WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (WTKR) — Even 24 hours after completing a true Cinderella story, the William & Mary women's basketball team still hadn't fully taken in what it had just accomplished in the Coastal Athletic Association Tournament.
"Time keeps moving really, really fast. I don't think I've eaten in four days," said head coach Erin Dickerson Davis. "I told the team that I don't think I'm emotionally mature enough to put this into words what this feels like."
The Tribe's return to campus on Monday seemed to help the championship run sink in a little bit more.
The team was met by fans, coaches, and athletes from teams around the school at Kaplan Arena. The players gave their community an up close look at their first ever CAA Tournament trophy while also celebrating the school's first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.
"Getting off the bus, we were bumping the tunes and singing 'We are the Champions,'" said senior guard Bella Nascimento. "It was awesome, this was such a surreal moment."
"Walking into the gym, being back home, it finally felt real," said sophomore guard Cassidy Geddes. "The entire season, we've talked about doing this and we finally completed the goal."
Through a sea of green and yellow clad fans, Dickerson Davis and company relishing in their four wins in four days to win the tournament title.
It was a run that started after the team lost seven of their final eight games and earned the ninth seed in the bracket. To take the automatic bid, they would have to win four straight, including once against the top seed in North Carolina A&T, and then finish against a Campbell group that had them trailing 14-0 after just four minutes of play in the title game.
The more the adversity mounted, the more the Tribe seemed to rise to the occasion.
"I always told them that you lose, but you don't fold," Dickerson Davis said. "You don't quit."
"Everything we went through, we stayed together. Hit adversity, stay together and just keep believing," Geddes said. "We didn't look at ourselves as a nine-seed, we really thought we were going to go all the way the entire time."
They did just that, with Nascimento scoring 33 points and Geddes hitting a massive three in a come-from-behind 66-63 win over the Fighting Camels.
Becoming the first team in the school's nearly 120 years of playing basketball to make the Big Dance was not lost on the team, but the enormity of what they had just done in the immediate moment overtook the team's emotions.
"'Did this just happen?' I started second guessing myself," Nascimento said. "'Are we really champions?' And then we go up and cut the nets and I'm like 'Oh, this is for real.' I heard MVP chats and I said, 'Oh, this is for real.'"
"To see it all come together at the right time in the craziest month of the year is just so cool to see," Dickerson Davis said.
Throughout the run, William & Mary felt the support from their fans whether it was close to elimination or at the top of the ladder cutting down the nets in Washington D.C.
"All the support being here, really feeling the love from the Tribe and knowing we were making history is a great feeling," Geddes said.
Now they hope to give them at least one more win to add to their memorable March Madness. The Tribe head to Austin, Texas where they will face High Point on Thursday at 9:00 PM in the First Four. If they win that, they'll go on to play top seeded Texas in the Round of 64.
After seeing the level of support its had since the turnaround began, William & Mary knows the team won't be alone in that fight.
"I know they're all just so proud of our girls," Dickerson Davis said. "To know that we're going to get home, wash our clothes, and then go (Tuesday) for the NCAA Tournament is just wild."
