The women’s basketball Final Four has its championship matchup, as No 1 seeded South Carolina and No 2 seed UConn each advanced in a pair of routs on Friday night over Texas and UCLA, respectively.
Sunday’s title game will feature two of women’s basketball’s marquee programs, with defending champions South Carolina looking to be the first team to defend their national title since UConn won four straight from 2013-16. UConn, meanwhile, will be looking for their 12th NCAA Tournament championship, and first since the last of that run in 2016.
It’s a rematch of the 2022 championship game, which the Gamecocks won 64-49. The teams met in February and UConn shocked South Carolina with a 29-point road victory.
UConn, who played the late game on Friday, built a big lead early on v UCLA and never let it go en route to an 85-51 win over the Bruins. Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd didn’t even need much help from superstar Paige Bueckers to propel UConn into the national title game, leading the Huskies to a remarkably easy victory over UCLA on Friday night to set up the Huskies’ 13th trip to the title game.
Strong finished with 22 points and Fudd scored all of her 19 points in the first half for the second-seeded Huskies, whose eight-year title drought is the longest for the Huskies since they won their first in 1995. Bueckers finished with 16 points after topping 30 in each of the previous three games for the Huskies (36-3).
Star center Lauren Betts scored 26 points for the top-seeded Bruins (34-3).
UConn will face the defending champions in the championship. Photograph: John Raoux/AP
In the earlier game, South Carolina got 14 points from Te-Hina Paopao and overwhelmed Texas 74-57.
Freshman Joyce Edwards added 13 points, 11 rebounds and six assists for South Carolina (35-3), which used its experience and poise to weather an early deficit and took control with its depth at both ends of the floor.
Three South Carolina players finished in double figures – Bree Hall had 11 points – and the Gamecocks dominated Texas in the post with 40 points in the paint to the Longhorns’ 22.
Madison Booker had 11 points and three fouls for the Longhorns (35-4), who were trying to reach their first championship since 1986. They were in the Final Four for the first time since 2003 after a dominant season, which was their first in the Southeastern Conference after coming over from the Big 12.
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Texas went 15-1 against the SEC in the regular season and shared the conference title with the Gamecocks.
South Carolina broke open the game in the third quarter with an 11-0 run started by Edwards’ driving layup, and Texas never got closer than 10 the rest of the way.
The Longhorns could not match South Carolina’s pace as the game went on. They only scored nine points in the third, including bad mid-range misses from Booker and Harmon. Harmon, a senior who returned this season from an ACL injury last year, finished with eight points. Jordan Lee led Texas with 16 points off the bench.
South Carolina went undefeated during a dominant championship run last year that featured a physical roster no opponent could match up with. This year’s journey to the final has been slightly more challenging.
Without a star like A’ja Wilson, Aliyah Boston or 6ft 7in center Kamilla Cardoso – who led the Gamecocks on their previous title runs – they’ve relied on a dynamic rotation to reach their third championship game in four years.
South Carolina leads the nation in bench points and got 35 points from its reserves on Friday, including nine points from Tessa Johnson and seven from Milaysia Fulwiley. Former South Carolina greats Wilson, Boston and Allisha Gray cheered them on from the stands.
Booker went to the bench with about three minutes left in the first quarter after picking up two fouls. That allowed South Carolina to climb out of a 12-4 hole before the SEC player of the year came back late in the second, made a free throw and checked back out after picking up her third foul. The Gamecocks outscored Texas by 13 with Booker on the bench and took a 38-35 half-time lead.
This was the teams’ fourth meeting this season – the 17th time two women’s teams have faced each other that many times in a single season, according to Stats Perform. As first-time conference opponents, they split the regular-season series, with each team winning on its home court, before the Gamecocks blew out Texas in the SEC Tournament championship.
