TAMPA, Fla. — South Carolina is one win away from repeating as NCAA women’s basketball national champs, but the one obstacle left in their path is also the last team to win back-to-back titles.
Second-seeded Connecticut, which hasn’t won a championship since repeating in 2015-16, routed top-seeded UCLA 85-51 on Friday night. That sets up a showdown Sunday afternoon with the Gamecocks, who advanced with an easy 74-57 win Friday over Texas.
“I don’t think we made a mistake the entire evening, especially on the defensive end,” said UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who will go for his 12th national title on Sunday. “I’m just incredibly proud of these guys and what they were able to do … it took everything we had, and I’m very humbled by their performance tonight.
Both teams had easy semifinal wins at Amalie Arena despite facing No. 1 seeds — UConn’s 34-point margin of victory was the largest in Women’s Final Four history. Auriemma cited the depth of talent on his team, that on a night when senior guard Paige Bueckers was held to 16 points, his team was still lifted by forward Sarah Strong (22 points) and guard Azzi Fudd (19). Bueckers, who came to UConn with dreams of winning a national title, said she is grateful to now be one win away from that goal.
“We prayed, we prepared and we hoped to be playing on the last day of the season, and we get that opportunity,” Bueckers said. “So we don’t want to take it for granted, and 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.”
If UConn can win Sunday, they’ll do something no Huskies champions have done before, by beating three No. 1 seeds along the way, the most any team can beat. It’s safe to say that neither team will have it as easy as they did in Friday’s semifinals.
The Gamecocks, playing Texas for a fourth time this season, got a double-double off the bench from freshman Joyce Edwards (13 points and 11 rebounds) and had a team-best 14 points from senior guard Te-Hina Paopao, who came back for a fifth year with this in mind.
“This is why I came back,” Paopao said. “The goal is to go back-to-back. We have one more to go, and we’re just really excited to get going on Sunday. I’m just super-excited. I know we’re going to be really prepared and ready, and that it’s going to be a 40-minute battle, no matter who wins.”
[RELATED: NCAA Women’s Tournament semifinal highlights]
It wasn’t the last time UConn and South Carolina met, as the Huskies went to Columbia on Feb. 16 and pulled off an 87-58 rout of the Gamecocks to end their 71-game home winning streak. South Carolina lost only three games all year, and Friday’s win avenged another one of those against Texas — the two teams played four times, with South Carolina winning three, including the SEC championship game.
One key to Friday’s win for South Carolina was getting Texas star forward Madison Booker in foul trouble early. She got her third foul with 2:29 left in the first half and the Longhorns up 33-31, but South Carolina ended the half on a 7-2 run, then opened the third quarter with five straight points. An 11-0 run later in the third gave them the separation they needed and Texas never got closer than 10 points in the fourth.
UConn had it even easier, leading by 20 at halftime and pulling away from there. UCLA has a dominant center in 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts, but she didn’t have much help Friday on a night where UConn showed how deep their talent runs. Betts finished with 26 points, but that was more than all her teammates combined — the Bruins had more turnovers than made field goals until the final minutes of the game. The Huskies will briefly celebrate advancing to the final, but also will quickly turn their focus to South Carolina.
“We never get complacent with our performance,” Fudd said. “We’ll celebrate it the rest of tonight, and we wake up tomorrow, it’s a new day, a new scout, a new opportunity for us to play even better as a team. I think the full season, it’s knowing we’re capable of so much more, making sure we tap into that every single night and never get complacent.”
South Carolina is 3-0 in championship games under Staley, including a 64-49 win over UConn in the 2022 title game, but she said that has no bearing on Sunday’s game as she seeks a fourth championship.
“I don’t even bring it up,” Staley said. “It’s just singularly focused on winning a game. Nothing that happened prior to here is going to help us on Sunday — nothing. If it’s UConn, it’s not going to help us. If it’s UCLA, not going to help us. I think playing in the game and seeing how the game is being played out, it’s the only thing that’s going to help us.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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