streak, every romp enriched their legacy.
From the first shot of the season, it seemed
inevitable that Maya Moore, Tina Charles and the Connecticut Huskies
would win the NCAA championship.
And so they did Tuesday night, rallying from a
horrible first half to beat Stanford 53-47 for their 78th straight
victory and stamping themselves as one of the most dominant teams ever —
in their sport or any other, men or women.
Held to only five points through the first 12
minutes and trailing 20-12 at the break, coach Geno Auriemma's team
bounced back and played like champs.
Moore, the game's outstanding player, scored 23
points and grabbed 11 rebounds to help Auriemma win his seventh
national championship, moving within one title of Pat Summitt and
Tennessee. He's never lost in the title game.
The Huskies became the first team ever to have
consecutive unbeaten seasons, but that doesn't cover it.
They've been unstoppable over the past two
years, winning every game by double figures until Tuesday night, and
passing their own NCAA women's record of 70 straight wins set from
2001-03 in early March. The championship victory put them within 10 of
the vaunted 88-game winning streak set by the UCLA men in the early
1970s.
Charles added nine points, 11 rebounds, and six
blocks for UConn (39-0) in front of a crowd of 22,936 that included Vice
President Joe Biden as well as former U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice. While Biden showed impartiality in his cheering, Rice
was rooting on Stanford — the school at which she served as provost for
six years.
She visited with the team at a morning
shootaround offering words of encouragement. Rice had hoped to see the
Cardinal win their third championship and first since 1992.
Stanford played a nearly flawless defensive
first half, holding UConn to 12 points — the lowest ever in a
championship game and the lowest in school history.
But then Moore and the Huskies took over.
UConn opened the second half by scoring 17 of
the first 19 points to take its first lead since early in the game.
Moore had 11 points during the spurt, scoring from all over the court.
Her 3-pointer from the top of the key made it
23-22, giving UConn its first lead since it was 5-0. That ended a
19-minute stretch in which UConn was behind — the longest the Huskies
had trailed this season. The only time that the Huskies were
behind more than 10 minutes during this season also had been against
Stanford.
Moore followed up her 3 with a sweet jumper
and a layup on the break after Charles had blocked Nnemkadi Ogwumike on
the other end.
JJ Hones' 3-pointer with 11:46 left in the
game cut the deficit to 29-25, but then Charles made her presence felt,
scoring seven of the Huskies' next nine points to make it 38-27 with 7:42
left.
Stanford would only get as close as five the
rest of the way. UConn let the Cardinal close the gap late making just 9-of-22 free throws.
This was the sixth time the No. 1 and No. 2
teams in the final AP Top 25 poll met for the title. The last came in
2002 when UConn beat Oklahoma in San Antonio.