SAN ANTONIO – With freshman Paige Bueckers on the back court, UConn had the edge in almost every game he played this season.
Then came her showdown against Arizona in the women’s Final Four. Arizona suffocated Bueckers, making it almost impossible for him to get an open shot. When he did, he was out.
The Huskies, No. 1 seed, couldn’t get anything to come out offensively and stay almost the entire game. Despite the late fourth-quarter rise, they simply didn’t have enough to come back with an impressive 69-59 loss to the Wildcats on Friday night.
Bueckers finished with an 18-point calm in the shooting of 5 of 13 in the final game of his first year.
The performance was amazing by a UConn team that only lost one game all season: in January against Arkansas. The Huskies have lost in four straight semifinals of the Final Four.
It was Arizona’s first win against an AP-ranked No. 1 team, and now the Wildcats move on to the first national championship game in program history. On Sunday they will face Pac-12 rival Stanford in the title. It is the first time the Pac-12 has two teams facing off in the championship game.
Arizona coach Adia Barnes, who played in Arizona, has done a remarkable job flipping through the Wildcats program that doesn’t have the same history or tradition as UConn and coach Geno Auriemma, in her 21st Final Four. But the Wildcats took him to the Huskies as if they were the veteran team, and they did so behind their veteran leader Aari McDonald, who not only had Friday night with 26 points, but throughout the NCAA tournament.
It seemed clear from the start that Arizona wanted to send a message. Maybe that had something to do with staying out of a promotional video for the women’s Final Four. Maybe the wild cats just wanted to prove that a new program had arrived to take center stage. Either way, Arizona shut down UConn altogether, making the impossible seem easy.
In the first half alone, Arizona contested 15 of UConn’s 25 field goal attempts and kept the Huskies at 3 of 15 on those attempts. Throughout the game, UConn was only 6 of 31 in contested shots, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
The templates didn’t come in, and with Bueckers quickly becoming a factor doing nothing, only Christyn Williams kept UConn in the game in the first half. Still, the Huskies finished with 10 at halftime, having finished the first half with more losses (nine) than field goals (eight).
Bueckers and UConn have been a team that can warm up at any time. Aimed at the game, Bueckers had scored a total of 90 points in the NCAA tournament. But the shots were elusive and Arizona continued with their relentless pressure, playing with a confidence that didn’t suggest for a minute that it was their first time playing in the Final Four.
Over three quarters, UConn totaled 39 points, the lowest since the quarters were implemented in the 2015-16 season. Still, the Huskies made a push at the end of the fourth quarter, narrowing the gap to 60-55 with 1:23 left, putting the crowd inside the Alamodome. Would this be the race everyone was hoping to see from the Huskies who tend to load fast?
No, I wouldn’t.
Now UConn will have to wait another year to try to win its first national championship since 2016. As Arizona continues, in an attempt to make history of its own.