Alabama Women’s Wheelchair Basketball Reflects on Championship Season

The Alabama Clemson rivalry that has graced the gridiron for the past four years may not be the only budding rivalry on campus.

The women’s wheelchair basketball team’s 82-76 national championship victory over the University of Texas at Arlington gave the team their much-needed revenge after 2018’s loss. If it were not for that mid-way stumble, the team would have just completed the coveted “threepeat”. Thankfully for the Tide, the loss was also what fueled the squad to overcome the ultimate test in UT Arlington, all in a season led by first year head coach Ryan Hynes.

“Right when I took over the job, I was really excited with the team we already had in place and I saw we had the necessary talent to get the job done,” said Hynes. “We set that as our goal from the very beginning.”

While coach Hynes came into driver’s seat with full-fledged confidence, the rest of the team was battling their inner doubts from last season’s championship loss. Arinn Young, a senior majoring in kinesiology, admitted that she and the rest of the team lacked the pre-season motivation to bring in another title.

Young and company’s concerns seemed to have validity early on after a 58-44 loss to the same team in UT-Arlington on Nov. 9. Even with a 3-1 record up to that point, the team knew that improvements had to be made if they had any plans of defeating the, at the time, seemingly unbeatable Movin’ Mavs.

“When we lost against UTA in our first game of the season by over 20 points, Ryan believed in us,” said Kate Lang, a sophomore from Munich, Germany. “He never wanted us hanging our heads down and he was always motivating us.”

The team responded to the morale crushing loss by winning 15 straight games by an average of 21 points per game, eventually returning for a second crack at UTA on Feb 9. While the result was the same in the end, falling 59-66, the team thought of this game as a turning point for their season, knowing it would be possible to get over the hump by the time post-season play came around.

“We knew we could get closer to beating them [and] I think UTA was sure that they would win by 20 because of last time,” said Lang.

The team would only lose to the Mavs one more time amidst an otherwise nearly perfect season by slowly but surely, diminishing the gap with a 66-70 loss on March 2. The good news for the Tide was that with their postseason standings, they only needed to win the one that mattered. They had one more shot come championship time and despite an 0-3 record against their toughest competitor, confidence was no longer an issue. The team believed in itself and their progress showed that the only thing getting in the way of a championship season was not UTA but themselves.

“It was a mind over matter situation where I knew we could beat them, but we weren’t playing as a team and we knew we had to buckle down and figure it out,” said Young. “Once we did, the [deficit] started to get smaller and smaller each time we played them.”

On March 15, the Tide faced off for the last time against UTA. This time, the result could nullify all three of their previous meetings. The game remained close throughout its full regulation as Bama went up 34-36 at the half. After falling down by one after a 20-11 third quarter by the Mavs, coach Hynes was able to keep the team confident and steady as he was described by Lang as always being able to do even if “they were down by 30.”

Lang took Hynes’ cool, calm, and collected approach with a short jumper that hit the bottom of the net with six seconds left to force an overtime and eventual Tide victory.

Although their hypothetical threepeat was taken away by their 2018 loss, the team’s perseverance through such formidable competition speaks volumes to the program’s future under Hynes. To go along with a vengeful UTA, it will not only be a single team competition again as the whole league will be on notice of the defending champs.

“Next year since we are defending champs, we will have the target on our backs at all times, so I think that’s an exciting and new challenge for us and I’m excited to see how we handle that," said Hynes.