SPOKANE, Wash. — For the fourth time in five years, the UConn women’s basketball team advanced to the 2025 Final Four with a 78-64 victory over No. 1 seed USC in the Spokane 4 regional final Monday night.
The No. 2 seed Huskies are the only team lower than a 1-seed to reach this year’s Final Four across both the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments, and they will play Spokane 1 champion UCLA — the top overall seed — in the national semifinal Friday in Tampa, Florida.
Freshman Sarah Strong played like a seasoned veteran in her first Elite Eight game, powering UConn with 22 points, a career-high 17 rebounds plus four assists and a steal. The stat line marked Strong’s third double-double of the NCAA Tournament and her 12th of the season. She was also the Huskies’ most efficient shooter hitting 61.5% from the field and 4-for-6 from 3-point range, her best performance from beyond the arc since Dec. 3 against Holy Cross.
Superstar Paige Bueckers led the Huskies with her third straight 30-point game, scoring 31 shooting 9-for-18 from the field plus 4-for-8 on 3-pointers. The redshirt senior added six assists, three rebounds and a block, and she grabbed a team-high four steals. Bueckers and Strong both played all 40 minutes in the win, Strong for the first time in her rookie campaign.
Behind the stars, senior point guard Kaitlyn Chen had her best performance of the tournament with 13 points, nine of which came before halftime. She was a rock for the Huskies defensively helping limit the Trojans to just 32.8% shooting from the field, and UConn finished with 20 points off of 15 USC turnovers.
The Huskies found themselves in an early hole after giving up a 10-0 run to USC before the first media timeout, but they responded late in the first with a 9-0 run powered by Strong on both ends of the floor. The freshman hit two 3-pointers, including the one that ended USC’s run, for six of UConn’s first eight points, and she had 10 by the end of the quarter plus four defensive rebounds.
Bueckers didn’t make her first field goal until the final minute of the first, but she made her presence felt with a pair of steals that resulted in offensive opportunities for the Huskies. UConn scored nearly half of its first-quarter points off of turnovers, and it forced four against the Trojans over the final five minutes of the first quarter to reclaim a 14-11 lead.
Strong continued to dominate the start of the second quarter, sinking her third 3-pointer for her most productive performance beyond the arc since Jan. 19 against Seton Hall. The freshman ended the half with a team-high 15 points and was a single rebound shy of her double-double. Bueckers got hot late in the quarter hitting back-to-back 3-pointers in the last 40 seconds before halftime to open up a 14-point lead for the Huskies. UConn’s 5-for-10 start from 3-point range was a major separator as USC went 0-for-5 in the first half, and Bueckers and Strong outscored the Trojans by themselves 28-25.
There was no cooling off for Strong in the second half as she opened the third quarter by sinking her fourth 3-pointer, then almost immediately secured her tenth rebound on the defensive end. Bueckers began to take over after hitting her third three of the game and she reached the 20-point threshold for the third straight game in the tournament on a signature mid-range jump shot.
But though Bueckers and Strong had 40 of UConn’s 51 points at the end of the third, the ...
