South Carolina wins 2022 DI women’s basketball national championship – NCAA.com

Geno Auriemma previews national championship match-up against South Carolina

No. 2 UConn faces off with No. 1 South Carolina on Sunday night to decide the 2022 DI women’s basketball national championship. 

UConn is on the hunt for its 12th national title and in its 11 appearances so far, the Huskies have been a perfect 11-0. This time, it’s different. In all of the last championship games, the Huskies have never been a seed other than No. 1.

That being said, here are the keys to the game for UConn:

Control the paint

In the Final Four, UConn had to find a way to control the paint to outlast Stanford and their lengthy squad. The Huskies were able to limit the Cardinal’s bigs by outrebounding them 46-37. They also held the reigning champs to six second-chance points. 

Coming into the game, this was a huge question mark due to UConn losing Dorka Juhazs in the Elite Eight to a wrist injury. But, Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia Nelson-Ododa stepped up big time with a combined 18 rebounds. 

It’s no secret who the Huskies will be going up against on Sunday. Aliyah Boston has been on fire all season long on both ends of the floor. In the 2022 tournament, she has put up at least 19 points in the last three games including a 22 rebound performance in the Sweet 16. 

Even head coach Geno Auriemma knows stopping Boston is a tall task.

“I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that she might be the hardest person in America to guard. She scores if there’s one, two, three, four people on her. It doesn’t matter… ​​How do we guard her? I don’t know. I’m open for suggestions.” 

Make free throws

UConn has not been a great free throw team this season. It currently ranks 214th in the nation for free throw percentage. The Huskies made 69.3% of their shots from the line this season. 
In the Final Four, they stepped up nailing 16-20 (80%). In the two games prior, it wasn’t as nice going 57% and 60%. 

“As far as the free-throw shooting is concerned, I’m as shocked as anybody that they’re going in because all year long we have not been a good free-throw shooting team,” said Auriemma.

Olivia Nelson-Ododa, Evina Westbrook and Christyn Williams have been to the line the most this season for their team with 236 of the team’s 386 attempts. The three are all shooting within the range of 67-70 percent and in the last game, they made nine of their 11 attempts.

Lockdown either Destanni Henderson or Zia Cooke

Defending Aliyah Boston being as tough as it is, another part of stopping South Carolina is locking down one of its other top scorers. 

Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke average 11.1 and 10.7 points respectively. In both of the Gamecocks’ losses this season, Aliyah Boston put up at least 17 and either Henderson or Cooke reached double digits, but never all three. 

Even if UConn can achieve any of these keys on Sunday night, they’ll still have to play a perfect game and maybe have a bit of luck in order to take down South Carolina. Take it from Louisville head coach Jeff Walz after his team’s loss to the Gamecocks in the Final Four.

“If you look at the stat sheet, everything I thought we had to do, we did,” said Walz. “In these games like this, you have to get a break, and unfortunately we didn’t get the breaks.”

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