UConn women favorite for 2016
TAMPA — Geno Auriemma and his UConn Huskies will be the leading contenders to make another championship run next season. It would be an unprecedented 11th title that would eclipse John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins and their 10 championships.
If they can pull it off, Breanna Stewart would accomplish her goal of winning four championships at UConn.
“I think it’s really surreal and I haven’t had a chance to even think about that,” Stewart said after the Huskies beat Notre Dame 63-53 on Tuesday night in the title game. “I’ve won three national championships, but said I wanted to win four, you can’t win four without winning three first.”
Stewart, the two-time AP Player of the Year, is one of four starters returning and they will be joined by another stellar incoming recruiting class. She earned most outstanding player of the Final Four for the third time, making her the first woman to achieve that. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the only men’s player to do it when he played for the Wizard of Westwood.
“There just hasn’t been a player like Stewie in the women’s game in a long, long time,” Auriemma said. “She might be two inches taller than Cheryl Miller and Cheryl Miller was one of best players I saw. … Stewie’s the kind of player that women’s basketball probably hasn’t seen.”
Stewart had only eight points in Tuesday night’s win, but she got a big lift from her teammates. Moriah Jefferson scored15 points and played stellar defense on Notre Dame’s Jewell Loyd.
“She should have been the M.O.P.,” said Stewart of her classmate Jefferson.
The Huskies do lose Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis and Kiah Stokes to graduation. Mosqueda-Lewis also had 15 points and came up with big plays when the Huskies needed her most.
“I’m glad the two buckets that ‘K’ made down the stretch were kind of the difference in the game,” Auriemma said. “That’s the way she’s supposed to go out.”
Auriemma, 10-for-10 in national championship games, has won his titles over a 20-year span. Wooden won his 10 over 12 years.
“Obviously it’s a very significant number because that’s the number that’s been out there and people want to talk about it. I’ll be the first to say I’m not John Wooden and I got a bunch of friends who’d tell you I’m right, I’m not,” Auriemma said. “As I said the other day I just think what we’ve done here in the last 20 years is pretty remarkable in its own right.
“I’ll let the people who write the history decide where I fit in.”
If Auriemma does win No. 11 next year, Stewart will play a huge role.
“I just know that in our sport, from 1995 to today, what we’ve done against our peers is as good, if not better, than anybody else has done in their sport against their peers,” Auriemma said. “I don’t care whether it’s harder in that sport.”