TAMPA, Fla. — Since October, UConn made it clear that its intentions were to be playing in the last game of the season.
On Friday, the Huskies ensured that would be the case with a dominant 85-51 rout of UCLA in the Final Four and will play South Carolina in the national championship game Sunday.
UConn coach Geno Auriemma expected his team to be well prepared, play hard and be locked in on UCLA heading into Friday night’s game.
He expected it to be a battle against a tough UCLA team who had been ranked the No. 1 team in the country for most of this season.
But what actually happened was “somewhat unexpected,” Auriemma said.
“You always go into these games this time of the year expecting it to be incredibly, incredibly difficult,” Auriemma said. “Not that it wasn’t, because I think our guys played about as hard as any group of kids can play, but I don’t think we made a mistake the entire evening, especially on the defensive end. I’m just incredibly proud of these guys and what they were able to do and how it was a complete team effort.”
The stage is now set for Connecticut to play for its 12th national championship and the first in nearly a decade.
All eyes will be on Paige Bueckers in Sunday’s title game against South Carolina as she will have the chance to either write the greatest storybook ending or extraordinary heartbreak to her illustrious college career.
Bueckers, who has accomplished just about everything there is to accomplish at college, has the potential to go out with the one thing that she’s yet to capture at UConn — a national championship.
And that reality is not lost on her teammates.
“I definitely think that a team mindset is that we want to do it for Paige, we want to do it for all the upperclassmen who this is their last chance at it,” Azzi Fudd said. “They’ve given so much to all of us, so much to this team, so much to this program these last five and six years. … But it’s only right that we give everything that we have to make this possible for not just all of us but specifically for upperclassmen.”
Bueckers said she prayed, prepared and hoped that she would get one last shot at winning a title.
As a team, on Friday, the Huskies made it abundantly clear that they were worthy of punching their ticket to the championship game.
From the jump, Connecticut blitzed UCLA, the top overall seed in this year’s tournament, and led by 20 at halftime. The Bruins looked discombobulated by the Huskies’ ferocious attack.
Connecticut didn’t get another high-power scoring performance from Bueckers — but it didn’t need it.
By the end of the third quarter, Fudd and Sarah Strong combined for as many points as the entire UCLA team (37.)
Strong scored 14 of her team-high 22 points in the second half in an epic rout. The standout freshman also had eight rebounds.
Fudd, who was due for a big game, scored her 19 points in the first half.
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And Bueckers finished with 16 points, five rebounds and three steals and helped set the tone on defense.
Meanwhile, UCLA star Lauren Betts had 26 points, but the Bruins, who shot 38.5 percent from the field and 25% from deep, didn’t have the secondary scoring needed to hang with Connecticut.
Only 21 of UCLA’s 51 points were scored outside the paint.
Connecticut ultimately earned a chance to accomplish what it set out to do at the beginning of the season.
“We don’t want to take it for granted,” Bueckers said. “You don’t want to get caught up in the moment of being so anxious and trying to win the national championship in one possession that you’re just psyching yourself out, but to be present with the team, to be where your feet are and try to win every single possession that’s in front of you. Play the entire 40 minutes.”
Bueckers doesn’t want to think about her UConn career coming to an end just yet. There’s still work to be done.
“Getting a good night’s rest tonight, start preparing tomorrow,” Bueckers said. “Be disciplined in our preparation and just enjoying the last couple of days we have here with each other. It’s pretty crazy that it’s all coming to an end, but I’m glad we can do it on the last day.”
