UConn Wins NCAA Women’s Basketball Title The Huskies secured their 12th national championship with a one-sided victory over South Carolina, leaving them to stand alone as the winningest team in college basketball history.

 The University of Connecticut’s women’s basketball team entered Sunday’s NCAA championship game amid a glaring drought.

It had been nine years since the program with more titles than any other had lifted the national championship trophy, the longest dry spell since Geno Auriemma took over as coach in 1985.

For other schools, nine seasons without a title would count as a minor inconvenience. For UConn, it counts as a full-blown crisis.

Making matters worse, the Huskies were forced to watch another program take their place at the top of the sport. South Carolina, their opponent in Sunday’s final, had won three championships since UConn’s last triumph in 2016 and emerged as women’s basketball’s reigning dynasty.

By the end of a surprisingly one-sided blowout on Sunday, however, the natural order had been restored. The Huskies capped a devastating tournament by thoroughly outplaying the Gamecocks in an 82-59 win to capture their 12th title. 

UConn coach Geno Auriemma and Paige Bueckers embrace in the closing moments of the title game. Photo: Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

As the Huskies huddled and jumped in jubilation as confetti fell, it was a familiar picture for everyone except South Carolina coach Dawn Staley. This was her first loss in the NCAA title game. 

The Huskies now stand alone as the winningest team in college basketball history. Their 12 NCAA championships are the most in women’s or men’s basketball, taking them past the famed UCLA men’s program, whose 11 titles were fueled by John Wooden’s run of 10 championships during the 1960s and ’70s.

UConn guard Azzi Fudd and freshman Sarah Strong led the way Sunday with 24 points apiece, but the game stood as a crowning achievement for a different Husky.

Azzi Fudd scored 24 points for the Huskies in the title game. Photo: Nathan Ray Seebeck/Reuters

Paige Bueckers, the lanky guard from Hopkins, Minn., who led the Huskies in scoring and had 17 points Sunday, won national player of the year as a freshman back in 2021. That was before a series of knee injuries sidelined her for 1½ seasons. 

While Bueckers sat out, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark blossomed into superstardom with her long-shooting, high-scoring game. By the 2024 NCAA tournament, Clark and the Hawkeyes had lifted women’s basketball to new heights.

During Bueckers’s career, the NCAA women’s tournament went from being an underfunded afterthought to outdrawing the 2024 men’s title game on TV. At Final Four games this weekend, young fans fashioned their hair into Bueckers’ signature face-framing braids and lined hallways to ask for selfies and autographs. 

Bueckers lived up to her star billing. Her 40 points in a Sweet 16 win over Oklahoma were the most any Husky has scored in an NCAA Tournament game. Her passing and improved defense have made her a peerless all-around player, one who is expected to be the overall No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft on April 14. 

When Bueckers went down after a layup and a hard foul early in the fourth quarter, she grinned as she lay on the ground. Then she made her free throw to put the Huskies up 73-44.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been that emotional when a player walked off the court,” Auriemma said. 

In a TV interview, Bueckers praised the team’s managers, practice players, masseuse, and Auriemma.

The teams set a furious pace to start Sunday’s game. Fudd, the nation’s top high school recruit in 2021, led all scorers with 13 first-half points. Although South Carolina out-rebounded UConn, the Huskies shot nearly 50% from the field to the Gamecocks’ 31%, and led 36-26 at halftime. 

The Huskies ran away with the game in the third quarter by driving inside to score and stifling the Gamecocks on defense. 

Geno Auriemma and UConn won the women’s basketball championship for the 12th time. Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

UConn fell to as low as No. 7 in the AP poll this season and entered the tournament as a No. 2 seed but proceeded to steamroll through it, beating overall No. 1 seed UCLA by 34 points in the semifinal, a Final Four record. 

While many squads in college basketball build their teams with transfers, UConn won mostly with its typical roster of former high-school all-stars. Strong, the daughter of college basketball players and the Huskies’ second-leading scorer this season, was the nation’s top recruit last year and UConn’s leading rebounder. 

Fudd, the nation’s top recruit in 2021, has already announced she’ll return to college next year.