{"id":7993,"date":"2016-04-05T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/uconn-one-win-from-a-four-peat\/"},"modified":"2016-04-05T08:00:51","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T15:00:51","slug":"uconn-one-win-from-a-four-peat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/uconn-one-win-from-a-four-peat\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn one win from a four-peat"},"content":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS<\/strong> \u2014 Breanna Stewart and UConn are one victory away from accomplishing their ultimate goal \u2014 a fourth straight national championship.<\/p>\n

To achieve that unprecedented feat, Stewart and the Huskies will have to beat Syracuse, her hometown team.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up in Syracuse, I thought about it, going there. Who wouldn\u2019t? Who wouldn\u2019t think about going to the hometown school and that stuff?\u201d she said. \u201cBut when push came to shove, UConn was the best place for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she\u2019s been great for UConn. A victory tonight would give coach Geno Auriemma 11 national championships, moving him past UCLA men\u2019s coach John Wooden for the most in NCAA basketball history.<\/p>\n

Auriemma referred to standout seniors Stewart, Moriah Jefferson and Morgan Tuck as he looked toward the title game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what I can do to help them except keep reminding them all the time, \u2018This is your spot, you\u2019ve owned this spot for the last three years,\u2019\u201d the Hall of Fame coach said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow there\u2019s no guarantee you\u2019re going to get it Tuesday night, but we\u2019re not going in there Tuesday night hoping we win. Because these three (players) they\u2019ve done more than that, it doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to win, but I don\u2019t have to help them with that mentality.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Huskies are no stranger to the title game, Syracuse is a newcomer. The Orange have been on an unexpected run in the NCAA Tournament. The fourth-seeded team had never gotten out of the opening weekend of the tournament before this season. Now they\u2019ll have the monumental task of spoiling UConn\u2019s coronation.<\/p>\n

The former Big East teams met at least once a season before the Orange went to the ACC in 2013. They haven\u2019t played since they left.<\/p>\n

Since UConn won the first of its 11 championships in 1995, Syracuse hasn\u2019t had much success. The Orange lost the final 23 meetings with Syracuse\u2019s last victory coming in 1996. To make matters worse for the Orange, history isn\u2019t on their side.<\/p>\n

That doesn\u2019t matter to the Orange.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a chance on Tuesday night to play against the best team in the country, to play against a dynasty and play against a team that really forgot how to lose,\u201d Syracuse coach Quentin Hillsman said. \u201cThat\u2019s an amazing thing, to forget how to lose. I want to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Huskies will play tonight without freshman Katie Lou Samuelson. She broke the third metatarsal bone in her left foot in the first half. She missed practice Saturday because she was feeling under the weather. She started on Sunday, scoring seven points in the first half in 17 minutes. She didn\u2019t come out of the locker room for the start of the second half, returning to the UConn bench early in the third quarter with a boot on her foot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess it happened on the very first possession that we had where she drove it to the basket and she said she felt something but didn\u2019t really say anything and just continued to play on it,\u201d Auriemma said. \u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t until late in the first half that we found out that there was something wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen by halftime, when we were in the locker room, we knew that when she wasn\u2019t back in the locker room right away, it had to be something. And then before the half started, before the second half started, Rosemary Ragle, our athletic trainer, told me she has a broken bone in her foot and she\u2019s out. And we just addressed it with our team real quick and play on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both teams advanced to the championship game with routs.<\/p>\n

The Huskies won by 29 points, setting a Final Four record that surpassed the 28-point win by Tennessee over Arkansas in 1998. It was UConn\u2019s 74th consecutive victory, the second-longest winning streak in NCAA and school history.<\/p>\n

Syracuse jumped all over seventh-seeded Washington en route to an 80-59 rout. The Orange know they have a big challenge ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re a great basketball team,\u201d Hillsman said. \u201cOnly thing I have going for me is that I was in the Big East and we know how they play, so their speed and quickness won\u2019t be a shock. … Geno\u2019s the best in the business. His team is the best in the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Doug on Twitter at http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/dougfeinberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Breanna Stewart and UConn are one victory away from accomplishing their ultimate goal \u2014 a fourth straight national championship. To achieve that unprecedented feat, Stewart and the Huskies will have to beat Syracuse, her hometown team. \u201cGrowing up in Syracuse, I thought about it, going there. Who wouldn\u2019t? Who wouldn\u2019t think about going […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-7993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7993"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=7993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}