Listed here are some takeaways from UConn’s win on Friday evening.
UCLA couldn’t sustain with UConn’s tempo
It was very clear from the start that these two groups had very completely different kinds of play and really completely different concepts on methods to try to win this recreation.
Whereas UCLA was making an attempt to play a more durable, slower-paced recreation, UConn was pleased to push the tempo, play with tempo and put the Bruins again on their heels.
UCLA had no reply for any of it and located itself in a 20-point deficit going into halftime. It solely acquired worse from there.
This UConn group is loaded
Whereas Paige Bueckers is the star of this UConn group, she just isn’t the one participant driving the bus. This can be a loaded group that has a number of gamers who can all step up on any given evening and take over a recreation. That was proven on Friday, as Bueckers didn’t actually have her finest stuff offensively.
She nonetheless completed with 16 factors, however she was solely 7-of-17 from the sphere and didn’t make a single three-point shot.
As an alternative, the UConn offense was carried by Sarah Robust (22 factors) and Azzi Fudd (19 factors). That duo was additionally a mixed 7-of-11 from three-point vary.
General, seven completely different gamers recorded at the least 5 factors for the Huskies.
UCLA had 4 gamers report at the least 5 factors.
Paige Bueckers has another likelihood to lastly have her massive second
The one factor Bueckers has not achieved in her collegiate profession is profitable a nationwide championship. That can also be actually the one factor nice gamers at UConn are measured by.
While you go there as a girls’s basketball participant, particularly a top-tier participant, a championship is the expectation.
Whereas she has helped lead the Huskies to the Closing 4 in each season she has performed, she has solely performed in a single nationwide championship recreation, and it led to defeat by the hands of their Sunday opponent — South Carolina.
UConn has not gained a nationwide title within the girls’s recreation because the 2015-16 season. That’s the second-longest title drought in head coach Geno Auriemma’s tenure with this system, topped solely by his first 9 years on the job.
Stage is ready for epic championship recreation
In terms of a nationwide championship recreation it actually doesn’t get significantly better than this on paper.
UConn and South Carolina are the 2 dominant packages within the girls’s recreation.
Auriemma and South Carolina’s Daybreak Staley are the 2 most distinguished coaches and two all-time greats.
They’ve already confronted off in a championship recreation inside the previous 5 years.
Now they get to satisfy once more for all the marbles.
