TAMPA – We should have seen this coming. UCLA may have been the overall No. 1 seed, but UConn is UConn. No team has more titles. No team has more of a reputation. And no team has Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong on the same roster. All three were the No.1 recruit in their class coming out of high school, and all three came to play in their Final Four matchup with the Bruins.
Strong led the Huskies with 22 points and eight rebounds, Fudd had 19 points and Bueckers added 16 in an 85-51 rout of UCLA. UConn being in a national title game is nothing new, but the way coach Geno Auriemma reacted was something the Huskies have never heard before.
“I don’t think we made a mistake the entire evening,” Auriemma said. “UCLA is just really, really good and really, really hard to play against. It took everything we have, and I’m really humbled by their performance tonight.”
Bueckers knows better.
“We haven’t watched film yet,” she said with a laugh.
Throughout the game, Fudd felt like things were really clicking. But when Auriemma praised them in the postgame, her eyes widened.
“I thought we played really well, but not perfectly. So when he said that I was like, ‘Is he feeling okay?’” Fudd said with a laugh. “But it was a great game. We really executed our scout and made it difficult for them. So I’m really proud.”
The Huskies have done something rare this season. Since they lost to Tennessee on February 6, every game has been better than the last. Friday’s win over UCLA was yet another building block on a season of improvements. It was also the largest margin of victory in Final Four history.
“I mean we’re trying to get better even from this performance for the game on Sunday,” Bueckers said. “So just not being complacent with what we did tonight and trying to continue to get better.”
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It’s hard to imagine what better even looks like.
The Bruins average 78.7 points per game. UConn held them to 51. UCLA forced 14.9 turnovers per game. UConn had just 7. UCLA shot just 38.5 percent from the field. UConn shot 55 percent. Lauren Betts scored 26 points but no other Bruin finished in double-figures. The Huskies held Londynn Jones and Gabriela Jaquez scoreless, while their Big Three erupted to combine for 57 points — more than UCLA had as a whole.
After UConn’s second-round win over South Dakota State, Jackrabbits head coach Aaron Johnston was in awe. He couldn’t believe a team as talented as the Huskies played so hard. That was on display again on Friday, only this time, it was against the No. 1 overall seed out of the Big Ten, not a 10-seed from the Summit League.
“We got exposed,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said. “We got out-toughed. We got our butts beat today. They played really, really well. They’re a really good team. They earned that win. And we could have given them a better game. We could have executed our game plan better. We could have played with better toughness and togetherness.”
UConn embodied togetherness. At different points in the game, Fudd, Bueckers and Strong all stepped up to score the ball, and as a unit, their defense was exceptional.
“That was so much fun,” Strong said. “We have great chemistry and I feel like us playing that way gets the rest of the team going.”
To start the season, Auriemma said his team had all the tools to win a title, it was just a matter of how they would come together. On Friday, after beating the country’s No. 1 team, he praised his group for a perfect performance.
Now, the Huskies will look to build on perfect and get better one more time. A national championship battle with South Carolina awaits.
