Sabrina Ionescu didn’t take long to make a quick statement that what transpired not even 48 hours earlier would not happen again.

But she and her Liberty teammates had an even larger message to deliver.

Ionescu rebounded from a rare off game to score 22 points, and nearly a year after the Aces ended the Liberty’s dream of a championship, they returned the favor Sunday afternoon by defeating the Aces 76-62 to advance to the WNBA Finals.

The top-seeded Liberty will have home-court advantage in the championship series and will face either the Sun or Lynx. This is the Liberty’s sixth trip to the finals, but the franchise is still seeking its first title.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” said the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, who had 19 points and 14 rebounds. “This was a tough series, an emotional series for a number of different reasons. But we’re going to the finals and we’re hosting Game 1 and Game 2. We’re ready to go. Just the feeling of not (being) satisfied.”

Alyssa Thomas had 18 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds to help the Sun stave off elimination and beat the Lynx 92-82 on Sunday, forcing a decisive Game 5 in their semifinal series.

College football: It was a week of upheaval in The Associated Press college football poll, with Texas returning to No. 1 on Sunday after a one-week absence following Vanderbilt’s monumental upset of Alabama. The Commodores’ win as more than three-touchdown underdogs caused the Crimson Tide to drop from No. 1 to No. 7. The last top-ranked team to fall so far was Ohio State, which plunged to No. 11 in 2010 following an October loss to Wisconsin.

NBA: The Clippers and P.J. Tucker mutually agreed that the veteran won’t be with the team for the time being while they work to find him a different situation.