NO LOOKING BACK
Coaches agree, past means nothing as UConn, South Carolina compete for a national championship
MINNEAPOLIS — Neither UConn nor South Carolina has ever lost a national championship game in women’s basketball.
UConn has more experience, playing in 11, winning its last title in 2016. South Carolina has only played in one, and won in 2017.
“We’re 1-0, so we’re 100 percent, too,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said to laughter in the press conference Saturday. “It comes down to UConn has had the most experience, so it doesn’t faze them to be where they are.
“I think we’re going to duke it out. There’s no edge. There’s no edge.”
And as Staley pointed out, no players on either team have won a national title, so the history doesn’t mean a lot. It will be settled at 8 p.m. on Sunday night.
“We’re not going to be thinking about, [UConn coach Geno Auriemma] is not going to be thinking about, ‘Oh, we’re 11-0, we got the 12th one in the bag,’ ” Staley said. “We’re not going to think, ‘Oh, here’s UConn. We’re going to automatically win.’ You can’t go into games thinking that way. You’ve got to play. And we’re going to play off of this year. We’re not going to play their history.”
Auriemma agreed.
“I think her team has a great chance to win a national championship,” he said. “I think my team has a chance to win a national championship. But in terms of me personally or Dawn personally — I don’t want to speak for Dawn - but I feel like once this game starts, you kind of relinquish about 80 percent of the control to the players, and they now have the ability to win it or they don’t.
“You can coach the best game of your life and lose. You can make the most mistakes you’ve ever made coaching a game, and your team will find a way to win.”
On Friday night, UConn topped defending national champions Stanford, 63-58 in the semifinal game in which defense played a prominent role. South Carolina had an easier time with Louisville in the first semifinal, winning 72-59. Aliyah Boston, the Gamecocks’ 6-foot-5 junior forward who won a slew of awards Thursday, including the Wade Trophy as player of the year, had a monster game with 23 points and 18 rebounds.
Trying to contain Boston will be a chore for UConn.
“How do we guard her? I don’t know. I’m open for suggestions,” Auriemma said.
Boston had 22 points and 15 rebounds when the two teams played Nov. 22 at the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas with South Carolina winning 73-57. South Carolina has beaten UConn two of the last three times the teams have faced each other.
“The Bahamas game was eons ago,” Staley said. “What did we take it from it? We’re going to watch it a little bit because I liked how we were defending, and we can compare what it looks like from back in November to what it looks like now. I think we’ve gotten better, but we did a pretty good job in the Bahamas.
“We’ll look at it just probably to get our players’ juices flowing a little bit to see this is what we did. This is the kind of effort and more that it’s going to take to basically dethrone Connecticut and all the things that they’ve done and the incredible percentage of winning when they’re in a national championship game.”
UConn will likely score more than the three points in the fourth quarter they got in the Bahamas. This team has grown since then, become battle hardened by adversity and has more depth due to injuries they have suffered. The defense has improved as the postseason has gone on. Before Friday’s game, the consensus was that Stanford had a better post game and more experience than UConn but the Huskies held the rebound edge and only two Cardinal players ended up in double figures (Haley Jones with 20 and Cameron Brink with 15).
“I think we get a lot of confidence from that,” UConn senior Olivia Nelson-Ododa said. “If we just stay out of foul trouble, that will help us. And play smart defense.”
With Dorka Juhasz out with a broken wrist, the Huskies were limited in their depth in the post Friday. But senior Evina Westbrook made a big contribution, playing 31 minutes and scoring 12 points with six rebounds. She added a big block in the first quarter that got the team fired up.
“‘E’ steps up in the biggest moments, we can count on her for that, she comes through and I think she thrives in those moments,” Nelson-Ododa said. “You could see that last night. She was all over the place. That was exactly what we needed.”
Juhasz, who had surgery Wednesday, flew to Minneapolis Friday and her appearance also fired up her teammates.
