The UConn women's basketball team had been through it the last few years.
Sickness. Heartbreak. Narrow losses. Deflating defeats. Entering Sunday's national championship against South Carolina on Sunday in Tampa, Huskies coach Geno Auriemma said there was "so much riding on this game."
Auriemma wondered earlier in the day: what kind of statement would he make if the Huskies lost, especially when it was the last opportunity for Paige Bueckers to stand on top of the women's college basketball mountain.
But Auriemma didn't have to spill that speech after an 82-59 thrashing over South Carolina for the program's 12th national title.
"So I just kept thinking something good has to happen because if we were going to lose it would have been before now. I don't think the basketball gods would take us all the way to the end — they've been really cruel with some of the kids on this team," Auriemma said after Sunday's title win. "They've suffered a lot of the things that could go wrong in their college careers as an athlete. So they don't need anymore heartbreak. So they weren't going to take us here and give us more heartbreak. I kept holding on to that."
Paige Bueckers gets crowning achievement as an all-time UConn great
As such, one of college basketball's biggest stars, Bueckers, was finally rewarded. And UConn was finally rewarded nine years after its last crown in 2016, when the Huskies won their fourth straight.
But at least one major difference in 2025 vs. 2016 was just exactly how UConn won.
Yes, it was another commanding performance — the Huskies beat Syracuse by 31 in the title game nine years ago.
That team's star — Breanna Stewart — was among the game's leading scorers.
UConn didn't just have Bueckers leading the charge on Sunday. She was buoyed by the dominance of Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong, who both scored 24 to go with Bueckers' 17. Strong also had 15 rebounds.
