The Guru’s NCAAW Tourney Report: In a Battle of Philly Coaches UConn Ends Its Nine-Year Drought Winning a 12th NCAA Title While Denying a Back-to-Back by South Carolina

Update writethru

By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru

TAMPA, Fla. — UConn lightning has struck twice at South Carolina, the second time 82-59 here Sunday afternoon in the NHL Amalie Arena by a similar force as the first bolt the Huskies (37-3) unleashed on the Gamecocks back in Columbia two months ago.

However, this burst was far more destructive in denying the Gamecocks (35-4) back-to-back NCAA women’s basketball titles as it was instead UConn clutching the hardware and emphatically parting ways with a nine-year championship drought.

Until Sunday following the celebratory rain of confetti, the last cutting down the nets came in 2016, the fourth straight at the end of the “Stewy” era. That would be Breanna Stewart, who quickly went on to the WNBA as the overall No. 1 pick, became rookie of the year and won championships in Seattle before last fall helping to bring the New York Liberty its first title dating to the league’s inaugural summer in 1997.

With two Hall of Fame Philly legendary coaches in UConn’s Geno Auriemma, who grew up in nearby Norristown, and South Carolina’s Dawn Staley, who hails from North’s Philadelphia’s Raymond Rosen Projects, battling in the Super Bowl of women’s basketball, the winning Huskies’ performance was akin to how the Eagles handled Kansas City two months ago in New Orleans.

Already owning a massive record 11 trophies that began with the Jenn Rizzotti/Rebecca Lobo crew in 1995, with Sunday’s triumph the UConn total updated to 12, while the on-going collegiate record of coaching triumphs without regard to the men’s or women’s game that is in possession of Auriemma, has reached 1250.

Besides extending the women’s title record, the total snaps a tie with 11 won by the UCLA men, 10 under the legendary Hall of Fame John Wooden, the Wizard  of Westwood.

“No one has meant more to its sport than UConn has been to women’s basketball,” Auriemma smiled.

The championship also completes the five-year mission of grad senior Paige Bueckers, a span filled with injuries, upsets and a 2022 loss to South Carolina that ended Auriemma’s perfect 11-0 mark in the title game.

The Minneapolis native used her extra year of eligibility to return and forego the WNBA draft which Bueckers will be part of next Monday night in New York as the likely overall No. 1 pick by the Dallas Wings.

“It’s been a story of resilience, gratitude of overcoming adversity and responding to life’s challenges,” she said of her collegiate career. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

When she walked off the court for the last time, the outcome apparent way earlier, Auriemma and Bueckers, who scored 17, embraced in a long bear hug.

“They’ve all been gratifying, don’t get me wrong,” Auriemma said. “But this one here, because of the way it came about and what’s been involved, it’s been a long time since I’ve been emotional when a player has walked off the court.

“She had tears and in five years at Connecticut, I’ve never ever seen Paige cry.”

Asked what was said, Bueckers, who has the same ability to quip as recently-retired WNBA superstar Diana Taurasi from her UConn days, said, “He  told me he loved me. I told him I hated him. We both love each other but we hate each other some days.”

It’s been a contentious relationship over the five years during which last season on Auriemma’s 70th birthday, Bueckers said, “We call him grandpa.”

Auriemma spoke of how she’ll stray from the game plan which happened a few times against the Gamecocks.

“It happened a couple of times today,” he said. “And it just is really infuriating. She is going to want to dictate, and my relationship with her has been, I know what she’s going to do and it’s not always what I want her to do. But I know in the end, she’s always doing what she thinks she needs to do for us to win.”

Final Four Most Outstanding Player Azzi Fudd scored 24 points for Connecticut and freshman Sarah Strong, the daughter of former Harvard star Allison Feaster, also had 24 along with 15 rebounds. Feaster’s Crimson made history in 1998 becoming the first 16 seed to fell a one seed when they triumphed at Stanford in the opening round of the tournament.

Fudd’s 11 points in the third quarter were the most in any quarter by a Huskies player in a championship game and sixth-most by any player in a championship. She also reached her 1,000th career point during the game and grabbed six steals on the defensive end.

“We as coaches felt like Azzi was the key to the tournament,” Auriemma said. “We felt if she could have an Azzi-type game, that we would win. We kind of know  what we’re going to get  from Paige. We kind of know what we’re going to get from Sarah. So Azzi became the focal point for us of who has to step up tonight. And she did magnificently, obviously.”

She previously announced she’s coming back another season, using the same option as Bueckers did, delaying her entry into the WNBA by a  year.

“It’s exactly what I wanted,” Fudd said of the way the game played out. “Shots will fall. Shots won’t fall, but I knew I was going to give it my all, leaving everything on the floor,” she said.

The Bueckers-Fudd-Strong trio collected 368 points, including an NCAA record for a freshman with 114 by Strong, the highest total for three teammates in the tourney, the Associated Press reported, citing Stats Perform. In 1998, the Tennessee trio of Chamique Holdsclaw, Tamika Catchings and Semeka Randall scored 363 while the Michigan men’s trio led by Glenn Rice scored 366 in 1989.

Fudd had 153, which inserts at second overall by a UConn player in the tournament. She’s now third all-time on the Huskies’ scoring list.

Joyce Edwards and Tessa Johnson each scored ten for the defending champions, who lost 87-58 to Connecticut back home at Colonial Life Arena on February 16.

“It’s amazing to have three players, three people like that on the same team,” Auriemma said. “And Sarah, you would think Sarah was graduating the way she plays, right? All three complement each other so well. They all have such unique skill sets.”

