MINNEAPOLIS — Once they scratched and clawed their way here, all the way to the national championship game, the UConn Huskies wanted to win.
“If we lose I feel like that’s not a successful season,” UConn senior guard Christyn Williams said before Sunday’s national championship game against South Carolina. “I mean, granted we have gone through a lot, and you know, getting here is great but we want to finish it out.”
Williams, one of three seniors playing in her last game for the Huskies, wanted to go out with a victory.
But South Carolina, ranked No. 1 all year, was just too much for UConn and never trailed in the game. The Gamecocks were too big and too strong inside and most of all, too disruptive defensively right from the start. The Huskies got in an early hole, trailing by 18 at one point in the first half, and although they fought back some, lost 64-49 in front of a sellout crowd of 18,304 at the Target Center Sunday night.
Paige Bueckers led the Huskies (30-6) with 14 points and six rebounds. Destanni Henderson was the leading scorer with 26 points for South Carolina, which lost in the national semifinal last year 66-65 to eventual champion Stanford.
It was South Carolina’s second national championship; the Gamecocks won their first in 2017. It was the first time UConn had lost in a national championship game in 12 finals.
It was a defensive battle and UConn’s post players held national consensus player of the year Aliyah Boston, who led the country in double-doubles, to 11 points and 16 rebounds.
But South Carolina (35-2) outrebounded UConn 49-24 and had the edge in offensive rebounding, 21-6. Bueckers was the only UConn player to score in double figures.
UConn was 11-0 in national championship games before Sunday night. Every time, Geno Auriemma brought what he considered the best team. And every time, they won. But this year was different.
