Women’s NCAA Tournament 2022 final: UConn v South Carolina – live!

Halfway through the first and Bueckers’ stat line is all goose-eggs. It won’t last, but it’s a credit to the Gamecocks’ focus.

UConn 2-13 South Carolina, 4:55, first quarter

Cooke with another jumper! She’s three-for-three. On the other end, UConn get called for a travel. Time for the first TV timeout.

UConn 2-11 South Carolina, 5:36, first quarter

UConn has the ball out of the timeout and they get the benefit of a whistle against Cooke, who picks up her first foul.

Unfortunately for them, they end up passing and passing and passing and nothing comes to it. Excellent defense from South Carolina.

Okay, I won’t lie, my prediction of a close game already feels like its on shaky grounds but I’ve learned as a basketball fan not to get too hung up on big early leads. It’s a marathon not a sprint.

UConn 2-11 South Carolina, 6:35, first quarter

Henderson finds Cooke for an easy basket and UConn have to call their first timeout way earlier than they were planning.

UConn 2-9 South Carolina, 6:47, first quarter

Oh, the Gamecocks are pouring it on early. Boston and Beal both make layups and the Huskies can’t get anything going offensively.

UConn 2-5 South Carolina, 7:39, first quarter

Zia Cooke puts South Carolina up 5-0 before Aaliyah Edwards responds with a layup of her own to put UConn on the board.

UConn 0-3 South Carolina, 9:34, first quarter

And we’re off! Henderson starts things off with a three-pointer for South Carolina.

Both teams are being introduced. Bueckers probably received the largest set of cheers, this sounds like a UConn-heavy crowd (which is understandable given their historical dominance).

Not for the squeamish: we get a montage of all of UConn’s injuries. It really is impressive that they managed to get this far.

National Anthem

I did not catch the name of the woman doing the anthem and I apologize. I also apologize for giving it a 4/10. The vocals were entirely too vibrate-y for my tastes.

South Carolina starting lineup

Destanni Henderson, G

Zia Cooke, G

Brea Beal, G

Victaria Saxton, F

Aliyah Boston, F

Alright, we’re almost at 8:00 pm on the East Coast, which means that at some point in the near-ish future, we are going to get actual basketball.

Email from Douglas Choate:

Haven’t seen one person predict UConn will win yet. I am going to be that guy. This team has resilience and heart and is coached by the absolute best. 3 #1 drafted players. They have overcome the odds so far. Paige Bueckers needs to show out tonight. If so, 61-60 UConn.

Oh yeah, no doubt about it: if Paige Bueckers is at her best, UConn can absolutely come up with the upset. It’s such a cliché to say that a player is a game-changer, but there’s a reason that those clichés exist.

Oh, one more prediction. With all the hype surrounding the two star players, it feels like there’s a good chance that one of their teammates ends up being the difference maker. I have South Carolina’s Zia Cooke having a breakout scoring game here, particularly if Boston gets smothered with defensive attention.

And we have entered the Geno Auriemma love. He’s gone 12-10 in the semifinals along with going 11-0 in championship games. If he wins as an underdog tonight, it will count as one of greatest accomplishments.

Predictions

Okay, it’s time for me to embarrass myself. Okay, as great as this UConn run has been, I see it ending right here.

South Carolina is the top seed for a reason and it doesn’t help that the Huskies’ best player might not be 100%. I’m going with South Carolina 70-64 UConn. As the score indicates, I don’t see South Carolina running and hiding tonight, but I think they emerge as champions in regulation.

Your predictions? Once again, you can email them to [email protected] or twet them to @HunterFelt and we’ll include them here early on.

Currently our pregame show is highlighting Aliyah Boston, as it should. I will also point out that UConn have a forward named Aaliyah Edwards. So there’s the potential of an Aliyah/Aaliyah showdown here.

Men’s Final Four

Okay, these heavily-hyped games never, ever, ever live up to the hype. Except when they do, as they did last night over at the men’s Final Four. In a see-saw affair where neither team could pull ahead, the Tar Heels finally triumphed. Not only did UNC end up spoiling Coach K’s final home game in the regular season they decided to finish the job in the NCAA tournament: they ended his career with an 81-77 victory that wasn’t assured until the game’s final minute. Here’s hoping that today’s game is of a similar caliber.

