SPOKANE, Wash. — Connecticut freshman forward Sarah Strong had no intention of letting the Huskies’ latest showdown with the USC Trojans be decided at the free throw line in the closing seconds.
Back in December, Strong missed two free throws and a deep heave in the final five seconds of a two-point loss to USC, one of just three defeats U-Conn. suffered all season. When the two powerhouses met again in the Spokane 4 Region final Monday, Strong started hot and stayed hot, scoring 10 of her 22 points in the first quarter to help the Huskies build a 14-point halftime lead. U-Conn. star guard Paige Bueckers handled the rest, bringing home the 77-64 victory with another brilliant second-half flourish, finishing with a game-high 31 points to go with six assists, three rebounds, four steals and two blocks.
No. 2 seed U-Conn. advanced to the Final Four for the 16th time in the past 17 NCAA women’s basketball tournaments, joining No. 1 seeds UCLA, South Carolina and Texas in Tampa. Bueckers, a redshirt senior who scored a career-high 40 points in a Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma, earned the region’s most outstanding player honors en route to her fourth Final Four.
“There’s Disneyland, there’s Disney World and then there’s U-Conn. World,” Huskies Coach Geno Auriemma said of his team’s run of tournament success. “These are fantasy numbers that make no sense. You couldn’t predict this and you couldn’t script this.”
When the March Madness brackets were released this month, it seemed as if the No. 1 Trojans, led by JuJu Watkins, and the No. 2 Huskies, led by Bueckers, were on a collision course for the Elite Eight. But with Watkins sidelined by a season-ending knee injury and Bueckers content to wait until the second half to search for her own offense, it was Strong who set the tone early and positioned U-Conn. for its fourth straight double-digit victory of the tournament.
The 19-year-old Strong, who was the top-ranked prospect in the high school class of 2024, is a deft outside shooter, a skilled scorer and a willing passer blessed with good size at 6-foot-2 and an excellent motor. Strong opened the scoring for U-Conn. with a three-pointer from the corner, and she unleashed a pretty spin move for a layup in traffic early in the second quarter to help the Huskies find their rhythm during a turnover-filled first half.
U-Conn. rode an 11-2 closing run to take a 39-25 halftime lead as Strong fed Bueckers for a pair of three-pointers to close out the second quarter. There was no mercy after the break: Strong, who shot 8 for 13 from the field and grabbed 17 rebounds, hit a three-pointer from the top of the arc to open the third quarter, and USC never got closer than five points despite a strong push late in the period.
“There’s stuff that I saw [Strong] do in high school that I just closed my eyes and thought, ‘Wow, if you transfer this to college, I don’t think anybody’s going to be able to handle that,’ ” Auriemma said. “Nobody has anybody that has the skill set that she has. We made a concerted effort to get her the ball early tonight for that reason. Sarah impacts the game in so many ways that you just have so much confidence in her, so much belief.”
Bueckers, 23, made sure U-Conn. didn’t falter down the stretch. The all-American guard drew loud cheers when she swatted a three-point attempt by Talia von Oelhoffen late in the third quarter, and she found guard Azzi Fudd for a three-pointer to start the fourth. With USC on the ropes, Bueckers hit back-to-back jumpers to put U-Conn. back up by double digits, set up Fudd for another three-pointer, hit another pull-up jumper and then, after falling to her knees, threaded a pass to a cutting Fudd for a layup in traffic.
“I was just trying to read what the game is calling for and what we need in that moment,” Bueckers said. “Just trying to do whatever it takes to win. This team is a little bit younger [than my previous Final Four teams. “We’re pretty young, but we’ve got a whole lot of heart and a whole lot of toughness.”
The undermanned Trojans couldn’t mount a full response in the fourth quarter because they lacked enough sources of quality offense without Watkins, their leading scorer and top playmaker. USC senior forward Rayan Marshall posted a team-high 23 points to go with 15 rebounds, but the Trojans shot just 3 for 13 on three-pointers and finished with their second-lowest scoring total of the season.
“Right now, my heart is with my teammates,” Watkins wrote in an Instagram statement. “I wish I could have been out there balling, but I couldn’t be prouder of the fight we’ve fought together.”
The defeat ended a valiant and emotional run from USC, which closed out Mississippi State following Watkins’s injury in the round of 32 and held off No. 5 seed Kansas State in the Sweet 16. The Trojans will head into an uncertain offseason: Standout forward Kiki Iriafen will be headed to the WNBA draft, and Watkins will miss a significant portion of the 2025-26 season at minimum. However, USC boasts several talented underclassmen, including Kennedy Smith, Avery Howell and Kayleigh Heckel, to bridge the gap until Watkins’s return.
“At some point the emotions of the last seven days will kick in more,” USC Coach Lindsay Gottlieb said, fighting back tears. “It was only tonight a week ago that one of the best players in college basketball went down. I’m just so proud of the way that everyone rallied. When I just take a little time, I’ll still be so crushed for JuJu because that just wasn’t supposed to happen like that. But her comeback is going to be legendary, and the strength of the program is not in doubt. I think we proved that.”
U-Conn (35-3), meanwhile, will face the UCLA Bruins (34-2), the tournament’s overall top seed, in a national semifinal Friday. The Huskies are seeking Auriemma’s 12th national championship and the program’s first since 2016. U-Conn. was eliminated in last year’s Final Four by Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
As per the program’s custom of only cutting down the nets after winning a national championship, the Huskies opted not to climb the ladders or take scissors to nylon in Spokane.
“When you go all the time, you have to work really hard to make sure you don’t get numb to it,” Auriemma said. “Someone like JuJu would have been needed to carry [USC] over the hump, like we have Paige. They could have easily rolled over when we got up 19. That says a lot about them. We had to show some grit.”
