Notre Dame's incredible championship-winning shot came on a blown play that was supposed to go to another player

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• Notre Dame beat Mississippi in the NCAA Championship on Sunday after Arike Ogunbowale hit a game-winning three-pointer as time expired.
• Notre Dame players and coaches acknowledged that the shot came off a broken play and they wanted to get the ball to a different player.
• When Notre Dame couldn't run the play they wanted, Ogunbowale followed instructions to get the ball, and she delivered the shot of a lifetime.

Notre Dame won the NCAA Championship on Sunday when Arike Ogunbowale came through again with a game-winning shot to beat Mississippi State.

After nailing a step-back jumper to take down UConn on Friday to reach the championship game, on Sunday, Ogunbowale caught the ball with three seconds remaining, made her way to the elbow, and launched a contested three as time expired to win the game.

However, despite the heroic moment, the play was not designed to go to Ogunbowale. Ogunbowale had struggled on Sunday, shooting just 5-of-20 before the final shot. Instead, the ball was intended to go to Jessica Shepard, who was 8-of-10 from the field with 19 points.

But inbounding guard Jackie Young had reservations about getting Shepard the ball cleanly, so she had a backup plan.

"I didn't like the way it looked," Young said. "I knew, if I threw it, it would have possibly been a turnover. So I talked to Arike before, and I was like, if the matchup doesn't look right or if Jess isn't in the position that we're looking for, then come to the ball. And I just made sure Arike was literally coming to the ball before I passed it to her."

Notre Dame head coach Muffet McGraw even acknowledged that she wanted to get the ball close to the basket, afraid that if they got the ball on the perimeter, Mississippi State might foul to stop the clock.

"We didn't want to do anything that was going away from the basket, where they could maybe [foul and] take some time off the clock," McGraw said. "We thought, 'Get as close to the basket as you can with Jess.' She could turn and shoot and maybe get fouled. That was the first option.

"Arike hadn't been shooting the ball particularly well. Jess was."

Ogunbowale then delivered the shot of a lifetime.

As Deadspin noted, on this angle, you can hear Ogunbowale call for the ball as she ran to the sideline.

Though the Notre Dame players all said they felt confident in Ogunbowale's shot, it wasn't necessarily the play they would have drawn up. According to Notre Dame guard Marina Mabrey, Ogunbowale practices that fade-away three-pointer frequently and rarely makes it.

"She always practices that shot in warm-ups, and it irritates me because she misses it a lot," Mabrey said. "We'll be trying to move to our next drill in warm-ups, and she'll shoot that. Honestly, it doesn't go in all that often. 

"I saw her do the shot tonight, and I thought, 'That's good.' I had a really good angle, and I saw the rotation, and I was like, 'Wow, she is the absolute GOAT.'"