In tomorrow’s championship game, which we will also be liveblogging here at the Guardian, North Carolina will have to face a top-seeded Kansas Jayhawks team that just dispatched Villanova with a minimum amount of fuss in their Final Four game. It’s okay, they could literally not even show up to the game and count this tournament run as among one of the greatest accomplishments in school history. You only get one chance to end your rival’s career on the biggest stage possible.

Preamble

Welcome to what could be the most exciting possible championship game that could have emerged from the 2022 NCAA women’s field. On one hand, we have overall top-seed South Carolina, who will be starting the recently crowned AP National Player of the Year award. They will be facing No. 2 University of Connecticut, probably the most storied program in women’s college basketball. Somehow, UConn who hasn’t been to the women’s championship game since 2016, are the underdogs today even though they have sophomore Paige Bueckers who has been hailed as the Next Diana Taurasi.

Before we get into the marquee matchup, let’s not that these are two great programs headed by two great coaches. For South Carolina, it’s about Dawn Staley, who coached Team USA to a gold medal in the last summer Olympics. UConn, of course, continues to be run by the legendary Geno Auriemma. Neither has lost in a championship game, although Auriemma has won eleven to Staley’s lone victory.

While head coaches often take center stage in the NCAA tournament, sometimes games come down to the opposing team’s stars. Hence, we have this matchup between UConn’s Paige Bueckers and South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston. This will be just the second NCAA tournament game where the last two Naismith Award winners will face off each other and it will be the first time ever in the women’s tournament.

Against Louisville in their Final Four matchup, Boston scored a game-high 23 points in South Carolina’s win over the similarly top-seeded Louisville Cardinals. Meanwhile, Bueckers helped guide the Huskies in their upset over No. 1 Stanford Cardinal, scoring 14 points while playing through a leg injury suffered during the game. (Needless to say, we’ll be keeping an eye on how she looks over the next few hours.)

As always, we want to hear from you. Send us your questions, commentary and predictions—either via email (to [email protected] or tweet them to @HunterFelt—and we’ll include them here throughout today’s game.

It’s the NCAA women’s basketball final between the University of Connecticut Huskies and the South Carolina Gamecocks at Target Center. The opening tip is scheduled at 8:00 pm EST, although I wouldn’t set a timer on that, we’ll be back well before then however.

Hunter will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how the Final Four panned out:

Paige Bueckers scored 14 points and UConn advanced to the national championship game with a 63-58 win over defending champion Stanford on Friday night.

The Huskies will face South Carolina for the national championship on Sunday.

It’s UConn’s first trip to the championship game since 2016, when the Huskies won the last of four straight championships. Since then, the team has suffered heartbreaking defeats in the national semi-finals, losing twice in overtime.

UConn (30-5) will be seeking their 12th national championship, and the Huskies have never lost in an NCAA title game.

They had to work to get to the finals. Leading by 52-44 with 1:26 left, Stanford made a furious rally thanks to a few costly UConn turnovers.

Elsewhere, Aliyah Boston had 23 points and 18 rebounds to back up her AP National Player of the Year award and carry South Carolina to the NCAA championship game with a victory over Louisville.

Brea Beal matched her season high with 12 points and helped hold Cardinals star Hailey Van Lith to nine points on 4-for-11 shooting as the Gamecocks (34-2) delivered another stifling defensive performance.

Coach Dawn Staley will try to win her second national championship, eight months after the Hall of Famer led the US Olympic team to a gold medal in the Tokyo Games.

Destanni Henderson scored 11 points with 3-for-6 shooting from three-point range and had four assists for South Carolina, which improved to 13-0 this season against AP-ranked opponents.

Emily Engstler led Louisville (29-5) with 18 points and nine rebounds as the Cardinals went 1 for 8 from three-point range and were never able to find a rhythm in the half court against the No 1 overall seed in this tournament. The Cardinals were the only team in this Final Four without a title.

Haley Jones led the Cardinal (32-4) with 20 points.