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UConn women make history with NCAA title game rout of Syracuse

 
UConn stars Morgan Tuck, left, and Breanna Stewart celebrate a 38-0 season.
UConn stars Morgan Tuck, left, and Breanna Stewart celebrate a 38-0 season.
Published April 6, 2016

INDIANAPOLIS — Connecticut won an unprecedented fourth straight NCAA women's basketball championship with a 82-51 victory against Syracuse on Tuesday night at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

Senior Breanna Stewart had 24 points and 10 rebounds to lead the Huskies (38-0), who completed their sixth undefeated season and have won their last 75 games overall.

Stewart earned the most outstanding player of the Final Four for the fourth consecutive year. No other women's player has won it more than twice and only Lew Alcindor did it three times on the men's side, for UCLA before he became Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

"It's unbelievable,'' said Stewart. "Going out with a bang.''

UConn coach Geno Auriemma captured his 11th championship overall, surpassing storied UCLA men's coach John Wooden for the most titles in college basketball history. Auriemma has never lost an NCAA championship game.

"What those 11 championships mean to me is how many great players I've had the opportunity to coach," Auriemma said.

UConn's "Big Three" led the way — Stewart, Morgan Tuck and Moriah Jefferson.

Tuck added 19 points and Jefferson had 13.

"There's three key ingredients that go into this kind of success, 'One, two, three,' " Auriemma said, pointing to his three seniors who helped the team to an NCAA record 151 wins over their four years.

Before this season, Syracuse had never advanced beyond the second round of the tournament. The Orange (30-8) reached the championship game largely because of strong defense. But the last team with a chance to stop the Huskies' historic run couldn't even slow them down. UConn scored the first nine points, needed less than six minutes to take a double-digit lead and spent most of the rest of the game pulling away.

For Syracuse, it was an unceremonious end to a remarkable season, when it set a school record for victories.

UConn easily negotiated Syracuse's usually tough full-court pressure and had no trouble getting into its half-court offense. When the Huskies weren't shooting over the top of Syracuse's vaunted zone defense, they simply fed the ball inside for easy baskets. And it took the Orange nearly 18 minutes to come up with its first offensive rebound.

Cornelia Fondren scored 16 to lead Syracuse.

Stewart, who is from North Syracuse, played for much of the second quarter with blood on the back her jersey, apparently from a cut on her elbow.

The officials did not stop the game to address the issue.

Stewart passed former Husky Diana Taurasi for fourth place on the NCAA Tournament all-time scoring list. She came into the game with 422 points in tournament games and had 10 midway through the second quarter, surpassing Taurasi's 428. Stanford Star Nnemkadi Ogwumike is third with 444 points. Former Tennessee star Chamique Holdsclaw has 479 and former Husky Maya Moore has 476.