All typed out, it's something to behold. To finish the best season in program history, Michigan pummeled upset darling Florida Gulf Coast, knocked off three-seed Tennessee, and took powerhouse Baylor to overtime in one of the best college basketball games of the season.

This was no fluke. Michigan made Baylor work hard to hit 50% from the field and the Bears wouldn’t have done so without a record-tying 11-for-11 performance from All-American NaLyssa Smith, who threw up a Jordan Shrug after drilling yet another long jumper late in the game. Michigan’s All-American, Naz Hillmon, had a quiet game by her standards—14 points, seven rebounds—but Leigha Brown poured in 23 points while dicing up the vaunted BU defense.

In their first-ever Sweet Sixteen, the Wolverines were leading the reigning national champions in overtime, and they had two shots to extend the game to a second extra session. They put on a show on ABC that was objectively better than the much-hyped matchup between UConn’s Paige Bueckers and Iowa’s Caitlin Clark that preceded it. They positioned themselves where a bounce here or a call there could swing the outcome. That’s another big step.

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While Michigan’s best season ever didn’t need any more validation, it got plenty last night. Baylor and UConn played what may stand up as the true national title game in the Elite Eight. The Bears controlled the game until the third quarter, when point forward and defensive stalwart DiDi Richards exited the game with a hamstring injury that she ultimately couldn’t play through.

The Huskies ripped off a 19-0 run, only for Baylor to push back despite the absence of Richards. The game came down to the final seconds, when BU’s DiJonai Carrington drove into traffic with the Bears down one and missed, probably because the officials swallowed their whistles while she was fouled at least two different ways. UConn added a free throw, stole a desperation inbounds, and extended their Final Four streak to 13 by a whisker.

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— CJ Fogler (@cjzer0) March 30, 2021

In the postgame press conference, Kim Mulkey fumbled with a mask as she attempted to put it on while complaining about the final non-call. She held up her phone as if it held the earth-shattering reveal behind a global conspiracy. It contained “still shots and video from two angles” of the non-call.

There’s no conspiracy, of course. Women’s college basketball officiating is notoriously bad. Late-game non-calls are common even in well-officiated games. This observer doesn’t remember Mulkey mentioning anything about Carrington getting away with an obvious carry before scoring critical points in overtime of the Michigan game, either. Ditto Michigan head coach Kim Barnes Arico, for that matter.

Mulkey kept futzing with her mask and said much more.

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[Hit THE JUMP.]

a player's coach [JD Scott]

Barnes Arico has built a program. That’s not just in the sense that Michigan is winning more games than ever; they’ve also forged an identity that’s been largely player-driven, and that only happens with a coach who’s willing to listen and form a real bond with their charges.

Michigan is now the program that’s featured in the New York Times because the star player wanted to be more educated and outspoken about the Black Lives Matter movement, and not only did Barnes Arico encourage that, she joined Naz Hillmon in the process and made it a team-wide endeavor:

“It’s a big turning point in our program,” Barnes Arico said. “We have many people from different backgrounds, and we had to educate ourselves. This allowed us to really gain perspective — to be closer with each other and feel like we could connect with each other on a different level.”

And, Hillmon said, they hope that connection can help them as they go deeper in the N.C.A.A. tournament.

“It just means a ton knowing that someone you call Coach wants to lead in more than just their field of coaching,” Hillmon said. “You go a little bit harder, because you’ve got somebody behind you vouching for you, and going as hard for you as you’re going for yourself.”

That bond came through in the way Michigan handled a difficult year. The Wolverines dealt with a long COVID pause, illness and injuries—including missing starting point guard Amy Dilk in the NCAA Tournament—that prevented the team from being at full strength for more than a couple games, and a late-season swoon.

The constants were Barnes Arico and Hillmon. The trust between All-American and coach was evident and set the tone for the whole team.

