Tears of joy, huge smiles and heartfelt hugs were in abundance Sunday as the William & Mary women’s basketball team celebrated its stunning run to the CAA championship.
One thing that was absent from coaches, players and staff was the look of disbelief.
“It all started with belief. Everybody had belief,” senior guard Bella Nascimento, who had 33 points and 11 rebounds, both career highs, in the ninth-seeded Tribe’s 66-63 victory over No.3 Campbell in the title game.
The day before, after the Tribe’s semifinal win over No.4 Drexel, Nascimento also mentioned the team’s attitude.
“We all believe every single day, every single possession,” she said. “Every single timeout, we repeat ‘I believe. I believe.’ We really do believe and we know that we can go to the championship and win it.”
Behind Nascimento, who was named the tournament’s most outstanding player, the Tribe did just that, becoming the lowest seed to win the tournament and earning the first NCAA bid in program history.
“We stuck together. We believed. That’s all we kept saying is believe,” said coach Erin Dickerson Davis, in her third year with the Tribe.
Nascimento had lots of help in the title game, which wasn’t a surprise because another tenant of this year’s team was on display: selfless play.
Rebekah Frisby-Smith, a fifth-year forward, scored 12 points, had three rebounds and made stop after stop on defense. Sophomore guard Cassidy Geddes, also an all-tournament team selection, had 10 points and three steals. Monet Dance, another sophomore guard and an all-tournament selection, was held to four points, but had four rebounds and two assists.
“We talked about everyone contributing,” Davis said. “Something that we talked about throughout the conference tournament is nobody can do it alone. Even in our huddles today, I was like, ‘Hey, we’re trying to do it alone. You can’t do it alone.’ … Nobody can be the hero. We have to be the hero together.”
For Campbell (21-12), all-tournament selection Courtney Dahlquist had 19 points, Gianni Boone added 15 points and four rebounds, and Gemma Nunez, also on the all-tournament team, had 13 points, five rebounds and six assists. The Camels had won 11 of 13 games and had tournament wins over No.11 Towson, and No.2 Charleston.
For the fourth consecutive game, the Tribe were playing a team they lost to at least once in the regular season. Their title run began with a win over No.8 Hofstra (0-1 in regular season), followed by an overtime defeat of No.1 North Carolina A&T (0-2), a victory over No.4 Drexel (0-1) and ended with a triumph over Campbell (0-2).
On the eve of the tournament, Davis and her staff stressed those previous results meant nothing.
“We said that none of that mattered. It’s March,” she said. “All you have to do is believe in yourself, believe in us, believe in what we do, and we’ll come out on top.”
The Tribe had belief despite losing eight of its last 10 games in the regular season, despite opening against Hofstra, a team it lost to by 20 at home; despite then taking on pre-tournament favorite N.C. A&T, which beat them by 23 and 25 points in the regular season; despite facing Drexel, which beat them in their only regular-season meeting; and despite Campbell, which beat them by 18 in their regular-season finale, taking a 14-0 lead just 2:41 into the championship game.
“It is tournament time, and crazy things happen in March,” Davis said.
Things couldn’t have been any crazier at the start. The Tribe missed their first eight field goals, finally getting on the scoreboard on a Nascimento jump shot at the 5:08 mark.
“I thought that fatigue was getting the best of us and nerves were getting the best of us,” Davis said of the slow start.
That is when trust and patience came into play.
“There’s no eight-point shot. There's no 14-point shot,” Davis said.
The Tribe cut the deficit to 11 after the first 10 minutes, then to eight at the half, capped by a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Nascimento, giving her nine in the quarter and 13 overall.
“Hitting that last shot right before halftime, it helped us going into the locker room,” Davis said.
The Camels scored the first four points on the third quarter and led 51-38 with 2:02 left, before the Tribe responded with a 11-2 run to make it a four-point game going into the final 10 minutes. Nascimento had eight points in the run, including a 3-pointer and a three-point play. Frisby-Smith closed the quarter with a 3 at the buzzer, her third 3 of the quarter.
“Those were big momentum-swingers for us,” Nascimento said of her shot at the end of the half and Frisby-Smith’s 3 at the end of the third quarter.
Campbell coach Ronny Fisher agreed.
“That’s six points and those were big shots,” he said. “The momentum shifted on both of those.”
The Tribe took its first lead on a Geddes 3-pointer at 6:45 of the fourth quarter. After Campbell retook the lead, Nascimento’s shot in the paint a minute later was the third and final lead change of the game at 58-57. She added another at 4:45 to make it a three-point game.
Nunez cut it to 64-63 with 39 seconds left, but Nascimento answered again, on a step-back jumper for her final points of the night. Anahi-Lee Cauley, yet another senior who hit a big shot earlier in the quarter, grabbed a rebound with 5 seconds left to secure the win.

“Hats off to William & Mary and Erin and her staff. They did a great job. They were just better,” said Fisher, who added they just couldn’t find a way to stop Nascimento. “Sometimes one player steps up and is really tough to guard, and Bella was something else.”
Two key factors all tournament for the Tribe were 3-point shooting and rebounding. They entered the postseason hitting 25 percent of shots from long range, making just over 5 out of 20 attempts a game. However, in the tournament, they hit 40 of 90 (44 percent), going 9-26 (34.6) against Hofstra, 11-19 (57.9) against N.C. A&T, 12-22 (54.5) against Drexel, and 8-23 (34.8) against Campbell. In the regular season, they never made more than 10 in a game.
“As they got into the tournament, they really started shooting that ball well,” Fisher said.
As for rebounding, they were outrebounded 41-30 by the Camels, but came up with key rebounds when needed. After giving up seven offensive boards in the first half of the championship game, the Tribe gave up just one in the second half. And after being outrebounded by 12 in the first half, they outrebounded Campbell by one in the final 20 minutes.
“Rebounding, that was our No.1 focus going into these four games,” Davis said. “We felt like we could stay in front of people. We felt like we could be solid defensively, but we can’t give people so many opportunities to score.”
With the victory, W&M added another historic chapter to a college steeped in history. They learned later Sunday night they would play High Point in a matchup of No.16 seeds.
At the postgame press conference, Davis said she never thought of the historical significance during the game.
“I couldn’t think about any of that,” she said, adding she’s a stoic person and some of the players even say she’s cold. “When there was .4 seconds on the clock, somebody just came and gave me a hug and I just started crying. It’s not because of the history, it’s because of the resilience that this team showed.”
She mentioned how everyone contributed, especially her veterans with their leadership and making sure the players stayed poised even when things weren’t going their way.
“My seniors did not want to end their season, and it started with them,” Davis said. “It started with Bella. It started with Beck Frisby-Smith. It started with Kayla Beckwith, and it started with Anahi-Lee Cauley. And everybody else just caught fire from the fire that they lit.”
W&M joined the CAA for the 1985-86 season, after two years in the East Coast Athletic Conference (ECAC) South, the precursor to the CAA. Its only other appearance in the championship game was in 1993, when the Tribe lost to top-seeded Old Dominion University 65-51.
“Every person had belief that they could do it and that we could win as a team, not individuals,” Nascimento said. “And that’s what we did. We came here and we won.”