Ogwumike and Stanford Return to Final Four - New York Times

Ogwumike scored a game-high 29 points in the top-seeded Cardinal’s 81-69 vanquishing of Duke in the Fresno Region final Monday at Save Mart Center.

“I guess they’re the real deal,” said the Duke senior Shay Selby, who would know after witnessing Stanford earn its team-record 32nd straight victory.

For Ogwumike, this Final Four reservation is impressively unoriginal.

Ogwumike, a senior all-American, will make her fourth straight Final Four appearance.

Her last chance for a first championship trophy begins Sunday in Denver, where Stanford (35-1) must negotiate its way past top-ranked and unbeaten Baylor (38-0).

“It’s sweeter because it’s four for four,” Ogwumike said, wearing a clipped basketball net as a necklace. “This feeling never gets old. Not a lot of teams can say they’ve done that.”

That’s not to say Duke (27-6) was altogether unable to stop Ogwumike.

There was that brief respite with seven minutes left in the first half when Ogwumike caught an alley-oop pass and laid the ball in easily and when turning around, ran face-first into the inadvertent elbow of Duke’s Kathleen Scheer.

Ogwumike went to the floor with a throbbing nose and watery eyes, and took a sideline break for 90 seconds.

“I don’t know, I scored or something?” Ogwumike said. “I just needed a second to regroup.”

This is not to say Ogwumike did it all by herself out there.

She needed her sophomore sister, Chiney, to pull down 17 rebounds.

Fitting, the route to the Final Four was capped by Ogwumike’s sprinting down court and reeling in one last pass from her sister and laying it in for her final points.

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