Dawn Staley and South Carolina buttoned up on defense and won their second national championship, stifling UConn for a 64-49 victory Sunday night that ended the Huskies’ undefeated streak in title games. Destanni Henderson scored a career-high 26 points, Aliyah Boston added 11 points and 16 rebounds, and the Gamecocks handed Geno Auriemma’s Huskies their first loss in 12 NCAA title games. With Staley calling the shots in a $5,000 letterman jacket, South Carolina took UConn to school on the boards and capped a wire-to-wire run as the No. 1 team in the country in The Associated Press poll.
The Gamecocks also won the championship in 2017 with A’ja Wilson leading the way. This time it was Boston — the AP Player of the Year — and her fellow South Carolina post players who dominated on the game’s biggest stage. The Gamecocks outrebounded UConn by 49-24, including a 21-6 advantage on offensive boards. They also clamped down on star Paige Bueckers and the Huskies on defense, just like they did all season long.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s remarkable career came to thrilling and sudden close Saturday night after Caleb Love made a key 3-pointer and three late free throws to lift archrival North Carolina to a thrill-a-minute 81-77 victory over the Blue Devils. This was the 258th, most consequential and maybe, just maybe, the very best meeting between these teams, whose arenas are separated by a scant 11 miles down in Tobacco Road. The eighth-seeded Tar Heels (29-9), of all teams, pinned the 368th and final loss on the 75-year-old Coach K, exactly four weeks after they ruined the going-away party in his final home game at Cameron Indoor Stadium. So, instead of Krzyzewski going for his sixth title, on Monday, Carolina will try to win its seventh. It will be coach Hubert Davis, Love, who led the Tar Heels with 28 points, and R.J. Davis, who scored 18, going against Kansas.
David McCormack muscled his way to 25 points, Ochai Agbaji was nearly perfect from the field and added 21 points, and hot-shooting Kansas raced to a big early lead before withstanding every Villanova run for a 81-65 victory Saturday night that sent the Jayhawks back to the national title game. Christian Braun also had 10 points, including a key 3-pointer to ward off a comeback late in the game, as the Jayhawks exacted a measure of revenge for a Final Four beatdown by the Wildcats four years ago in San Antonio. Now, they hope to follow a familiar pattern against North Carolina on Monday night. The last three times that the Jayhawks and Wildcats have met in the tournament, the winner has gone on to cut down the nets. Playing without injured guard Justin Moore, Villanova (31-7) watched the lone No. 1 seed to reach the semifinals score the game’s first 10 points and eventually build a 19-point cushion. And despite big nights from Collin Gillespie, Brandon Slater and Jermaine Samuels, the short-handed and undersized Wildcats never made it all the way back.