The picture of perfection
ST. LOUIS Geno Auriemma thought maybe he'd lost his touch, even considered quitting.
Five seasons without a national championship felt like a lifetime to Connecticut's Hall of Fame coach.
Now the Huskies are champions again and Auriemma's latest perfect team will go down as one of the most dominant in the history of college basketball.
Tina Charles scored 25 points and grabbed 19 rebounds Tuesday night as UConn routed Louisville 76-54 for the Huskies' first title in five years and sixth overall.
"There was a four-year period where I started to question a lot of things, whether I had it anymore," the 55-year-old coach said. "You start to think maybe it's just time to hang it up."
Instead he stuck around and led the Huskies to another championship.
"I'm so overwhelmed how I feel about the way it ended," Auriemma said a few minutes after he helped cut down the nets at the Scottrade Center and was carried off the court. "This is the first time since the brackets came out I didn't feel like I'm going to get sick, physically sick, thinking about everything that was ahead of us."
It wasn't just that Connecticut claimed another championship. It was how they did it.
UConn won every one of its 39 games by double digits, a first in college basketball.
"This is first time we can stop and enjoy the win for more than a couple of days," said senior guard Renee Montgomery, with a beaming smile and a championship net dangling around her neck. "We're always looking to the future. Now we have time to enjoy this win and all the other ones."
Charles was the star of the final victory. She commanded both ends of the floor and Louisville, which lost badly to UConn for the third time this season, had no one who could stop her.
Auriemma had said before the tournament that his junior center would be the key to UConn winning the title. A year after he benched her in the NCAAs for inconsistent play, Charles delivered.
"I'm really happy for her," Auriemma said.
"I told Tina before the game, I said 'Sunday night you played against an All-American center and you played defense and you worked as hard as the best center in America and now you have to prove it tonight' and she did."
Charles was 11-for-13 from the field, and fell just one rebound short of becoming only the second player ever in a championship game to have at least 20 points and 20 rebounds. She was named the outstanding player of the Final Four.
Maya Moore and Montgomery each added 18 points for the Huskies.
Angel McCoughtry finished off her stellar career for Louisville with 23 points. Candyce Bingham was the only other Cardinal in double figures with 10 points as Louisville (34-5) shot a dismal 31 percent from the floor.
