MINNEAPOLIS — It wasn’t alleged to be this fashion.
Not in November after they slid by South Florida solely to be crushed by South Carolina within the Battle 4 Atlantis. Not seven weeks in the past when Villanova snapped their 169-game convention successful streak. Not even two weeks in the past within the second spherical in opposition to UCF after they appeared destined to look at the proceedings from their couches in Connecticut.
They need to have been knocked out a number of occasions already in a match that showcased parity early, however powerhouses late.
So, in fact, the Connecticut Huskies are one of many two groups left standing after a largely unremarkable 63-58 semifinal win in opposition to defending champion Stanford at Goal Heart on Friday evening. They’ll return on Sunday for a matchup of outdated dynasty vs. rising new as South Carolina trounced Louisville in the Final Four earlier within the night. It was a slog of a extremely anticipated cross-country matchup by which UConn did simply sufficient — primarily rebound and hit free throws — to advance.
“Sometimes you don’t have to have the best team to win this game, either,” UConn head coach Geno Auriemma stated. “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.
“Like you’re playing golf, but you don’t have your ‘A’ swing. But [you] just scrape it around and get it in the hole the best you can and then go to the 19th hole and have a drink.”
Auriemma can retire with a celebratory drink at the least briefly. Give him no matter his former Husky champions Sue Chook and Diana Taurasi were having and reminisce about when it was simpler.
UConn is within the midst of a skid, at the least to the requirements it set with 11 championships since 1995, the 12 months they first gained right here in Minnesota in opposition to Stanford. The Huskies’ final title was 2016, the ultimate of 4 straight they dominated behind two-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart.
When heralded No. 1 recruit Paige Bueckers dedicated, there was discuss of one other four-in-four. Arizona shut the door on that within the 2021 Last 4 to mark UConn’s fourth consecutive semifinal loss.
Onto 2022 it was with one other heralded No. 1 in Azzi Fudd. However the group began the season raveled and Auriemma was sad with the defensive effort. Within the vacation match sport in opposition to the Gamecocks, they could only muster three points in the fourth quarter. They appeared to rely largely on Bueckers to dig them out and be the guiding gentle.
Then accidents hit, and Bueckers couldn’t be the clutch scorer from her two-month seat on the bench. Her father voiced concern about dashing her again, and Auriemma wasn’t optimistic, both.
Sophomore level guard Nika Muhl referred to as the stretch “hell” forward of the Large East match. And he or she didn’t hesitate to notice they’re nonetheless “not complete.” Aubrey Griffin underwent again surgical procedure in January and Dorka Juhász fractured her wrist within the Elite Eight. She underwent surgical procedure earlier within the week and is on the bench with the squad.
“[It’s] just a lot of faith in each other,” Muhl stated. “Just a lot of faith in our coaching staff [and] what they’re saying. A lot of concentration and focus on what we have to do every day to get here, and we just stuck together, like every other time. I don’t think there was ever a doubt in ourselves.”
There was doubt amongst followers who had watched this group, even with Bueckers again the final couple of video games of the common season. A Last 4 appeared unlikely. It wasn’t the dominating drive of years previous — that belonged to South Carolina and perhaps to an extent Stanford — and so they scraped right into a excessive No. 2 seed, although it did permit them home-court benefit in Bridgeport.
“So many years that we’ve come here, we’ve been a No. 1 seed. So many years we’ve been the No. 1 No. 1,” Auriemma stated. “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.’
“And this year, I didn’t think any of that. I didn’t think coming in, ‘I 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.”
The Cardinal didn’t play their greatest sport and struggled on offense. The group was 4-of-23 from 3-point vary and made it shut late, however not shortly sufficient. It’s not like UConn performed its greatest, both. However it performed simply nicely sufficient to be again the place it expects to be, even when it appears to be like completely different.
The Huskies will see if they will fare higher in spherical two in opposition to South Carolina, the opposite group to lose within the 2021 Last 4, with this extra skilled group of gamers who needed to step up with Bueckers out.
All of us ought to have identified when the matchup was canceled in January we’d see a spherical two in April anyway. It was as inevitable as UConn within the championship sport, the storyline of a down season be damned.