“For her to be able to come out here, it was uncomfortable for her, coming on the flight, just out of surgery,” Nelson-Ododa said. “She was able to see us and support us. She really didn’t have to. We’re so thankful we can be here with her.”
And while UConn will have to deal with Boston, South Carolina will have to try and stop Paige Bueckers, who led UConn Friday night with 14 points and had five assists and two steals.
“They’re a great transition team,” South Carolina point guard Destanni Henderson said. “We’re going to have to make sure our defense is top tier; make sure we all get back and execute defensively.
“Their guards are dominant and a lot of their points come from their guards, so the guard matchup defensively is going to have to be extremely aggressive on our side.”
The Basics
NCAA Championship
Site: Target Center, Minneapolis
Time: 8 p.m.
Series: UConn leads, 9-2
Last meeting: South Carolina 73-57, at Paradise Island, Bahamas, Nov. 23, 2021
TV: ESPN (Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, Andraya Carter, Holly Rowe)
Radio: UConn IMG Sports Network on 97.9 ESPN (Bob Joyce, Debbie Fiske)
South Carolina (34-2) probable starters, sixth player: Destanni Henderson, G, 5-7, Sr.; Zia Cooke, G, 5-9, Jr.; Brea Beal, G, 6-1, Jr.; Aliyah Boston, F, 6-5, Jr.; Victaria Saxton, F, 6-2, Sr.; Saniya Rivers, G, 6-1, Fr.
UConn (30-5) probable starters, sixth player: Christyn Williams, G, 5-11, Sr.; Olivia Nelson-Ododa, F, 6-5, Sr.; Paige Bueckers, G, 5-11, So.; Aaliyah Edwards, F, 6-3, So.; Azzi Fudd, G, 5-11, Fr.; Evina Westbrook, G, 6-0, R-Sr.;
The matchup
UConn’s offense: Bueckers’ pull-up jumpers and Westbrook’s threes kept UConn afloat against
Stanford in the semifinals, then the Huskies cashed in big at the line. The rebounding, especially offensively, from Nelson-Ododa and Edwards has been a huge factor in this tournament, but will be hard to sustain against Boston and the Gamecocks.
UConn’s defense: The Huskies played a fabulous defensive game against Stanford but got into foul trouble, a factor with Juhasz out. Look for Nika Muhl to come off the bench if the Huskies have trouble guarding at the perimeter.
South Carolina’s offense: Boston, who swept the major player of the year awards, averages 17.0 points and 13.4 rebounds, really cleaning up on the offensive boards. She had 22 points and 15 rebounds vs. UConn last time. Henderson (15 points) and Cooke (17) also hurt the Huskies in November.
South Carolina’s defense: Auriemma calls it the best in the country. The Gamecocks outrebound their opponents by 17.4 per game, holding them to 50.7 points, 33.0 percent from the floor, 26.7 on threes.
UConn keys: The Huskies will have to guard Boston, maybe the toughest player to guard in the country, without Nelson-Ododa or Edwards getting into foul trouble.
Players to watch: Last year’s player of the year, Bueckers, and this year’s, Boston, play different positions, but both will have to perform big for their team to win.
About South Carolina’s coach: One of the legendary coaches in the game, Staley, 51, has led the Gamecocks to three Final Four appearances, including a national championship in 2017. She is the first person to win the Naismith Award as both a player (at Virginia) and a coach. Staley was named the head coach of the U.S. national team in 2017 and guided the USA to gold in the Tokyo Olympics this past summer. Her head coaching record at Temple and South Carolina is 537-185 (74.4 percent)
South Carolina’s mascot: Cocky, a rooster with a very flat beak.
Famous alumni: NBA Hall of Famer Alex English, basketball coach Mike Dunleavy Sr., football coach Mark Dantonio, TV anchor Rita Cosby, Red Sox player Jackie Bradley Jr. and former Met Mookie Wilson.
Dom Amore contributed to this story.