Half of NCAA women’s Final Four set after UCLA rallies Duke, UConn cruises past Notre Dame
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Lauren Betts and her fellow UCLA seniors wouldn't allow their season to end short of the Final Four.
Betts had 23 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks to help UCLA rally from a rare halftime deficit and beat Duke 70-58 Sunday, advancing to the national semifinals for the second straight season.
“I was pretty mad, didn’t like how that first half happened,” Betts said. “I could have been a lot more effective. A game like this you got to take yourself out of your head. This is the Elite Eight and my senior season is on the line, so got to wake up a little bit.”
The 6-foot-7 Betts and her teammates did just that.
The top-seeded Bruins will play either Texas or Michigan in Phoenix on Friday, with unbeaten UConn on the other side of the Final Four bracket. UCLA is two wins away from the program's first NCAA title.
“We just have the mentality of this being a business trip. I can't emphasize that enough,” said UCLA's Angela Dugalic.
As the team was cutting down the nets in celebration, Betts, Gabriela Jaquez and Charlisse Leger-Walker brought back the choreographed dance routine they performed with the UCLA Spirit Squad during a men's basketball game.
Third-seeded Duke tested UCLA (35-1) like few teams had this season. The Bruins struggled to get going offensively or contain the Blue Devils (27-9), who reached their second straight Elite Eight thanks to a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Ashlon Jackson against LSU.
Taina Mair scored 21 points to lead Duke, which also lost in a regional final last year.
With UCLA trailing by eight at the half, Betts, Dugalic and Gianna Kneepkens played with more urgency.
FORT WORTH, Texas — All-America forward Sarah Strong and her UConn teammates got quite a compliment from Geno Auriemma, their coach who donned a cowboy hat and did a little dance on the court after the undefeated Huskies made their 25th Final Four in the women’s NCAA Tournament.
The 12-time championship coach who has more wins than any men's or women's NCAA coach said he has never been more proud of a group that he has taken to the final weekend of March Madness.
“This group, they don’t have that kind of swagger, trash-talking kind of mentality,” Auriemma said after his 1,288th victory. “It’s not the kind of team that I’ve had in the past that has gone this far undefeated. It’s not. They don’t have that kind of mentality off the court, on the court. They’re just a bunch of really nice kids that play hard for each other.”
And they are headed to Phoenix after Strong scored 21 points, Blanca Quiñonez added 20 points off the bench and the defending national champion Huskies beat Notre Dame 70-52 on Sunday.
While this is a younger group for Auriemma after Paige Bueckers, the No. 1 WNBA draft pick, and Kaitlyn Chen were seniors on last year's championship team, UConn (38-0) has won 54 games in a row and clinched the first spot for this year's Final Four.
“Seeing him excited and kind of goofy is really good for us. ... He’s usually all serious or like anxious, grumpy. Just seeing him let loose and be his true self was really good," Strong said.
Hannah Hidalgo had 22 points and 11 rebounds for the Fighting Irish (25-11), plus three more steals to increase her NCAA single-season record to 202 and single NCAA tourney mark to 29. But she also had five turnovers, the first time in her 10 NCAA tourney games with more turnovers than steals.
