Bama Central

Alabama Women's Wheelchair Basketball Team Wins National Championship

The women's program wins its eighth national championship.
Katie Windham|
Alabama Adapted Athletics

Another national championship is coming back to Tuscaloosa from Alabama Adapted Athletics. 

The women's wheelchair basketball team won its eighth national title Saturday night with a 50-48 win over Illinois on a buzzer beater by Lindsey Zurbrugg.

It's the third national title in a row for the program and eight overall with previous wins in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2021. 

The Crimson Tide was the No. 1 overall seed in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association Women's National Tournament Bracket as the defending national champions and took down No. 2 Illinois. Alabama beat No. 4 Wisconsin Whitewater 69-32 in the semifinals to reach the championship game in Arlington, Texas. 

Alabama and Illinois had previously met five times on the season with the Crimson Tide coming away with the win in four of the five previous matchups, and ultimately winning the biggest one of them all. 

Overall, the team was 25-3 on the season, including a 13-game winning streak to close out the schedule with the championship game being the exclamation point on another great season. 

The men's wheelchair basketball team came up just short of another national championship with a 67-56 loss to UT Arlington in the finals. 

The University of Alabama Adapted Athletics program was created in 2003 with the women's wheelchair basketball team and has gone on to add men's wheelchair basketball and wheelchair tennis with the plans to add wheelchair track by 2025 according to the program's official site. Since then, they have gone on to win more than 15 national championships with the last addition on Saturday from the women's team. 

Zurbrugg, the senior from Portland, Oregon who hit the game-winner, is a two-time All-American and won a bronze medal in the Tokyo Paralympic Games. She is one of many Alabama Adapted Athletics athletes who competes in the Paralympic games representing the University for multiple different countries. 

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Katie Windham
KATIE WINDHAM

Katie Windham is the assistant editor for BamaCentral, primarily covering football, basketball, gymnastics and softball. She is a two-time graduate of the University of Alabama and has covered a variety of Crimson Tide athletics since 2019 for outlets like The Tuscaloosa News, The Crimson White and the Associated Press before joining BamaCentral full time in 2021. Windham has covered College Football Playoff games, the Women's College World Series, NCAA March Madness, SEC Tournaments and championships in multiple sports.

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