The UConn women’s basketball team has never lost a national championship game, but the Huskies have had trouble getting there the last few years.
It’s been a long drought since 2016 for a program that has won 11 titles.
But Friday night, UConn was back. The Huskies held off defending champion Stanford 63-58 in front of 18,268 at the Target Center to advance to the national championship game Sunday, where the Huskies will face South Carolina at 8 p.m.
Paige Bueckers led UConn (30-5) with 14 points, Evina Westbrook had 12 and Christyn Williams had 10.
“I said the other day, points are hard to come by in this tournament,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “Today was no different. You’re going to have to win some other way. You just have to tough it out. You have to rebound the ball better, play defense better, get to the loose balls, make the free throws.
“We did the things we needed to do when we had to do them. We came up big. It was pretty remarkable, to be honest with you.”
The UConn seniors — Westbrook, Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa — simply didn’t want their careers to end. Each struggled in their own way at times, but each also came up with big plays to fuel the win.
“We knew it was going to be a tough one,” Westbrook said. “Stanford’s a great team. They put up a great fight, it was a great game. But at the same time, in the back of our minds, we knew what we needed to do to win this game and I think our defense was the biggest emphasis for us, especially in that second half.”
Westbrook had nine points in the first half. Williams, who struggled to shoot much of the game, going 3 for 13 from the field, hit a 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter and another early in the fourth. Nelson-Ododa, who picked up her fourth foul with 4:22 left in the game, had a big basket and free throws early in the fourth quarter. She ended up with 10 rebounds and eight points.
“I thought Nelson-Ododa was extremely aggressive,” Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer said. “She had five O-boards. She played really well for them and she was extremely physical. We tried every timeout, every dead ball – ‘Move the ball, get the ball inside.’ It’s just easier said than done.”
It came down, as it did in the regional final against NC State, to the final minutes of the game. UConn made 15 of 17 free throws in the fourth quarter.Aaliyah Edwards made two free throws with 1:26 left and Westbrook hit two with 1:12 left to give UConn a 54-48 lead.
But Stanford, led by Haley Jones’ 20 points, made it close, with Ashten Prechtel hitting a 3 with 33 seconds left to cut the lead to 58-54. UConn turned over the ball on a subsequent possession. Jones hit a shot in the lane to cut the lead to 58-56 with 24 seconds left but the freshman Azzi Fudd made both of her free throws to give the Huskies a 60-56 lead two seconds later.
The Cardinal countered with a Cameron Brink basket to cut the lead to two once again, 60-58, with 18 seconds remaining before Williams hit two free throws. Prechtel, pressured by the Huskies, aired a 3, and Williams and Edwards made 3 of 4 free throws to ice it.
“Our seniors are just doing it all,” UConn sophomore guard Nika Mühl said. “It’s their last year. They just want to win, and we’re there to follow them.”
It was UConn’s 14th straight appearance in the national semifinal. The Huskies have not been able to get past this game since 2016, the last time they won a championship. They lost to Mississippi State (2017), Notre Dame twice (2018, 2019) and Arizona (2021). There was no tournament in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This injury-plagued year was the not exactly the year anyone would have predicted the drought would end.
“So many years that we’ve come here, we’ve been a No. 1 seed, so many years we’ve been a No. 1 No. 1,” Auriemma said. “We had the best team going in, everybody knew it, and it was let’s just go do our thing, and I don’t think anybody is going to be able to beat us if we play our A game.
“This year, I didn’t think any of that. Coming in, I don’t think we’re the best team there. I don’t think we can win even if we play our A game. We need help – we need Stanford to not play their best game. We need them to miss shots they normally make. Yeah, this was completely different.”
Stanford (32-4) had won 24 straight and hadn’t lost since Dec. 21, when the Cardinal lost to South Carolina, 65-61.
“I’m always amazed when people [say], ‘You’ve been to five Final Fours in a row and you haven’t played in a championship game, your program is falling apart,'” Auriemma said. “This is a really, really hard game to win. Stanford is the defending national champions and they have everybody back and they’re not playing Sunday night. It’s a hard game to win.
“Sometimes you don’t have to have the best team to win this game, either. Sometimes you just have to play the best that night, and you have to make some big plays in big moments, and you do just enough with what you have.”
One of UConn’s concerns before the game was that the post players would get in foul trouble and with reserve Dorka Juhász out with a broken wrist suffered in the NC State game, the Huskies wouldn’t have depth inside to counter Stanford’s height.
But the Huskies managed to hold their own in the rebounding department and even outrebounded Stanford, 46-37. Edwards finished eight, Westbrook had six. There was foul trouble. At halftime, Nelson-Ododa, Edwards and Fudd had two fouls each. Nelson-Ododa and Edwards each picked up their third in the third quarter.
UConn’s offense stagnated in the third quarter but Williams broke the drought with a big 3 and then Nelson-Ododa hit her first basket of the game. The Huskies led 39-37 after three quarters.
Nelson-Ododa opened the fourth with a big basket and was fouled and hit the free throw. Williams then hit another big 3 to give UConn a 45-39 lead. Nelson-Ododa hit two more free throws and UConn led, 47-39.
In the first half, both teams had a slow start, with Stanford opening the game shooting 1 for 9 and UConn shooting 2 for 8 and at the 4:39 mark in the first quarter, the Huskies led 4-2. Was it a flashback to the 2010 national championship game when Stanford led 20-12 at halftime? Or just a ragged start by both teams?
It got better. But also, both teams were playing excellent defense and took each other out of their respective comfort zones.
Westbrook came up with a huge block on a Jones’ jump shot to end the first quarter as Bueckers’ jumper missed at the buzzer and the Huskies led 12-9 after one. Westbrook was fired up after the block. She hit her first 3-pointer with 6:25 left in the first half then drained back-to-back 3s, with her third giving UConn its biggest lead of the game to that point, 25-19, with 2:42 left.
Quickly, the Cardinal got back into the game, with Hannah Jump’s 3 and a Jones’ driving layup and Stanford took the lead, 26-25. But Mühl’s putback with 45 seconds left gave UConn a 27-26 lead heading into the locker room at halftime.
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
