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Before his UConn women’s basketball program claimed its 12th national championship, Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma ran through a scenario.

“Today I was thinking, ‘Man, what am I going to say if things don’t go our way?’” Auriemma said. “How can you describe the emotions that you would feel if it went the wrong way for us when there’s so much riding on this game for a lot of people at UConn, and mostly for Paige (Bueckers)?”

Luckily for Auriemma, he did not have to answer his hypothetical questions. Bueckers, a three-time unanimous first-team All-American, scored 17 points to cap an illustrious college career with a national championship.

Behind 24-point efforts from both Azzi Fudd and freshman Sarah Strong, UConn (37-3) routed South Carolina 82-59 in Sunday’s NCAA Tournament national championship game in Tampa, Fla.

“To be the person that I am today and the team we are today, you feel like on the other side of a hard time is a blessing,” Bueckers said while wearing one of the nets cut down in the postgame celebration. “… Very validating to all the hard work we put in as individuals and as a team, and how we stuck together.”

The Huskies delivered a dominant all-around performance, trailing for only a little more than three minutes early before building a 10-point lead by halftime. With Fudd leading the charge after intermission, scoring eight of UConn’s first 10 points out of the break, the Huskies doubled their advantage by the end of the third quarter.

“At that point, you realize you’re not going to win the game,” South Carolina forward Joyce Edwards said. “But you just keep fighting. That’s all you can do. You don’t go down without a fight.”

The Gamecocks (35-4), coming into Sunday’s title round looking to become the first repeat national champions since UConn won four straight from 2013-2016, put up a fight but could not match UConn’s haymakers.

South Carolina shot just 21-of-61 (34.4 percent) from the field. No Gamecock scorer reached double figures until Tessa Johnson’s 3-pointer with 3:40 remaining in regulation gave her 10 points. Edwards added another 10 points.

South Carolina still had a puncher’s chance until UConn landed a devastating combo at the 3:09 mark of the third quarter. First, Strong penetrated from the top of the key and, upon drawing over a defender, dumped a no-look pass to Fudd in the corner.

Fudd’s 3-pointer was just the second made attempt from deep for the Huskies, who started 1-of-9 from beyond the arc. Their third made 3-pointer came just 31 seconds later when KK Arnold found Strong with space at the top of the key.

Fudd shot 9-of-17 from the floor on Sunday. Strong shot 10-of-15 to go with 15 rebounds.

Bueckers ending her career with a championship, and snapping UConn’s nine-year drought between titles, loomed as the primary storyline of the Huskies’ postseason. Another subplot that reached a climax on Sunday was Fudd — limited to 17 combined games the previous two seasons with injuries — emerging as the Most Outstanding Player in UConn’s return to the pinnacle of the sport.

“Last year, being out (with a torn ACL), I really got a chance to sit back and look around and just see the attention that we had and just the impact that all of us, my teammates, had on little girls. It was just incredible,” Fudd said. “To see that grow — it was there my freshman year (2021-22), but it’s definitely grown a lot since then.”

Fudd and Strong joined Bueckers to become the first trio of teammates to all score 100-plus points in the same NCAA Tournament since 2009 when UConn’s Maya Moore, Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery accomplished the feat.

Strong’s 114 points are the most by a freshman in the NCAA Tournament. Bueckers scored 149 points in UConn’s six wins.

“This was one of the most emotional Final Fours and emotional national championships I’ve been a part of since that very first one,” Auriemma said. His first championship came 30 years ago in 1995, and with Sunday’s win, he has coached a title-winning team in each of the last four decades.

With Sunday’s win, UConn stands alone as the only men’s or women’s basketball program with 12 national titles, all under Auriemma. The Huskies were tied at 11 with the UCLA men’s program.

The loss marked the first for a South Carolina team in the national championship game in four tries.

–Field Level Media