The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Huskies earn 10th straight trip to Final Four
UConn jumps on Oregon early, extends win streak to 111 games
BRIDGEPORT » Not even 90 seconds had elapsed during Monday night’s regional final before Oregon women’s basketball coach Kelly Graves was overcome by the sense of impending doom.
In an attempt to slow down the unstoppable UConn offense, Graves was willing to concede long jumpers to forwards Napheesa Collier and Gabby Williams.
Seeing Collier and Williams calmly rattle home jump shots 28 seconds apart merely gave an indication of what was to come.
With Collier and Williams combining to outscore the entire Ducks team, the Huskies punched their ticket to a record 10th straight Final Four with an emphatic 90-52 victory before of crowd of 8,978 at Webster Bank Arena.
UConn extended its NCAA alldivision basketball record winning streak to 111 games. It was also the 113th win in the NCAA tournament for UConn’s Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma breaking the mark he shared with former Tennessee coach Pat Summitt. The win set up a national semifinal showdown with Mississippi State on Friday likely to start between 9:45-10 p.m.
“We knew we were going to give up something at the other end,” Graves said. “Gabby Wil-
liams has shown at times that she is not as comfortable shooting that 17 footer as she was tonight. You have to give up something. When you are not quite as good, you have to pick your poison, we picked and we chose wrong. Those kids are great players, they really are. That set the tone for them, shooting is contagious, good shooting and bad shooting. Once she started making them then Saniya (Chong) was making them.”
The trio of Chong, Collier and Williams accounted for all of the Huskies’ points on a 23-4 run to start the game.
“When teams play off of us that much, for her (Collier) it doesn’t make much sense because she can hit that shot with her eyes closed,” Williams said. “For me, it has been a little bit of a struggle all year. That was probably the only shot they were going to give me so I had to make it. It is the next step, I have been struggling with it and just trying to be consistent because if I can get people to play up on me, I can find my teammates earlier.”
Collier finished with 28 points including the 1,000th of her career. Named the Most Outstanding Performer in the Bridgeport regional, she has tallied 96 points in the four NCAA tournament games. Only Diana Taurasi had more points after the regional round of the tournament in UConn history. Collier also had 12 rebounds and four blocked shots. Williams had 25 points, six rebounds and four steals for UConn (36-0).
Chong, who had 11 points, joined fellow senior Tierney Lawlor as part of the winningest class in women’s college basketball history as the Huskies are 152-1 since their arrival.
Kia Nurse added 11 points and a game-high seven assists as the Huskies broke the NCAA record for assists in a season. The record, set two years ago in 40 games by UConn, was 850. The Huskies will enter the Final Four with 852 helpers.
As the final few seconds ticked off the clock and UConn celebrated, huge smiles could be seen from the five starters, who despite the loss of All-Americans Moriah Jefferson, Breanna Stewart and Morgan Tuck, are two wins shy of the program’s third perfect year in the last four seasons. “It is a feeling that never gets old,” Williams said. “We’ve been there before, but it neve gets old.”
The Huskies, who got off to a sluggish start offensively in the Sweet 16 win over UCLA, made six of their first eight shots. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Chong followed by a trey by Collier keyed the early offensive explosion. By halftime UConn already had more steals (11) than Oregon had made baskets.
Nurse hit three 3-pointers, giving her 20 in the four tournament games matching the record for most 3s in one NCAA tournament. Betsy Harris had 20 for Alabama in 1994, Diana Taurasi of UConn matched that mark in 2003 and Maya Moore did the same seven years later.
Katie Lou Samuelson had five of UConn’s 15 steals.
The Huskies made life especially difficult for the Ducks’ brilliant freshman guard Sabrina Ionescu who had five turnovers and just one basket in the first half. The Ducks (23-14) finished with as many baskets (22) as turnovers.
Ionescu had 15 points and fellow freshman Ruthy Hebard added 12 for Oregon.
With three freshmen in the starting lineup, expectations are rather high for the Ducks.
“We are going to try to do what they do because I think we can become the next UConn here at Oregon,” Ionescu said.