About 7 miles down Route 195 from Unterstein’s place, on UConn’s north campus, thousands gathered to watch the game at Gampel Pavilion, UConn’s home court.
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The University of Connecticut Huskies are poised to make history tonight. Geno Auriemma, too, after another flawless season by the dominating Huskies.
UConn won an unprecedented fourth straight national championship Tuesday night, capping another flawless season by routing Syracuse 82-51.
“I’m most proud of the fact that we’ve had so many great players impact that league since Day 1”.
While Stewart didn’t guarantee four titles when she was a freshman, she did promise a victory against Syracuse.
“That’s probably the least amount of 3s we took all year”, coach Quentin Hillsman said. People asked us why we didn’t celebrate (after beating Washington) but our goal was not just to win that game. Jefferson leads the team with 199 while Stewart has 141, Tuck 109 and Kia Nurse 103.
“It wasn’t a sense of relief, it was a sense of success”.
But Hillsman said on Monday that attendance doesn’t matter to him and it’s frustrating how often it’s brought up. “We know what it takes to get to this level, to get to this stage and to succeed on it. We’re going in with the mindset that we are going to win the national championship”.
Simply put, should Syracuse topple UConn, it would be one of the biggest upsets in US sports history. They were also without their top 3-point shooter, freshman Katie Lou Samuleson, who injured her foot in the semifinal against Oregon State.
UConn opened its bid for a fourth straight championship by scoring the first nine points against Syracuse.
With her college career nearing a close, there are many ways to capture Stewart’s accomplishments and impact. No other women’s player has won it more than twice, and only Lew Alcindor (now Kareem Abdul-Jabbaar) did it three times on the men’s side. “And for the WNBA, a women’s professional basketball league to still be in existence 20 years alter and doing well, we should all be proud of that”.
“I know I have one game left, but at the same time it feels like I have a hundred”, Jefferson said.
And she’s been great for UConn. And Jefferson scored 13 points with five assists.
The Huskies built a 27-point lead by halftime as their star-studded triumvirate outscored the Orange 38-23.
The Orange scored 37 “hustle” points – points off turnovers and offensive rebounds – to blow past Washington 80-59 in the other semifinal. They haven’t played since they left.
The Huskies won by 31 points despite giving up a 16-0 run in the third quarter to the Orange.
Hillsman spoke about focusing on controlling the things they can control: Energy, effort and attitude. So when those two things mesh, I think you have a pretty unbeatable combination. “We didn’t play scared”. Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck have been there for the past three. They compared UConn and Coach Geno Auriemma to UCLA and John Wooden. The trio then went down the bench hugging every member of the team. They posted a record of 116-1 their last three seasons.
Auriemma has not lost in 11 title appearances. While the names may change, the results are always the same: UConn is still there holding that trophy in the end.
The last team with a chance to stop the Huskies’ historic run couldn’t even slow them down in the national championship game. Griner ultimately was selected first overall in that year’s draft, picked by the Phoenix Mercury, and Delle Donne went second, to the Sky.
But despite falling one win short of the program’s first national title, Syracuse has no reason to be discouraged.
“It’s definitely tough”, she said.
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Perhaps there should be more interest, seeing as how UConn is going for its fourth consecutive NCAA women’s championship and 11th total, both records. In the title game, they were just 2 for 19. A husky is depicted on the heel and “UConn” is printed on the sole. Auriemma has 109 NCAA Tournament victories, only trailing Pat Summitt (112) for most in the history of the sport…. The Huskies won three in a row from 2002-04 and Tennessee won three in a row from 1996-98.