This year’s run also included the transfer addition of Princeton’s Kaitlyn Chen, whose coach Carla Berube played a key role in the first title triumph in 1995.

Berube was spotted after the game as a joyful alum while some Princeton players were in the house to cheer for their former teammate.

Staley praised her seniors who were part of five straight Final Four appearances, a run very limited in number of teams also matching in UConn and Stanford. The Gamecocks have also been in title games, three of the last four years, winning in 2022, 2024, and appearing now while eliminated in a close outcome by Iowa in the 2023 semifinals, which South Carolina delivered in a payback in the championship in the final game of the Hawkeyes’ Caitlyn Clark.

“It’s been amazing,” said Bree Hall, continuing, “I’m glad I came up here and could do this presser because I’m just not as upset as you would think I would be. I’m so appreciative of everything that this program has done for me.

“‘Coach has put me in a great position. I’ve won two national championships. It’s upsetting, of course to lose and you’re right there. But I mean, I can’t express how appreciative I am of this program, and I had just a great experience here.”

The UConn title drought started with two consecutive buzzer-beating losses in the national semifinals, the first 66-64 in overtime from Mississippi State in 2017 ending a record 111-win streak, the second being 91-89 in overtime from Notre Dame in the same round the following season, while in 2019 Notre Dame in the same round prevailed 81-76.

In  2020, the tournament was cancelled because of CoVid. In 2021 when Bueckers was the first freshman named national player of the year and the entire tourney was played in San Antonio, Texas, the Huskies were upset in the semifinals 69-59 by Arizona.

The following year Bueckers fought her way back from injuries to lead her team to an upset in the semifinals of defending champion Stanford, 63-58, only to get smoked by South Carolina in the title game 64-49.

In 2023, the season Bueckers was out the entire year, Ohio State in the Sweet 16 ended the Huskies’ run of 14 straight Final Fours while last season in the semifinals going for a  tie near the end, a call went against UConn, enabling the Clark-led Iowa team escape 71-69 to advance to the championship. 

Reflecting his pre-game thoughts coming over here from the team hotel and the remarks marks required to the media after the outcome, Auriemma said, “I just kept thinking something good has to happen because if we were going to lose it would have been before now.

“I don’t think the basketball gods would take us all the way to the end — they’ve been really cruel with some of the kids on this team. They’ve suffered a lot of things that could go wrong in their college careers as an athlete,” he continued.

“So they don’t need anymore heartbreak. So they weren’t going to take us here and give us more heartbreak. I kept holding on to that. I’m glad they were rewarded. This is one of the most emotional Final Fours and emotional national champions I’ve been part of since that very first one (1995).”

Bueckers lost a chunk of 2022 and a whole season in 2023 while Fudd also missed extensive time last season, and others have had their share of games not suited up.

“I kept thinking if we could bring a whole team … “Auriemma said of the earlier losses.

In this one, before the end of the first half Ashlynn Shade hit a shot from deep to send Connecticut up 36-26 at the break. Ahead by 11 late in the third, Fudd and Strong hit similar long shots around a foul shot making it 56-40 for the Huskies and momentum never returned to the Gamecocks.

“The one going in at the half was a dagger,” Staley said. “Because we had everything under control, and we could have had it in single digits.

“When it gets to double digits, it’s hard to come back from a UConn team that is pretty good at executing their offense. The game plan was being executed in the first half. We just couldn’t get the looks we normally make. If you just made layups, you might be able to make it a little more interesting,” Staley continued.

“But at the end of the day we didn’t take care of the basketball, we took a couple of bad shots. We didn’t make layups, and they make you pay.

“Although the score may be very similar in the results, I thought we had better execution on what we wanted to do coming into this one. To beat UConn, you’ve got to score the basketball. You’ve got to have a really good day to beat them. They were the best team this year. 

“Our kids gave it all they had. When you can understand why you lost and when you’ve been on the other side of that three times, you understand it. You can swallow it. We lost to a very good basketball team.”

Connecticut, as a two seed, beat three straight No. 1 seeds — Southern Cal, UCLA, the overall top seed, and South Carolina – to win it. The other was Texas, which lost to the Longhorns’ SEC rival Gamecocks Friday night in the other semifinal.

Auriemma, at 71, is the oldest to win a title in the tournament’s 43-year history but not quite ready to leave the scene yet.

“We don’t like to admit that we’re older because we still act younger because of the people we’re dealing with,” he said.”Yeah, I may be 71 number-wise, but otherwise, I’m more able to do stuff with those young people because I’m around them every day and they rub off of me.

“Does that mean I can do this for another X number of years? No. These kids are fun, but there is going to come a time where the fun doesn’t eliminate how hard it is to do this job. This job is really hard to do.”

Auriemma equated how his job has now matched the two Olympic turns he took leading USA to gold medals and the pressure of meeting expectations from numerous affiliated people across the spectrum.

“It’s more of an obligation to do what they expect me to do as opposed to any fame and fortune that’s going to come my way,” he said, then quipping, “Although my (athletic director)  doesn’t know it yet.

In that regard, thrilled to see the outcome was Big East commissioner Val Ackerman, whose conference women’s champion in winning the NCAA trophy rose above all the Power 4 aspirants in what was a wide-open year with what will be five different No. 1s in the Associated Press women’s poll when the final rankings are released Monday.

“This is very good for us,” she said.

Bueckers, Fudd, Strong, UCLA’s Lauren Betts, and South Carolina’s Edwards made the all-tournament team. 

The Bruins, who were in their first Final Four and climbed to the top of the AP Poll, don’t have any graduating seniors.