Women's Connecticut Basketball Wins Third Straight National Championship

By Christy Flom on April 8, 2015

After the Duke Blue Devils captured the Men’s National Championship Monday evening, April 6, it was time for the NCAA Women’s National Championship to take the stage front and center in Tampa, Florida.

In a rematch from last year’s Championship game between the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Connecticut Huskies, the women’s season officially ended Tuesday night, April 7.

With nationally recognized players on each team, it was a hard fought game with both teams taking the lead at different points in the first half. Connecticut eventually took control before halftime and kept the lead for the remainder of the game.

As the final buzzer sounded, the Huskies pulled out the win over the Fighting Irish with a score of 63-53, making this their third straight National Title.

Key players for Connecticut included junior forward Breanna Stewart, the Associated Press Player of the Year, and Kakeena Mosqueda-Lewis. Stewart helped the Huskies cap off the win with 15 rebounds and eight points. Mosqueda-Lewis played a big game especially from the three-point line, finishing with 15 points.

Head coach for Notre Dame in her spirited green heels. Image via flickr.com

For Notre Dame, Lindsay Allen–the Regional’s Most Outstanding Player–struggled, only chipping in eight points after an outstanding semi-final game. Brianna Turner and Jewell Loyd picked up some of the slack to try to keep the Fighting Irish in the game adding 14 and 12 points each, respectively.

In contrast to the upset driven first two rounds of the men’s March Madness tournament, looking back on the journey of these two No. 1 seed teams, the road to the Championship game was smooth sailing. Connecticut had next to zero competition throughout the tournament and had high expectations to win the National Championship again.

On the other hand, even though Notre Dame was a No. 1 seed, they were not expecting to make it this far in the tournament this season due to the youth of their team. When tournament time came, however, they had no difficulty making it far and it wasn’t until the Final Four when they ran into their biggest competition aside from Connecticut.

This year’s Final Four consisted of four number one seeded teams facing off for a spot in the Championship game. In comparison to the three number one seeded teams in the men’s Final Four, the girl’s tournament had several resemblances to the men’s final rounds.

Similar to how Duke eased past Michigan State to go on and win the whole tournament, the Huskies beat out No. 1 Maryland 81-58 and then also went on to beat Notre Dame again.

On the other side of the bracket, just as Wisconsin defeated the heavily favored Kentucky Wildcats, the young Notre Dame players gave it everything they had to secure their spot in the Championship game narrowly winning against a tough No. 1 South Carolina team, 66-65 only to fall to Connecticut just as Wisconsin fell to Duke in the final game.

Although they eventually pulled out the semifinal win, the inexperience of the Notre Dame players became increasingly evident Tuesday night as they had difficulty shutting down the veteran perimeter shooters and keeping Stewart off the boards in the Championship game, leading to their ultimate defeat.

The legacy of these two teams, however, is the most interesting part of this rematch. Not only was this the Huskies third straight Championship win, it was also their 10th overall win in their program’s history making NCAA women’s basketball history.

image via Flickr.com

Notre Dame and Connecticut have been top contenders throughout this last decade, often meeting in the Final Four to duke it out for a spot in the National Championship game. In four out of the past five years, Notre Dame has been runner-up in the NCAA tournament and the last time they won the championship was in 2001.

While it may have looked easy for the Huskies on the court, head coach Geno Auriemma said after the Championship game that the players have been working extremely hard throughout the season to earn his trust. He finished his remarks by saying how proud he was of this year’s team to not only earn his trust but to work so hard to make winning their third straight championship a possibility.

Having to repeatedly face off against each other, the games between Connecticut and Notre Dame are never boring. Both coaches know the other’s coaching tricks and styles to the point where nothing either team can do will come as a surprise to the coaches.

Another interesting point about the two great coaches is that they supposedly cannot stand one another. This not only adds a bit of drama to the games but also heightens the competition whenever these two teams meet.

With such great players on each team, fans could easily see a third straight rematch between these two in next year’s NCAA tournament. After a year of development, however, it may be the young Fighting Irish who will finally come out on top.

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