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not a player's coach [C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images]

Mulkey’s press conference continued, unfortunately. Without being asked about the subject, she unleashed this upon the world:

"After the games today and tomorrow, there's four teams left, I think, on the men's side and the women's side," Mulkey said, unprompted, during her postgame news conference. "They need to dump the COVID testing. Wouldn't it be a shame to keep COVID testing and then you got kids that test positive or something and they don't get to play in the Final Four? So you just need to forget the COVID tests and get the four teams playing in each Final Four and go battle it out."

Baylor and UConn were supposed to play earlier this season. The game was canceled because Kim Mulkey tested positive for COVID. She’s rightfully getting destroyed for her comments in the media; they display a frightening willingness to put others at great risk.

This is not the first time Mulkey has said something reprehensible. When she spoke to a packed arena after her 500th career win in 2017, she had a message for those with trepidations about sending their children to Baylor in the wake of the football team’s sexual assault scandal:

"If somebody [is] around you and they say, 'I will never send my daughter to Baylor,' you knock them right in the face," Mulkey said to a crowd of Bears' faithful on Saturday. "Because these kids are on this campus. I work here. My daughter went to school here...And it's the damn best school in America."

She later apologized for her “poor choice of words,” though not the message itself.

Meanwhile, the greatest player Mulkey has ever had, two-time All-American and six-time WNBA All-Star center Brittney Griner, does not openly support her former school. Griner came out to her friends and family as a freshman in high school, told Mulkey during the recruiting process that she was gay, and says she was assured by Mulkey that wouldn’t be a problem.

Mulkey’s solution was to shove her players back into the closet, according to Griner, who was willing to subject herself to the possibility of a lawsuit by publishing her story in a book:

Griner, who came out publicly in an April 2013 story in USA Today, said that she never asked Mulkey if she could come out publicly while in school.

"I already knew the answer," she told ESPN in May 2013. "I didn't want to hear 'No.' It was a recruiting thing. The coaches thought if it seemed like they condoned it, people wouldn't let their kids play for Baylor."

According to ESPN, Mulkey declined to comment on the specifics of her relationship with Griner. It certainly doesn’t seem to have mended. There was no lawsuit.

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ready for more [C. Morgan Engel/NCAA Photos via Getty Images]

I don’t foresee Barnes Arico and any of her players having such issues. This is where Michigan basketball stands.

Naz Hillmon: "This was a great season to make firsts but now it's time to make seconds."

Tells you all you need to know about this team, program, and its program-defining player.

— Lily Israel (@IsraelLily) March 27, 2021

With much of the rotation returning, including Hillmon and Brown, the team should be very good next year. Barnes Arico has recruited at a high enough level to put Michigan in position to take that next step forward. She's done it in a way that makes the program very easy to support, not to mention fun.

Women's basketball has made tremendous progress in recent years. The growth of the sport is one matter; these games were nationally televised and drawing a lot of attention away from the concurrent men's tournament games. The sport is also almost inherently forward-thinking and progressive: the WNBA has been at the forefront of many of the social justice statements later replicated, often in watered-down fashion, by other professional leagues. The disparity in amenities between the men's and women's tournaments—and the NCAA's response to the subsequent public outcry—displayed the need for these continued pushes forward.

The nature of coaching college basketball, however, pulls in the other direction. College coaches can wield massive power over their program, especially when on-court success inoculates them from a certain level of administrative criticism. Kim Mulkey is three-time national champion and three-time national coach of the year. She's also a dinosaur. Maybe that catches up to the Baylor program, maybe not. Regardless, by holding her players back, she's also holding back the sport.

Here's one more quote from Natalie Weiner's NYT article:

“It can’t just be a sound bite. It has to be a constant battle and a constant fight,” Barnes Arico said. “I feel like that’s my responsibility — more than being someone that’s just about X’s and O’s, it’s to teach these women to use their voices, to be powerful, to keep asking why and to keep trying to push the needle.”

I know which Kim I want coaching my program. It's not the one with the championship rings.