MINNEAPOLIS — The game might not have gone according to plan, but for the thousands of fans who cheered Paige Bueckers' every move, it went to script.
Hollywood script.
The result: Stanford will not be able to play for its second straight NCAA women's basketball championship. Connecticut — and former Hopkins High star Bueckers — will play South Carolina Sunday night in Buecker's back yard for its 12th title and its first since 2016.
Playing stifling defense and scoring just enough, Connecticut beat Stanford, 63-58, in a national semifinal game at Target Center Friday night.
Plot twists?
Who'd have thought an offensive machine like Stanford would shoot 23 for 66 (34.8%), hit just 4 of 23 3s and score 58 points? Who'd have thought that, in the crucial moments of the game, it would be Connecticut forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa that was the best post player on the floor?
Stanford (32-4) had its 24-game winning streak snapped. Connecticut (30-5) won its 15th straight.
Playing her usual, efficient offensive game, Bueckers scored 14 points with five assists. But it was her defense, particularly on Stanford's Lexie Hull (four points) that might have made the difference.
Connecticut also got 10 points off the bench from Evina Westbrook. Nelson-Ododa had eight points and 10 rebounds.
And five of those eight were huge.
Connecticut led by two entering the fourth quarter. But that's when Nelson-Ododa took over. She scored, was fouled and completed the three-point play to start the fourth quarter. Moments later, fouled again, she hit two free throws, putting Connecticut up eight. When Bueckers stole the ball and drove the court for a layup with 5:39 left the Huskies led by eight.
And Stanford just couldn't muster enough offense to come back. Down eight with 1:26 left, the Cardinal rallied to within two on Haley Jones' basket with 23 seconds left, and again on Cameron Brink's basket with 18.4 seconds left.
But Azzi Fudd, and then Christyn Williams — with 11 seconds left — hit two free throws to keep UConn on top.
Jones finished with 20 points and 11 rebounds. Brink had 15 and six.
The teams struggled to make a shot over the first 10 minutes.
By the time Stanford's Anna Wilson made one of two free throws with 4:39 left in the first quarter the teams had scored just seven points and they were a combined 3 for 17. Matters only got worse when a hard foul midway through the quarter sent Hull to the sidelines temporarily with a bloodied nose.
With Bueckers and Fudd each scoring four points, Connecticut led for most of the quarter and was up 12-9 after the first 10 minutes, with Stanford shooting 4 for 16 and Connecticut 6 for 18.
The Cardinal was just as cold to start the second quarter, but Stanford's defense kept it in the game. Still, with the Cardinal struggling, Connecticut's Westbrook came off the bench to score nine of Connecticut's 17 second-quarter points. That included back-to-back 3s, the second coming with 2:47 left in the half, giving Connecticut it's biggest led of the game, 25-19.
Stanford responded with a 7-0 run to take a brief lead, its first.
Nika Muhl's put-back with 45 seconds left put Connecticut up 27-26 at the half.
In the third, the Cardinal, after taking a 31-30 lead on Ashten Prechtel's 3, were able to stay in the game despite a stretch of nearly 4 minutes without a point.
Indeed, Stanford was down just three points before Brink ended an 0-for-6 stretch of shooting for Stanford with a bucket.
The Cardinal took another one-point lead on two free throws by Jones with 1:49 left before Williams hit a 3-pointer, the first three points in a 5-0 run that put Connecticut up four before Brink pulled Stanford within two at the end of the quarter.
