GORHAM – And then there was one.

All year long, thanks to their three titanic tussles in the New England Small College Athletic Conference, everyone in the nation with an eyelash on NCAA Division III women’s basketball knew about the mighty Maine schools.

Bowdoin and Bates. Bates and Bowdoin.

Hmm, were they forgetting anyone?

“We’re the underdog,” University of Southern Maine junior Donna Cowing said.

Everybody has that friend who can’t keep a straight face when she tells a joke or prefaces the punch line with a laugh, just to make sure there is a laugh.

That was Cowing, in this instance.

If she’d whispered those words with a deadpan expression in early December, you could give her the benefit the doubt. But this is March, and USM is unbeaten since the Tuesday after Turkey Day.

Now, it’s a mantra of self-motivation.

Nobody loves us. We get no respect. Even though we’re the only ones left standing.

Southern Maine reversed a 24-point loss by eliminating Bates in overtime Friday night. Scranton took care of Bowdoin on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Maine’s third wheel in the national top five is rolling on to Virginia Beach. USM squelched Springfield, 80-69, winning a sectional final Sunday at Hill Gymnasium and laughing in the face of anyone who thought the Huskies were a year away from winning a national championship.

Last time Megan Myles checked, they’re two games away.

“It feels great,” the junior from Auburn exclaimed.

She’s been asked how it feels to be the lone Pine Tree State representative in next weekend’s national semifinals.

There’s a palpable us-against-them mentality in this discussion, but seriously, nobody outside the Gorham campus gave USM the time of day until halfway through its Little East Conference schedule.

The Huskies lost the unofficial State of Maine tournament in November. They couldn’t get out of their own way at Bates. Played better, but still lacked that go-to presence in an eight-point defeat seven nights later at Bowdoin.

As winter rolled on, other complications surfaced. One player was dropped from the team.

How were we to know? How was anyone to know?

Truth is, not even the Huskies really knew.

“I think they just started believing in each other,” USM coach Gary Fifield said. “They started to understand what we had to do as a team, especially defensively. To win 28 in a row since the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, I think we’re playing with a lot of confidence right now.”

If the winter doldrums are eating away at you, and you have both the free time and money to make a 1,600-mile round trip, there are millions of worse ways to spend a weekend than supporting USM in its fourth-ever trip to the Final Four.

For Lewiston-Auburn fans, true, there was something magical about having Bates and Bowdoin in our backyard.

Funny thing is, neither of those teams screams “Maine” one-hundredth as much as USM does.

Nine players are natives, hailing from such haunts I’ve never visited as Calais, Weeks Mills and Topsfield. The Huskies’ grittiness and sense of shared responsibility that fits nicely in this neck of the woods, also.

“We’re just happy to be here,” said Cowing.

I still don’t believe her. And I still don’t believe that Maine isn’t sending two, even three teams to the ‘ship.

But I do believe USM has earned every ounce of adulation, belated as it may be.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected]