OKLAHOMA CITY -- To college athletes, the "distant past" can be as short as four months ago, when they were just starting this season. So four years ago? Truly ancient history, right?
Yes ... and no. The 2013 Baylor-Louisville regional semifinal, epic upset that it was, really has nothing to do with what will happen Friday (ESPN2/WatchESPN), when these programs meet again in the women's NCAA tournament's Sweet 16 at Cheseapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma's capital city.
But for fans of the sport, it's impossible not to flash back to that unforgettable battle that shook up the 2013 NCAA tournament. It was inevitable that the coaches, Baylor's Kim Mulkey and Louisville's Jeff Walz, would be asked questions about it. And at least some of the players really do recall it; two of them, in fact, played in that game on March 31, 2013.
Louisville stunned Baylor, then the defending NCAA champion, and the women's hoops world. The Cardinals were a No. 5 seed with eight losses. The Lady Bears were a No. 1 seed whose only loss had been by two points to Stanford at the start of that season at a tournament in Hawaii.
Baylor entered the 2013 Sweet 16 having won 105 of its previous 108 games dating back to 2010. That included a perfect 40-0 record in 2011-12. Many were looking ahead to a potential Baylor-UConn national championship game; the Lady Bears had defeated the Huskies in Connecticut that February. And Baylor had breezed through its two early-round NCAA games, winning by an average of 40 points.
However, Louisville took it to Baylor from the start. Baylor's 6-foot-8 center Brittney Griner appeared out of sorts, and the Cardinals challenged her physically. But the craziest thing was the 3-pointers. Louisville made 16-of-25 -- Antonita Slaughter and Shoni Schimmel were a combined 12-of-17 from behind the arc -- and needed every one as they won 82-81.
Trailing as many as 19 points, Baylor had rallied to take a lead on two free throws by Odyssey Sims. Then Louisville's Monique Reid was fouled, and she made the winning free throws with 2.6 seconds left.
Louisville's Cortnee Walton and Baylor's Alexis Prince were on the court that day as freshmen. Now they're seniors who've both had to redshirt a season.
Thursday, Walton looked around at the Louisville locker room trying to recall if it was the same one the Cardinals had in 2013. She decided it wasn't, but the memories are still vivid.
She recalled how the Cardinals had been watching Louisville's men's team playing Duke on television while waiting for their own game. Louisville's Kevin Ware suffered a gruesome leg injury, but his teammates rallied to win and get the Cardinal men to the Final Four. That also inspired the women.
"It was kind of like we all had an out-of-body experience. It was so much fun," said Walton, who had four rebounds and two steals in 17 minutes against the Lady Bears. "[But] when they started coming back, everybody was like, 'Holy crap! We've got to hold on to this lead!'
"Especially as a freshman, playing against Brittney Griner, it was just really cool. It's one of those things that you'll never forget. Yeah, I'm excited to be here again."
Prince played just five minutes in that game, scoring two points, and her main memory is of all those Cardinal 3-pointers.
"It was a shock, how many they hit," Prince said. "I tried to learn from it: You never know what can happen in a game, no matter what the seeds are or the records are. You have to prepare thinking that everybody is just as good as you are."
Will Friday's game be much like 2013, even though virtually all of the players except Walton and Prince are different? No. 1 seed Baylor again has a powerful big woman in 6-foot-7 Kalani Brown (15.1 PPG, 8.1 RPG), while sophomore Asia Durr (19.2 PPG) is the No. 4 Cardinals' leading scorer.
Actually, Walz said he doesn't see the matchup as all that similar to 2013. He said his plan then was to take as many as 40 3-pointers -- as mentioned, the Cardinals took 25 -- and hope they could outscore the Lady Bears.
While offense will again be a big key in trying to beat Baylor, Walz points out that Louisville is a stronger team inside now, led by 6-2 forward Myisha Hines-Allen (13.9 PPG, 9.3 RPG), even if the size advantage still goes to the Lady Bears.
"We have some kids that can score on the low block," Walz said. "Where four years ago, that really wasn't our strength."
Louisville has averaged 18.4 3-point attempts this season. Walz said he doesn't expect the Cardinals to put up more than their typical amount of 3's against Baylor. Then he added just a little coyly, "But we might."
Of course, no one expects Walz to reveal all that he has in his bag of tricks. But the Cardinals' mindset is the one thing he sees as similar to 2013.
"We have a group of kids right now that believe in what we're doing," he said. "That team in '13, we truly believed that we could beat Baylor. No one else out there thought we could."
If a few too many of Baylor's players in 2013 overlooked the Cardinals, Mulkey didn't then. And she certainly won't now.
"They are talented," Mulkey said. "They play in a great conference that has prepared them for postseason play. Coach Walz has been [on] this stage many times."
Mulkey has, too; Baylor has advanced at least as far as the Elite Eight six of the past eight seasons. The two misses (2009, '13) were Sweet 16 losses, both to Louisville, when the Cardinals went on to the Final Four. And when Walz was an assistant at Maryland in 2006, the Terps also beat Baylor in the Sweet 16, then later won the NCAA title. So Walz has had Baylor's number three times.
But that 2013 loss here in Oklahoma City was particularly painful for Mulkey. The Final Four that season was in her home state of Louisiana, she was trying to repeat as national champion, and she lost five seniors from that team, including Griner. However, Mulkey really didn't dwell on any of that Thursday.
"The longer you're in the business, those things happen to you," Mulkey said. "You win some you shouldn't, and you lose some that you probably shouldn't. But you can't let [losses] just kill your spirit. You motivate yourself, pick yourself back up, and keep coaching."