By Mel Greenberg @womhoopsguru
ALBANY, N.Y. — The statistics, awe-inspiring as they may be, say business as usual after second-seeded Connecticut avenged a regular season loss and topped Louisville 80-73 in the Albany Regional title game in the Times Union Center Sunday afternoon as the Huskies (35-2) advanced to their 20th overall and 12th straight NCAA Women’s Final Four next weekend in Tampa Bay, Fla.
If you want to move the measuring stick back a little further beginning in 2000, Connecticut’s run is 17 out of 20 with a gap between 2005 and 2007 when the season ended short of the goal, though in 2006 the Huskies fell a play or two short at the finish of upsetting Duke.
But to a nationwide TV audience as well as the 9,204 mostly UConn faithful here on the scene, they saw for the third straight game not the traditional outcome decided in favor of Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma’s group well before the final score hit the record books.
Even when it seemed the celebration could begin ahead of the finish several times late in the game, Louisville (32-4) refused to yield until things fell apart in the final moments.
When senior Katie Lou Samuelson was held out of the American Athletic Conference tournament because of back issues, it gave some other players more opportunities to help preserve UConn’s perfect record against conference foes from the AAC’s creation out of the breakup of the old Big East.
In fact, Samuelson didn’t provide much contribution to the offense in Friday’s win over the Bruins causing Auriemma to marvel over Sunday’s performance.
“You know, 29 points is 29 points, but the way they came,” he said. “They weren’t just stand there, shoot open threes all night. So given where she was Friday and yesterday and some of the things she’s battling off the court, remarkable.”
“That’s the best thing I could say. Absolutely remarkable.”
Auriemma, with a sixth AAC crown achieved, noted several weeks ago that “we can be a more compete team when she returns for the NCAA tournament.”
That proved out, especially Sunday, when Samuelson, herself, poured a game-high 29 points off 7-for-13 from the field, the total connected shots all three-pointers, shooting 7-for-12 from beyond the arc.
Sophomore Megan Walker, who endured Auriemma’s ire as a freshman, double doubled with 13 points and 12 rebounds, while freshman Christyn Williams, looking more like the next big thing she was at the outset of the season, had 16 points.
“Megan Walker was the difference in the first half,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said.
Junior Crystal Dangerfield, who keyed the fourth-quarter closeout of UCLA here Friday night, had 10 points, and Napheesa Collier, voted the most outstanding player of the regional, hit key moments with 12 points and 13 rebounds.
“You know, at time you’ve got to roll the dice a little bit and I thought we did a really good job on Napheesa. “But we backed off Walker at times to help on Collier, and she knocked down shots,” Walz stated.
Samuelson brought the house down with a looming four-point play, nailing a three-ball with 3 minutes, two seconds left in regulation but she missed the free throw.
Still, the lead got to 11 at 74-63 on two Katie Lou foul shots with 1:47 left.
But Louisville refused to bring out the white flag.
Senior Asia Durr, the Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year who shook off a 1-for-first half, to score 18 of her 21 points in the next 20 minutes, keyed a rally with six points in an 8-2 run got it down to 75-771 with 36 seconds left.
Arica Carter got it down to a basket at 75-73 with 28 seconds left.
Samuelson made it a four-point advantage with 23 seconds left but Durr was then given a chance to get it back within two when the Louisville part of the crowd saw their money-in-the-bank moment as she stepped to the line.
However, in recall of a near similar situation in 2007 when Duke national player of the year Lindsay Harding went to the line with 0.04 seconds left against Rutgers, which led by one, Durr missed both shots, though Sam Fuehring grabbed the offensive rebound off the second miss only to have her attempted layup blocked by The Huskies’ Walker.
“That’s not the reason we lost the game,” Walz said. “You could over a 40-minute game and find tons of areas to improve on …
“Shit happens,” Walz said of his thoughts when the missed free throws occurred. “Then Sam came down with the rebound. So it’s not like we didn’t get the rebound. I thought it was a good block, but we had our chances.”
The Cardinals were forced to foul with 17 seconds left, thus Collier canned a painn s of freebies, then Williams stole a bad Carter pass and Walker finished it off with a foul shot for the 80-73 final.
Behind Durr’s 21, Fuehring had 15 points and Jazmine Jones scored 10.
Back before the season opened, Auriemma noted at ESPN’s women’s basketball national media day that this season for his team was not going to be a given.
So in looking back over the terrain to now that included losing to Baylor in the other setback and a huge win at Notre Dame, Auriemma spoke of the moods he underwent.
“I have felt everything about this team all year long,” he said. “I’ve loved them. I’ve hated them. I wanted the season to end. I wanted the season to keep going.
“I wanted ten guys to transfer. I only wanted to coach one guy,” he continued.
“I wanted to have them over dinner every night. I wanted to — I wish they’d never eat again the rest of their lives. Every single emotion. We can’t play defense. We can’t run offense. We’re a great defensive team. Man, we run offense great.
“Every single thought you could ever imagine was in my brain all year long, to a point where — you know, I can’t even — I don’t have any more brain space.”
Of course, UConn being UConn in a few days when all this has receded into the pleasant memory file, when the team arrives in Tampa Bay at Thursday’s first press conference in Amalie Arena, the incessant recall will begin, especially if the top-seeded Notre Dame in Chicago prevails over No. 2 Stanford at DePaul’s Wintrust Arena Monday night.
The other streak will enter the discussion, two straight eliminating buzzer-beating shots in the national semifinals, the first in 2017 in overtime by Mississippi State, the Portland Regional top seed which was upset by two-seed Oregon 88-84 in Sunday’s other regional final, and last year, Arike Ogunbowale’s first of two game-winners for defending NCAA championNotre Dame in the same semifinal.
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