South Carolina girls’s basketball goes wire to wire in opposition to UConn to win second nationwide title below Daybreak Staley

MINNEAPOLIS — One yr after a heartbreaking loss within the Last 4 to eventual champion Stanford, No. 1 South Carolina discovered redemption, incomes this system’s second nationwide championship with a 64-49 victory over 2-seed UConn on Sunday at Goal Middle.

The Gamecocks, who went 14-Zero in opposition to groups ranked within the Related Press High 25 this season, grew to become the eighth program to win a number of nationwide titles in NCAA girls’s basketball historical past, becoming a member of UConn (11), Tennessee (8), Stanford (3), Baylor (3), Notre Dame (2), USC (2) and Louisiana Tech (2).

South Carolina (35-2) can also be the 12th workforce to go wire to wire as No. 1 within the AP ballot and win all of it.

“Our path was divinely ordered,” South Carolina coach Daybreak Staley instructed Gamecocks followers as she stood on stage to simply accept the championship trophy.

Gamecocks junior ahead Aliyah Boston, the nationwide participant of the yr, recorded her 30th double-double of the season with 11 factors and 16 rebounds and was named the Last 4’s Most Excellent Participant.

Staley can also be now 2-Zero in NCAA nationwide championship video games after main her squad previous Mississippi State for the 2017 title. With a bit of the online from that title — the identical one from which she had beforehand despatched segments to different Black girls’s coaches throughout the game — in her pocket, she grew to become the primary Black coach to win a number of Division I basketball nationwide championships.

Staley shrugged off any options that her program has reached “dynasty” standing — she maintained that UConn’s 11 titles are nonetheless the usual within the sport — however she did proclaim that this workforce’s season-long domination and defensive prowess make it her greatest squad at South Carolina.

The Gamecocks completed the match permitting 45.5 factors per sport, the second-lowest mark by a nationwide champion in opposition to its match opponents, trailing solely UConn in 2010.

After going 11-Zero in his earlier nationwide championship appearances, UConn coach Geno Auriemma was handed his first loss in a title sport.

“I really feel like coming into this sport, the dialog was about how Coach Auriemma was 11-Zero in title video games,” Boston stated. “However Coach Staley was 1-0, and now she’s 2-0. And I feel it simply reveals the kind of program that she’s constructed.”

The Huskies (30-6), whose 11 titles are tied for essentially the most in Division I basketball, are nonetheless in quest of their first crown since taking residence 4 straight from 2013 by way of 2016. Their 5 straight NCAA tournaments with out a championship mark the longest this system has gone since incomes its first title in 1995.

Gamecocks guard Destanni Henderson grew to become the primary participant since 2000 to set a profession excessive in scoring within the nationwide championship sport, ending with 26 factors within the last efficiency of her collegiate profession. She additionally chipped in 4 assists, two rebounds and a troublesome defensive effort in opposition to 2020-21 nationwide participant of the yr Paige Bueckers (14 factors).

“I actually did not even know I had a profession excessive, to be trustworthy with you,” Henderson stated. “However when individuals spoke about it and let me know that — it is simply much more of a blessing and simply an honor to do it on this second, a particular second that every one of us are going to recollect ceaselessly.”

Henderson set the tone early too, as her 3-pointer 22 seconds into Sunday’s contest gave the Gamecocks a lead they would not relinquish.

South Carolina began sizzling, scoring 13 of the sport’s first 15 factors and leaping out to a 30-12 benefit early within the second quarter off a Henderson 3. UConn finally settled in, utilizing a 15-5 run to chop the deficit to as few as seven after which to 35-27 coming into halftime.

High-ranked 2021 recruit Azzi Fudd performed simply 5 minutes within the first half (17 total) for UConn after coping with a abdomen bug heading into the sport.

South Carolina received going early as soon as extra after the break, pulling again forward by 16 halfway by way of the third off a Zia Cooke layup. Then the Huskies rattled off a 10-Zero run — which included their first 3s of the sport — to make it 43-37. The Gamecocks scored the ultimate three factors of the body after which six of the primary eight factors within the fourth to cushion their lead.

“I feel they deserved it 100 p.c,” Auriemma stated. “They have been the perfect workforce all yr. The primary 5 minutes I assumed they got here out and set the tone proper then and there for the way the sport was going to be performed.”

Fudd’s and Bueckers’ 3s made it a 10-point sport with 3:18 to play, however the Huskies could not pull any nearer.

Behind Boston’s productiveness, the Gamecocks demolished the Huskies on the boards 49-24, the second-highest rebound differential in a championship sport within the historical past of the ladies’s NCAA match. Although she made solely three photographs from the sphere, Boston received to the road eight occasions, twice the quantity of journeys made by all the UConn squad.

South Carolina as a complete shot 17-for-26 from the road as in comparison with UConn’s 1 for four clip.

“I feel a participant like Aliyah would not understand her energy,” Staley stated. “I have been round quite a lot of nice basketball gamers who’ve been dominant, and I noticed it in her, and I’d not enable her to be something lower than that.”

A yr after Boston’s putback on the buzzer fell quick within the nationwide semifinal, Goal Middle was South Carolina’s playground.

2020 WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, the Most Excellent Participant from South Carolina’s 2017 Last 4 run, ventured onto the court docket for Sunday’s revelry, sporting a championship cap over the bucket hat she was already carrying.

Staley was grooving to Mary J. Blige’s “Simply Advantageous” as she reduce down the remnants of the online and instructed reporters she’ll be getting one other canine, named Natty, so as to add to the household after bringing residence Champ following her first title.

Boston took the mic when on stage to simply accept the Most Excellent Participant award and shouted out her idol, two-time WNBA champion Candace Parker, earlier than assembly her for the primary time later within the celebration.

Cleone Boston, Aliyah’s mom, texted her daughter and her teammates Sunday morning a hyperlink to the tune “I Am a Warrior” by Marvia Windfall, encouraging the gamers to not “enable anybody nor your personal thoughts to speak defeat to you.”

The Gamecocks did not let that occur Sunday evening. And with one other championship in tow, their standing atop the game for the years to come back was solely additional cemented.

What’s that imply for subsequent yr’s purpose?

“Similar as this yr,” Boston stated.