Making Our Picks
William Howard/USA TODAY Sports (Boston); David Butler II/USA TODAY Sports (Bueckers)
MINNEAPOLIS — Two of the most prolific programs in women’s college basketball will meet Sunday night for the national championship as the NCAA tournament’s No. 1 overall seed South Carolina takes on Bridgeport Region champion UConn. The Gamecocks are making their fourth Final Four appearance in program history, with all four meetings coming since 2015, while the Huskies are appearing in their 14th consecutive Final Four and 22nd overall. South Carolina advanced to the title game after defeating Wichita Region champion Louisville, 72–59. UConn, meanwhile, grinded out a 63–58 victory over Spokane Region champion Stanford. Ahead of Sunday’s tip, which is set for 8 p.m. ET, we get you set for what you need to know.
Story line to watch
Emma Baccellieri: South Carolina has been No. 1 in the country all season. March has brought them a range of hardware: The Gamecocks have the consensus player of the year in Aliyah Boston and the coach of the year in Dawn Staley. Which means that a national championship has not felt like a goal for this team so much as it has felt like destiny—or, at least, as close as you can get to that in the madness of the tournament. So can they actually make it happen? A title will close out a historically dominant season from Boston, and it will help cement a legacy for Staley, who has transformed this program in her decade and a half on campus. Yet there are no guarantees in March. (There’s perhaps no one who knows that as well as Staley, who, as a player in the early ‘90s, did not win a championship despite making three consecutive Final Fours with Virginia.) But this team has looked as close to a sure thing as you can get—all of their major story lines run through that point.
Ben Pickman: Here in Minneapolis there has unsurprisingly been a lot of discussion about UConn star Paige Bueckers, who is a native of Hopkins, Minn., a mere 10 miles from the Final Four site at Target Center. She dominated against NC State in the Elite Eight, scoring 27 points in the double-overtime thriller. Against the Cardinal, however, she didn’t play her best game, finishing with just 14 points and five turnovers, and at one point late in the contest, she was subbed out in apparent discomfort. Bueckers said after the win that she was “OK” but considering the fact she missed nearly three months this season with a knee injury, it’s something to keep a close eye on. She’s looking for her homecoming to have a happy ending. If you want one bonus UConn story line, it’s this: The Huskies have never lost in a title game, but they haven’t won a championship since 2016. Which of those streaks will snap Sunday night?
Matchup to watch
Baccellieri: Brea Beal vs. UConn’s guards. (Especially Paige Bueckers.) So much of the attention on South Carolina’s best-in-class defense is directed toward what the team does in the paint—but it’s solid all over the floor, particularly from Beal, who is one of the best perimeter defenders in the nation. “She's just locked in,” Staley said of Beal’s defensive play. “She knows what your best move is, she knows what your counter is, and she just waits. She forces you into those situations, and you've got to go to your third option as an individual player. And by then, if you have to go through your first, second, and third—your teammates are standing around. So we've got you.” That was on full display in the Final Four, when Beal was tasked with guarding explosive sophomore Hailey Van Lith, who had scored 20 or more in each of the four tournament games so far for Louisville. But she couldn’t reach double digits against Beal and South Carolina. If Beal can read Bueckers and UConn similarly…it might be a tough night for the Huskies.
Pickman: UConn’s bigs vs. Aliyah Boston. How the Huskies are able to contain Boston will go a long way in determining the game’s outcome. Boston recorded 23 points and 18 rebounds Friday and will look to achieve similar success against UConn’s frontcourt. Senior forward Olivia Nelson-Ododa will likely spend a lot of time matched up against Boston and sophomore forward Aaliyah Edwards will presumably find herself guarding the Gamecocks star at times. But after that, UConn’s frontcourt depth thins out relatively quickly, especially after graduate forward Dorka Juhasz sustained a season-ending injury vs. NC State. The Huskies were able to overcome foul trouble by both Nelson-Ododa and Edwards against Stanford, but it’s hard to imagine them wanting to replicate that plan against Boston.
Who wins the title?
Baccellieri: South Carolina. It’s true that a lot has happened since these teams last met at the beginning of the season—but fundamentally, the strengths and weaknesses here are very similar to what they were in November when South Carolina beat UConn, 73–57. In that game, Boston led the way for the Gamecocks with 22 points and 15 boards, alongside double-digit contributions from guards Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke. Meanwhile, Bueckers scored 19 for UConn, but it just wasn’t enough against a tough, grinding defense from South Carolina. It doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to imagine this one playing out fairly similarly.
Pickman: South Carolina. Is it possible that Bueckers, star freshman guard Azzi Fudd and senior guard Christyn Williams are able to carry UConn to a championship? Absolutely. But UConn needs to have a lot go right and needs South Carolina to struggle if it wants to claim its elusive 12th national title. The Huskies haven't lost since Feb. 9 and have eked out victories in each of the last three rounds, but Boston presents a different challenge and the Gamecocks seem poised to claim the championship they’ve been chasing all year.
ICYMI …
• Kansas arrived at the Final Four on a mission. Greg Bishop on a Jayhawks performance against Villanova that should have everyone on alert amid a Tobacco Road takeover.
• Daivd McCormack has had the type of roundabout career no elite high school prospect would script for themselves. But in the biggest game of his college career, the Kansas center had perhaps his finest game, writes Kevin Sweeney.
• Signature handshakes and tough defense: Allow Emma Baccellieri to introduce you to LeLe Grissett, South Carolina’s hype woman.
• UConn-Stanford opened much like a heavyweight prize fight, writes Ben Pickman. And it was the Huskies’ seniors who later delivered the pivotal blow.
Christopher Hanewinckel/USA TODAY Sports
From the Vault
Before she was coaching her top-ranked Gamecocks to the title game, Dawn Staley was carrying Virginia to the Final Four as a star player. Back in her college days Staley was a self-described “loner,” and though she was antisocial off the court, the talented playmaker had plenty of enthusiasm on it. Ahead of her junior season, the Cavs were considered the best team in the country, and Staley the best player. “People have high expectations for us,” she told SI’s Douglas Looney in 1990. “But ours are higher than theirs.” Those high expectations have followed Staley throughout her career, including Sunday when she looks to grab her second national championship with South Carolina.
