Two of the nation’s best teams are finally meeting. And it’s happening on Friday night at 9 p.m. ET (ESPN/ESPN2) in Tampa.
UCLA has the chance to close out the best regular season in program history with a national championship. UConn hasn’t won an NCAA title in nine seasons, the longest drought under head coach Geno Auriemma since his first ring in 1995. The hardest part of winning a championship is getting there; now both sides are one game away.
Why Betts and Bueckers will define this matchup
UConn is the only non-No. 1 seed to make the Final Four in both the women’s and men’s tournaments, but that’s not saying much. Not only could the Huskies have easily been a top seed, they lucked out and faced a JuJu Watkins-less USC team to win their region. Still not an easy task, but it certainly made them favorites. They breezed through their side of the first Super Region (a concept that Auriemma has been overtly critical of), but now must face an equally-dominant UCLA team in Tampa.
The Bruins will be the best team that UConn has played in the tournament, and possibly all season. They’re a top-20 offense and a top-50 defense, and center Lauren Betts is the mismatch problem of all mismatch problems, especially for the Huskies.
That will likely be the question of the game: How does Aureimma scheme against Betts? UConn is one of the most talented rosters in the nation, but certainly not one of the biggest. Freshman phenom Sarah Strong often mans the middle for a UConn small-ball lineup, but that may not be sustainable under a four-inch height difference. Jana El Alfy and Ice Brady are both better matchups in terms of size, but forfeit a lot of offensive talent when on the court for UConn. Betts is a consistent scorer, averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a night. She’s even more of a problem on defense. Her three blocks per game led the Big Ten, and she deters upwards of ten shots at the rim per game.
Kiki Rice is a perfect complimentary scorer to Betts. She’s got a great stroke from midrange, and can hit the 3 when asked, despite taking fewer than three attempts a night. UConn doesn’t have a premier guard stopper anymore (Nika Mühl’s famous role in previous seasons), but they’ll have an easier time marking Rice than Betts.
On the other side of the ball, there’s not a guard in the country who can contain Paige Bueckers. Her recent game log looks like her infamous high school box scores: 34 points vs. South Dakota State, 40 points vs. Oklahoma, 31 points vs. USC. 105 points over three games.
As Bueckers shows out in her collegiate curtain call, she knows that the biggest criticism against her has been her lack of a championship—a testament both to the expectations of title-spoiled UConn fans and toxic ring culture in college sports. Bueckers is a legend in Storrs no matter what happens, but this final run means more to her and it shows. She’s working her tail off for these wins. Bueckers is the best player remaining, and she won’t go down without a fight. Expect close to 35 shot attempts from No. 5 five tonight.
UCLA doesn’t always send blitzes or doubles at ball-dominant superstars. They let Watkins work off of ball screens without panicking in three matchups against USC, and came away with only one win (in which Watkins scored 29). Head coach Cori Close doesn’t weight her defensive coverages towards certain players. If they stick to that plan against Bueckers, she’ll have the whole court to operate. The Huskies have too many shooters to send reckless doubles. Azzi Fudd, Ashlynn Shade and Kaitlyn Chen are some of the best off-ball guards in the country.
People often complain about the women’s basketball arms race, as it deprives “non-traditional” contenders of keeping up with the usual suspects. But this is when it all pays off. These two teams are so, so talented. You won’t see a player taken completely out of the game by a defensive scheme. UConn can’t double Betts every play. UCLA can’t shade to Bueckers and leave a Husky open.
The top of the mountain is two games away, and the power is in the hands of the stars.
