New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
FINAL FOUR FRIDAY
Unusual Final Four missing the pomp and circumstance that Geno has come to expect
▶ The UConn women’s basketball team will meet in a Final Four matchup with Arizona Friday beginning at 9:30 p.m. on ESPN. For more, see
SAN ANTONIO — This year’s Final Four is not one of pomp and circumstance.
Not that it really matters now.
No. 1 UConn, back on women’s basketball’s grandest stage for a 13th consecutive tournament and 21st time overall, is two wins from its ultimate goal. Next up on Friday (9:30 p.m., ESPN) is a date with No. 3 Arizona at the Alamodome.
“This has always been a dream of mine, playing on the biggest stage, competing for a national championship,” guard Evina Westbrook said. “To be in the Final Four, it’s almost surreal. Just being with the group of girls that I’m with now makes it even better.”
For Westbrook — a redshirt junior who sat out last season after transferring to Tennessee — and most of her teammates, this is a brand new experience. Juniors Christyn Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa are the only current Huskies to have played in a Final Four.
Both were on the team that lost to Notre Dame in the 2019 national semifinals in Tampa, Fla.
But even for them, there’s no comparison.
“The NCAA has done a great job of trying to do everything that they possibly could for the Final Four,” Williams said. “Obviously it’s not like the Final Four from freshman year, but they’ve done a great job considering the circumstances.”
The Huskies visited the
San Antonio Zoo on Wednesday, a welcomed break from the monotony of the NCAA bubble. But soon enough, it was back to basketball, back to preparing for Arizona, a new — yet still formidable — entrant to the Final Four.
Arizona (20-5) is 13th in the country in scoring defense, limiting opponents to 55.2 points per game. UConn ranks fourth (52.0).
“Arizona is a perfect example of a team that really understands who they are, they know what their identity is, they know defensively what they can do, what they want to do, how to do it,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “They’re aggressive. They just play so hard and they’re so competitive. They’re swarming.”
The Wildcats have one of the country’s better two-way players in senior guard Aari McDonald, who’s averaging 20.3 points per game. The 5-foot-6 McDonald was named Pac-12 Player of the Year and also shared conference Defensive Player of the Year honors.
“She’s a great player,” Williams said. “She’s quick, she can shoot, she can get to the basket, she can create space for herself. She’s a handful, and we know that coming into the game. It’s going to take a total team defensive effort to contain her.”
Westbrook knows fist hand, having played AAU with McDonald.
“She’s super, super quick, one of the fastest guards in the NCAA,” she said. “She’s super smart, super intelligent, and she does a lot for her team. She really does it all for her team, gets to the basket, draws fouls, has a pull-up game. She’s an all-around just a great guard, does it all for them.”
Auriemma was asked how a team new to the Final Four such as Arizona might handle the experience.
“There’s a lot of hoopla that surrounds our program, our kids are used to dealing with — we call it, ‘The circus is in town.’ So when we get to the Final Four, it’s like everything else we do a lot of times during the year,” Auriemma said. “But for some teams, when they fly in and they land and they see the signs and the TV and everything the way it’s set up, the bigness, how big everything is — how long the media is, how much attention from the media, how many photo shoots — it distracts kids, and it becomes more about everything but the game.
“I think Arizona is going to benefit a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, those kids are missing out on a lot of fun, but I think they’re going to benefit from not having to go through all that.”