2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament
| 2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The birthplace of Rock and Roll was honored with a guitar
on the 2007 Women's Final Four logo. |
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| Teams | 64 | ||||
| Finals site |
Quicken Loans Arena Cleveland, Ohio |
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| Champions | Tennessee (7th title) | ||||
| Runner-up | Rutgers (1st title game) | ||||
| Semifinalists |
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| Winning coach | Pat Summitt (7th title) | ||||
| MOP | Candace Parker Tennessee | ||||
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The 2007 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament began on March 17, 2007 and concluded on April 3 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. The Final Four consisted of Tennessee, LSU, Rutgers, and North Carolina, with Tennessee defeating Rutgers 59–46 for their seventh National Title. Tennessee's Candace Parker was named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament.
The Dallas Regional largely followed the seeding, with the top two seeds meeting in the regional final, and the top seed, North Carolina, winning 84–72 to move on to the Final Four, the second consecutive trip to the Final Four for the Tarheels. In the Dayton Regional, seventh-seeded Mississippi upset second-seeded Maryland, and followed that with an upset of third-seeded Oklahoma, but in the regional final faced top-seeded Tennessee, who went on to beat Mississippi by 36 points, and move on to the Final Four.
In the Fresno Regional, the second-seeded Stanford Cardinal fell to Florida State, who then lost to third-seeded LSU. In the regional final, LSU easily beat Connecticut, 73–50. In the Greensboro Regional, neither of the top two seeds made it to the regional final. The top seed, Duke, lost a one-point game to Rutgers, while the second seed, Vanderbilt, was ousted in the second round by Bowling Green. Third-seeded Rutgers beat the fourth seed, Arizona State, by 19 points in the regional final.
The semifinal game between Tennessee and North Carolina was expected to be a high-scoring game, but it turned out to be more disorder than scoring, In a game the New York Times would describe as an "artless grind", the Tarheels held a 48–36 lead with just over eight minutes to play. They would not score another basket. The Lady Vols, who ended up hitting only 27% of the field goal attempts, went on a 20–2 run, and ended up with the win, 56–50.
In the other semifinal, Rutgers faced LSU. Rutgers's appearance in a Final Four game seemed improbable earlier in the season, when the Scarlet Knights lost four of their first six games, and played so poorly that their coach C. Vivian Stringer revoked their access to their locker room. However, their play, particularly their defense, improved, and they were now a game away from a possible appearance in a national championship game, if they could defeat LSU, who had Sylvia Fowles as a dominant center. Fowles, who would go on to be the second overall WNBA draft pick the following year, had just completed a double-double against Connecticut, scoring 23 points, snaring 15 rebounds and blocking 6 shots. Rutgers held her to five points while missing eight of her ten field goal attempts. Rutgers pulled out to a 37–19 lead at halftime, and went on to win, holding LSU to 35 points, an NCAA record low in a Final Four game.
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