BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — There were, after all these years, reasons to doubt the Connecticut women’s basketball team almost all season long.
There were injuries, heartbreaking losses to unranked teams, and the near-collapse of last week’s N.C.A.A. tournament and the head-spinning sensation that a program boasting 11 national titles had somehow been reduced into an underdog.
UConn won the second-seeded Huskies victory over North Carolina State, 91-87 in double overtime, to defeat the No. They are now the No. 1 seed in their region, and will be making it to the 14th consecutive Final Four.
The victory extended one of American sports’ greatest streaks, a run that has already encompassed six national championships and a succession of players, including Maya Moore, Breanna Stewart and now Paige Bueckers, whose hardwood exploits turbocharged their game and helped it resonate from community gymnasiums to cavernous arenas across the country.
This season, though, showed UConn the risks of a bigger and better world of women’s basketball, one where parity and rollicking drama are peeking into view more often. And when the national semifinals are played in Minneapolis on Friday — UConn will meet Stanford, a No. 1 seed and the reigning champion — the Huskies will, of course, be a contender but by no means an unquestioned title favorite.
The Huskies have had their worst regular season since 2004-5. They nevertheless earned their ninth straight league tournament title and were the Big East Conference’s regular-season champions. They will arrive in Minneapolis with a 14-game winning streak after conquering N.C. State, the Atlantic Coast Conference’s regular-season and tournament champion, and becoming the first team in this year’s N.C.A.A. tournament to beat the No. 1 seed.
Bueckers’s scoring eruption in the first overtime continued into the second. The free throw line bonanza also worked. The UConn lead that emerged was enormous, rising at one point to five points, which seemed incredible.
It didn’t last after a fierce assault by N.C. State that kept the game within reach. But UConn had, barely, all that it needed to escape again — and to make the Final Four again.
Last week, however, there were questions both inside and outside UConn about whether the Huskies would advance past the second round. They managed to beat Central Florida and escape a two day stretch of games that sent No. 2-seeded Iowa, whose roster features Division I’s leading scorer, Caitlin Clark, and No. 4-seeded Arizona, last season’s runner-up after it beat UConn in the Final Four, to the exits.
The Huskies’ ability to make it to Bridgeport, let alone the regional final, is a testament to their depth of talent and skill. To Auriemma, UConn’s coach since 1985, it was a fundamental notion.
“We’re in this game a lot because we have really good players that come to UConn and they understand that if you come to Connecticut, the expectations are incredibly high, the bar is set very, very high,” Auriemma said on Sunday. He added: “I’d like to say you have a choice, but I don’t think you have a choice if you come and play there. You’d better get yourself into this game.”
It is easier said than done.
UConn’s starting lineup was cyclical this season, a consequence of two-thirds of the roster missing at least two games with injuries or illnesses. The Huskies tried 11 different lineups this season. They have had six consecutive seasons with a consistent lineup.
Bueckers was a sophomore guard who won National Player of the Year honors in last season’s league. He was absent for almost three months, and required surgery to fix a December knee injury. Fudd was a freshman who was a star at UConn’s 3-point arc. Fudd missed 11 games due to a foot problem. Aubrey Griffin was a junior who was a reliable reserveist in her first and second seasons, but later had to have surgery. She did however not play. So on.
The season’s first loss came in November, a pummeling in the Bahamas by South Carolina, the national tournament’s top overall seed. A few weeks later, the Huskies lost 13 points to Georgia Tech. The Huskies then lost in Atlanta. tournament. A game against Louisville, one of the sport’s best teams and a No. It was a loss for the No. 1 seed. Coronavirus issues at UConn resulted in the cancellation of Big East matchups with Georgetown Villanova. A road trip to Oregon, also unranked, yielded another 13-point defeat, and in February, a loss to Villanova ended UConn’s 169-game winning streak against conference opponents in the regular season and league tournaments.
The Huskies’ fortunes started to turn after that loss. The Huskies’ offensive production plunged as a result of a sharper defense. Villanova scored just 40 points against UConn on March 7, less that a month after scoring 72 against them.
UConn swore Mercer in N.C.A.A. tournament’s first round. The second round against Central Florida was played last Monday night at Storrs. It was more intense with the Huskies struggling in the paint and making a season-low of 14 field goals, raising doubts about their ability to last in the tournament.
“Normally we’re rolling in here having beaten everybody by 40 and we think we’re invincible,” Auriemma said on Friday, a day before UConn’s round of 16 meeting against Indiana. “Well, we certainly don’t think that now.”
The Huskies proceeded to wallop the third-seeded Hoosiers, 75-58, setting up Monday’s contest.
Source: NY Times
