SPOKANE — Geno Auriemma likes to say the Elite Eight is the hardest round of the NCAA tournament. This has become something of a yearly refrain for him. The UConn Huskies’ coach has been here more than anyone in the history of college basketball, and he has won here more than anyone, too. But he never finds it comfortable. “If what was coming next wasn’t that important, it wouldn’t be difficult,” Auriemma said. “Everyone reacts differently to it.” The players can get fixated on what lies just ahead and end up tripping on the doorstep.
No. 2 seed UConn looked very comfortable stepping over that same threshold Monday. Facing the depleted No. 1 seed USC Trojans, who are currently without their biggest star, National Player of the Year favorite JuJu Watkins, UConn won handily, 78–64. It was another showcase for Paige Bueckers: The guard scored 31 points just days after setting a Huskies tournament record with 40 in the Sweet 16. And it was a reminder of what has felt increasingly hard to miss over the last few weeks: This is the strongest, most complete UConn roster in years, and it’s now in an ideal position to end its championship drought of nearly a decade.
A title has been the one college basketball honor that has eluded Bueckers so far. She has played over the last two weeks as if she refuses to leave without one.
“It’s no surprise,” says UConn senior Azzi Fudd. “You kind of expect some type of amazing performance… But I don’t know. I’m still in awe every time I see it.”
UConn does not cut down nets when it makes the Final Four. That practice has been established for so long that Auriemma cannot recall exactly when it began. (It has been the case for at least a decade and a half.) Arena personnel set up the ladders for the Huskies to climb on Monday, yet they were left untouched. This is not to suggest the players did not celebrate—they still threw confetti and ran over to the band and posed for photographs with the regional trophy. But they know this kind of performance is the expectation, not the exception, at UConn.
No one has internalized those expectations quite like Bueckers.
The hallmark of her game is her efficiency. If that’s a quality that wins games, it traditionally has not been one that makes itself known through big, flashy heroics. (That’s partially because UConn is not a program that generally puts itself in a position to those heroics.) Yet that is what Bueckers has provided this March. She has now scored 30 or more points in three consecutive outings, something that no one had ever done at UConn, in any stretch of games—except for Bueckers. She first did it as a freshman during conference play in 2021. And she has now done it again during her final college tournament run.
Yet she has not been alone. Bueckers has stood out here like no one else, but her supporting cast is far stronger than it has been over the last few seasons. A roster that was meaningfully compromised by injuries in recent years is now finally mostly healthy. “We’ve been through so much adversity as individuals, as a team, and how much it’s brought us together, how much it’s made us stronger,” Bueckers said. “We’re super well-connected.” And the group has been enormously bolstered with the addition of freshman Sarah Strong, a more talented, dynamic player than perhaps anyone else Bueckers has shared the court with in Storrs.
That was on full display against USC. Strong dominates in the paint like a center and roams the perimeter like a guard. She finished Monday with 17 rebounds and 22 points while shooting four-of-six from three-point territory. She had the most difficult assignment of the night: USC’s frontcourt pairing of Kiki Iriafen and Rayah Marshall is among the best in the country. Strong made sure they came by nothing easily.
Playing USC without Watkins means playing a very different team from the one that earned this No. 1 seed a few weeks ago. The sophomore’s ACL tear last week shifted the trajectory of the tournament as much as any one injury possibly could. (When these schools met back in December, USC won 72–70 on the strength of a 25-point effort from Watkins.) Yet even without her star power, the Trojans can still present a tricky matchup, and UConn capably shut them down for much of the night before holding off a late push.
“Today, we got up what, 19 at one point? And people probably thought, ,” Auriemma said. “It's not supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be hard. This is really, really hard.”
His players nonetheless made it look easy for much of the night.
