Four-Peat: UConn beats ‘Cuse for 4th straight national title
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Breanna Stewart and UConn stand alone. Geno Auriemma, too, after another flawless season by the dominating Huskies.
UConn won an unprecedented fourth straight national championship Tuesday night, capping another perfect season by routing Syracuse 82-51. Until now, only the UCLA men’s team had won four in a row in Division I, rolling to seven consecutive championships under John Wooden from 1967-73. With Tuesday’s victory, Auriemma passed the Wizard of Westwood with his 11th national title.
“What those 11 championships mean to me is how many great players I’ve had the opportunity to coach,” Auriemma said. “How many great people have come through the program. It doesn’t matter whose name is above, or whose name I’m under. As long as I have those players in my memory, I’m good.”
Stewart scored 24 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in the final game of her brilliant college career.
“It’s unbelievable,” Stewart said of her fourth title. “That was our goal coming in here once we were freshman and to carry it out and win like this as seniors is unbelievable.”
Stewart and her fellow seniors Morgan Tuck and Moriah Jefferson posed on the ladder after cutting down the net for the final time.
“This is exactly what we wanted,” Stewart said. “Going into every one of our national championship runs, we were confident and that’s what we were tonight, confident. We made history.”
The Huskies (38-0) have been nearly unbeatable since Stewart arrived. They lost four games her freshman year and only one since. The win over Syracuse was the 75th straight for UConn, all by double figures. Stewart and her fellow seniors went 24-0 in NCAA tourney games, too.
Stewart earned the most outstanding player of the Final Four all four years of her career. No other women’s player has won it more than twice.
The three-time AP Player of the Year has said it is up to others to decide her place in women’s college basketball lore. There is no denying she is the most accomplished player ever, winning more titles than fellow UConn greats Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore, who watched from the stands at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
‘I’ll say this. She’s the greatest NCAA Tournament player I’ve ever been around,” Auriemma said. “When the lights were the brightest, that’s (when) she was at her best.”
The Huskies scored the first nine points of the game. Stewart had 10 points in the first 6 minutes as UConn built a 23-6 lead.
Stewart, Tuck and Jefferson left the game for good with 1:46 left. They shared an embrace together before hugging Auriemma. The trio then went down the bench hugging every member of the team.
“There’s three key ingredients that go into this kind of success, ‘One, two, three,’” Auriemma said afterward, pointing to his three seniors.
Auriemma has never lost in 11 title appearances. While the names may change, the results are always the same: UConn is still there holding that trophy in the end. This one gave the Hall of Fame coach a sixth undefeated season.
To win her fourth championship, Stewart had to beat her hometown team. Fourth-seeded Syracuse (30-8) had the best season in school history, advancing to its first NCAA championship game. They hadn’t made it out of the first weekend of the tournament until this year.
These two teams hadn’t played since the Orange left the Big East for the ACC after the 2013 season. Syracuse has now lost 24 straight against UConn, a skid that dates to 1996.
