Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Connecticut 69, Baylor 67
Connecticut’s Paige Bueckers celebrates in front of Baylor’s DiJonai Carrington after the Huskies won Monday’s NCAA Tournament Elite Eight game at the Alamodome in San Antonio. Bueckers scored 28 points for Connecticut, which reached the Final Four for the 13th consecutive time.
NO. 1 UCONN 69, NO. 2 BAYLOR 67
SAN ANTONIO — It took a great game from freshman Paige Bueckers and a last-second stop with a disputed non-foul call to keep UConn’s run of Final Four appearances going.
Bueckers scored 28 points and top seed UConn used a huge run spanning the final two quarters to beat No. 2 Baylor 69-67 on Monday night and reach a 13th consecutive Final Four in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
“Each year that we do it, I still can’t believe it,” said UConn Coach Geno Auriemma, who was showered by his team with confetti after the game.
UConn has made the national semifinals every season since 2008 and won six titles during that span. Bueckers was
6 years old when UConn started its run of appearances in the national semifinals.
“To be part of that history is wild,” Bueckers said. “It’s why I came here. Saw that as a young kid, wanted to be a part of that. It’s surreal.”
The Huskies (28-1) trailed 55-45 late in the third quarter before scoring 19 consecutive points, including 10 by Bueckers, who became the third first-year player to make firstteam All-America.
“Paige got that look in her eye, started getting some buckets. And when Paige is scoring, the rest of the team really gains a lot of confidence,” Auriemma said. “Our defense got just really good at the end, and we got some great stops.”
Baylor (28-3) wouldn’t go away as Bueckers went cold in the final minutes. Trailing 64-55, NaLyssa Smith ended the Lady Bears’ drought with 6:47 left and sparked a 12-4 burst that got Baylor within one after Dijonai Carrington converted two free throws with 19.3 seconds left.
After a timeout, Baylor fouled Christyn Williams (Central Arkansas Christian), who missed both free throws to give the Lady Bears one last chance.
Carrington, who finished with 22 points, drove the lane to the left and missed a contested jumper from the baseline where a foul could have been called but wasn’t.
“I personally don’t see it as a controversial call. I’ve seen the replay, and one girl fouled me in my face and one girl fouled me in my arm,” Carrington said. “So, at that point you can’t do anything else. We drew up a play, [Smith] got fouled posting up and I got fouled driving. Nothing we could really do about that situation in particular. But, you know, turn the page.”
Baylor Coach Kim Mulkey agreed with Carrington.
“I’ve got still shots and video from two angles. One kid hits her in the face and one kid hits her on the elbow,” Mulkey said.
Williams corralled the rebound and was fouled with 0.8 seconds left. She hit one of the free throws before Bueckers stole the inbounds pass at the buzzer.
Williams finished with 21 points on 8-of-18 shooting with 7 rebounds.
The game got off to a fast start for UConn, which jumped out to a 16-4 lead behind Bueckers. But Baylor (28-3) was just getting going. The Lady Bears closed the first quarter with a 20-10 run and trailed 26-24 after one.
“It seemed like for long stretches there, I just thought we were being manhandled there. They’re bigger, quicker, faster, stronger,” Auriemma said. “But we got a couple of key stops when we had to.”
The offense slowed down in the second quarter. There were 11 blocks combined in the first half, including seven by Baylor, which led 39-37 at the break.
Carrington provided a huge spark off the bench, scoring 14 points to go along with two steals and a block in the opening 20 minutes.
Baylor went on a 10-2 run in the third quarter to push ahead 55-45. Then UConn took over, scoring the final eight points of the period after Lady Bears point guard DiDi Richards injured her hamstring when dribbling down the court and exited the game.
“We were up 10 at that point,” Mulkey said. “Had to be a hamstring. Swung the whole momentum.”
Williams and Bueckers highlighted an 8-0 spurt that made it a two-point game heading into the fourth quarter, when Richards returned only briefly.
NO. 3 ARIZONA 66, NO. 4 INDIANA 53
Aari McDonald scored 33 points and No. 3 seed Arizona beat No. 4 Indiana to earn its first trip to the Final Four of the women’s NCAA Tournament.
McDonald, the Pac-12 player of the year, did everything for the Wildcats, from slashing drives to a banked-in three-pointer. She briefly left the game with a twisted ankle with 2:35 left, but limped back on and scored six more points. Her three-point play with 34 seconds left put the exclamation point on the victory.
Arizona (20-5) advanced to Friday’s national semifinal against top-seeded UConn.
Arizona made consecutive three-pointers in the middle of the fourth quarter, the latter from Helena Pueyo off a bullet pass from McDonald, for a 57-50 lead in what had been a tight, basket-for-basket game. Pueyo made two three-pointers in the final quarter.
The Hoosiers never led and went scoreless for nearly four minutes after pulling even at 48-48 in the fourth.
Mackenzie Holmes scored 20 points for Indiana (21-6), which was playing its first Elite Eight game.
The tension of the night showed early in a ragged start as the first 10 shots of the game misfired before McDonald finally got a short jumper to fall. Once McDonald started heating up, she scored 10 points in carrying the Wildcats to a 14-11 lead to start the second quarter.
The Hoosiers methodically worked the ball to Holmes in the post to control the pace of play. But McDonald banked in a long three-pointer to beat the shot clock early in the quarter and Arizona led 2723 at halftime.
Two three-pointers from McDonald and Trinity Baptiste pushed the lead to eight early in the third, before Holmes pulled Indiana back in it again with with 10 points in the quarter. McDonald ripped a rebound from the hands of an Indiana player and an easy layup sent Arizona into the fourth leading 46-44.