SPOKANE, Wash. — Huskies star Paige Bueckers came to UConn with the goal of winning a national championship.
That title proved elusive in her previous three NCAA tournament appearances, but she’ll have one final shot over the coming week at making that dream come true.
Behind 31 points and six assists, Bueckers lifted the No. 2 seed Huskies to a 78-64 win over No. 1 seed USC in the Spokane 4 regional final, clinching the team’s 16th Final Four appearance in 17 years and 24th overall. Bueckers, the presumptive No. 1 overall pick in next month’s WNBA draft, has led UConn to the Final Four each season she’s played for them.
The Trojans — playing without national player of the year frontrunner JuJu Watkins, who tore her ACL in their second-round NCAA tournament game last Monday — put up a valiant effort without their superstar, but fall just short of their first Final Four appearance since 1986. They were led by a 23-point, 15-board outing from senior Rayah Marshall.
UConn will face No. 1 overall seed UCLA in the national semifinal Friday evening.
UConn’s defense made USC uncomfortable for large swaths of the game, forcing 10 turnovers in the first half and holding them without a 3-pointer until the 6:44 mark of the third. USC’s 14-point halftime deficit was its largest since the start of last season.
The Huskies’ 10 for 22 effort from beyond the 3-point arc, on the contrary, marked the first time this season USC allowed an opponent to hit double-digit 3-pointers.
Freshman Sarah Strong became the first freshman in UConn history with a 20-point, 10-rebound game in the Elite Eight or later. She kept the Huskies afloat early with 10 of their 14 first-quarter points, helping them take the lead after trailing 11-5 early and jump ahead by as many as nine.
The Huskies mostly dominated the first half behind star Strong and Bueckers, who combined for more first-half points (28) than USC (25).
But the Trojans made things interested heading into the fourth, cutting a 19-point deficit to five at the buzzer of the period behind 10 third-quarter points from Talia von Oelhoffen.
Graduate student Azzi Fudd, who started the game 0 for 9 from the field, helped UConn pull away down the stretch, scoring eight points in the fourth, including a pair of 3-pointers.
USC hung around but never got any closer. A pair of layups from Kaitlyn Chen in the second-to-last minute helped put the game out of reach for good. Chen’s 15 points were her third-most in a game this season, her first in Storrs after transferring from Princeton.
