The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
UConn women roll past South Carolina to Final Four
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ELITE 8: UCONN 94, SOUTH CAROLINA 65 Dangerfield sets tone with 21 points, 5 assists while Williams leads the charge with 23 points
ALBANY, N.Y. — All it took was the trace of a smile from the typically stoic Crystal Dangerfield for UConn All-American forward Gabby Williams to realize that making another trip to the Final Four was getting to the point of being a foregone conclusion.
With Dangerfield making all five of her 3-pointers, the Huskies blew out defending national champion South Carolina 94-65 before a crowd of 9,522 at the Times Union Center on Monday night to advance to the Final Four for a record 11th season in a row.
“I think once Crystal hit her third or fourth 3 and she cracked that smile, we said, ‘OK, we’ve got it,’ ” said Williams, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Albany Regional. “She is so unselfish and she is our point guard. She is always focused on finding us shots and running our offense, but she has to look for her shots and that opens it up more for us.”
Williams had 23 points, five rebounds, five assists, two steals and her 100th career blocked shot, while Dangerfield had 19 of her 21 points in the first half aided by the fact that she was 5 for 5 from the 3-point line in the opening half.
“Well, she made wideopen shots,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “They were practice shots, with her feet set and no one really around her and then if you watch them in warmups, those are the kind of shots that they hit.
“Certainly we didn’t do a good job of staying close to home to her. We kind of dug ourselves in the hole by helping off too much.”
Dangerfield, the only player in UConn’s primary rotation shooting under 50 percent during the NCAA tournament, hit the first of her five first-half 3-pointers 3:04 into the game and the shots kept falling.
“It is really just confidence and understanding that I can make an open shot and in a big game like this, I wanted to come out and contribute,” Dangerfield said. “It is incredibly special. I just wanted to come out and contribute, make sure I left a mark on the game in a certain way.”
Katie Lou Samuelson finished with 17 points and seven assists and Napheesa Collier added 16 points for UConn (36-0), which will play Notre Dame, an 84-74 winner over Oregon, in Friday’s national semifinal in Columbus, Ohio. Kia Nurse had 11 points and when she was credited with her lone assist, it marked the fourth time in program history that five UConn players had 100 assists in a season.
Dangerfield has practiced on a limited basis for the second half of the season due to shin splints. She shot the ball confidently from 3-point range in the regional semifinal against Duke. Dangerfield made nearly every shot during warmups before the game and didn’t cool off once the game started.
“I just talked to (assistant coach) Shea (Ralph), talking to Coach (Geno Auriemma) and making sure I get the reps in when I can,” Dangerfield said of rediscovering her shooting touch while missing valuable practice time.
Dangerfield set her NCAA tournament high with 19 points by halftime, topping the 16 she had in the 2017 opener against Albany.
With Dangerfield leading the way, UConn was 9 for 10 from 3-point range in the first half while South Carolina missed its only 3-point attempt. A bigger issue for the Gamecocks is that all six UConn players who saw action in the first half had at least two field goals while two South Carolina starters failed to score in the opening half.
Wilson finished with 27 points and eight rebounds in her final game at South Carolina (28-7).
It was just the fourth time that the last two national champions have met in the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament and first since Tennessee eliminated UConn in 1997.