’m speechless. I was sitting on the bench, just taking in the moment. This is what I came back for. I said I wanted to be Big West champs. … I wanted to make a statement for UC San Diego.”
The fourth-seeded Tritons made it, all right.
They also learned their lesson from the semifinal against Hawaii, blowing a 27-point lead before Sumayah Sugapong’s layup with 0.2 seconds left secured a 51-49 win and a date in the championship game against the third-seeded Aggies.
This time, they led by 13 at the half and by 19 in the third quarter. The lead was still 17 with 3:30 left in the fourth when a 7-0 Aggies run cut it to 10.
But the Tritons grabbed a pair of offensive rebounds to run off big chunks of the clock, and Gallegos’ block on Nya Epps was followed by Sabrina Ma’s uncontested layup at the other end that sealed it.
Gallegos had a monster game, with 24 points, seven rebounds, three assists and lockdown defense on Aggies leading scorer Tova Sabel. Ma added 15 points. Sugapong had 11 points, seven rebounds and three assists while fasting for Ramadan with a 3 p.m. tip.
“I’m not going to lie, I was feeling it a little today,” said Sugapong, a San Diego native and La Jolla Country Day graduate who was named tournament MVP. “All glory to God for still allowing me to compete while fasting.”
They put on championship T-shirts and hats, hoisted the trophy and then headed to the basket in front of their bench to do something they hadn’t over a long four years: cut down nets.
“We’ve had to sit and watch it for the last four years, knowing and being hungry,” said VanDerveer, whose team will learn its NCAA Tournament assignment, most likely as a No. 15 or 16 seed, on Sunday evening. “This was our moment. I was like, you’ve got to envision it, and I felt our team bought into the vision.
“They believed.”
