UConn’s painful 8 minutes
Huskies were outscored 26-12 by Irish to end game
TAMPA, Fla. — Crystal Dangerfield stood alone in a corner sobbing. Megan Walker sat down quietly at a nearby locker, cupping her face with both hands. Across the room, Katie Lou Samuelson fought back tears before a set of TV cameras.
The pain of losing another Final Four was real. The shock was raw.
UConn had reached the doorstep of the national championship game for a third straight year, only to watch a nine-point lead evaporate in an 81-76 stunner to Notre Dame on Friday at Amalie Arena.
“It’s really hard,” senior Napheesa Collier said. “Having it happen, trying to get to the top three years in a row. It’s especially hard because we didn’t play as well as we could have, and me specifically, I’m disappointed in the way I played. We gave it our best effort, but we didn’t play how we could play.”
And because of that, the Huskies’ title drought now rests at three years. For a program that measures itself solely by championships, that feels like an eternity.
“You want to do what everyone else has done that’s come through here,” Dangerfield, a junior guard, said.
More than a decade has passed since the Huskies went through a similar stretch. They fell in overtime to Duke at the 2006 Elite Eight, then lost to LSU by 23 at the same stage in 2007. They made it to the Final Four in 2008, but were bested by Stanford, 82-73, in Tampa, Fla.
Though 11 years have passed, that loss to Stanford
still lingers in Geno Auriemma’s mind. Just like Friday’s heartbreaker may still stick in his craw in 2030.
“We lost to Stanford after we had beaten them by (12) in November,” the UConn coach recalled. “I remember after the game, I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, we just weren’t good enough. We have two kids get hurt, and this team that we have right here is not good enough. But, the team we’re going to bring back the next year is going to win the national championship.’ And we did.”
The Huskies captured their first of back-to-back titles in 2009, stomping Louisville 76-54 in St. Louis behind the triumphant trio of Tina Charles, Maya Moore and Renee Montgomery. They finished 39-0.
“Sometimes you have to know, our team has limitations,” he continued. “If we can cover them up for the entire 40 minutes, then we’ve got a chance to win this thing.
“Unfortunately, we couldn’t.”
Ultimately, UConn flaws were impossible to mask. They reared their head at the most inopportune time — crunch time.
The final 7 minutes and 52 seconds against Notre Dame are difficult to digest and impossible to forget. After Collier’s layup put them up 64-55, the Huskies were outscored 26-12 the rest of the way.
“They had to make one great play after another,” Auriemma said. “So, what if they don’t make those plays? Then we win going away. So, when they made those plays offensively, we had to come down and match that. We didn’t.”
The Huskies were stellar defensively in the first half, holding Notre Dame to just 29 points. Arike Ogunbowale, the Most Outstanding Player of the 2018 Final Four, and guard Marina Mabrey combined to shoot only 2-of-15 (1-of-10 from 3) during the stretch. But, the Huskies couldn’t take advantage.
They missed too many high-percentage shots. They didn’t grab enough rebounds (54-37 in favor of Notre Dame). Their bench lacked sparkplugs.
Jessica Shepard, a 6foot-4 senior, helped Notre Dame take advantage of UConn’s lack of size and leaky defense. Shepard grabbed seven of her team’s 22 offensive boards, compared to just 11 for the Huskies.
“When they were down nine, they could have missed the next five shots — we would have went up 17 — but they didn’t. Why? Because they’re the defending national champions, they have five All-Americans who are really, really good.
“I remember being in that situation a couple times.”
Auriemma proceeded to smile, even though the pain was still real.