SAN ANTONIO – With freshman phenomenon Paige Bueckers in his backcourt, UConn was ahead in almost every game it played this season.
Then came the game against Arizona in the Women’s Final Four. Arizona choked Bueckers, making it nearly impossible for her to get an open shot. When she did, she was gone.
The No. 1 seed Huskies were unable to get anything offensive and were left behind for most of the game. Despite a late rise in the fourth quarter, they simply didn’t have enough to come back in a stunning 69-59 defeat to the Wildcats on Friday night.
Bueckers finished with a silent 18 points on 5-of-13 shots in the last game of her freshman year.
The performance was surprising from a UConn team that lost just one game all season – in January against Arkansas. The Huskies have now lost in four consecutive Semi-finals of Final Four.
It was Arizona’s first win against an AP-ranked No. 1 team, and now the Wildcats advance to the first national championship game in program history. They will face Pac-12 rival Stanford in Sunday’s title match. It is the first time that the Pac-12 has faced two teams in the championship game.
Arizona coach Adia Barnes, who played in Arizona, has done a remarkable job of changing a Wildcats program that doesn’t have the same history or tradition as UConn and coach Geno Auriemma, in its 21st Final Four. But the Wildcats took it to the Huskies as if they were the veteran team, and they did it behind their veteran leader Aari McDonald, who held onto not just Friday night with 26 points, but during the NCAA tournament.
It seemed clear from the outset that Arizona wanted to deliver a message. Maybe that had something to do with the lack of a promotional video for the Women’s Final Four. Maybe the Wildcats just wanted to show that a new program had arrived to take center stage. Regardless, Arizona completely shut down UConn, making the impossible seem easy.
In the first half alone, Arizona contested 15 of UConn’s 25 field goal attempts and kept the Huskies shooting 3-of-15 on those attempts. In the entire game, UConn was only 6 out of 31 on disputed shots, according to research from ESPN Stats & Information.
Layups didn’t go in, and with Bueckers quickly becoming a non-factor, only Christyn Williams kept UConn in play in the first half. Still, the Huskies were halfway down by 10 after finishing the first half with more turnover (nine) than field goals (eight).
Bueckers and UConn are a team that can get warm at any time. On the way to the game, Bueckers had scored a total of 90 points in the NCAA tournament. But the shots remained elusive and Arizona continued his relentless pressure, playing with a confidence that never suggested this was his first time in the Final Four.
For three-quarters, UConn had 39 points – the lowest number since quarters were implemented in the 2015-16 season. Still, the Huskies pushed late in the fourth quarter, narrowing the gap by 1:23 to 60-55, bringing the crowd in the Alamodome to their feet. Could this be the flight everyone expected to see from the usually fast-charging Huskies?
No, it wouldn’t be.
Now UConn will have to wait another year to try and win its first national championship since 2016. As Arizona moves on, trying to make its own history.