The Connecticut women huskies basketball team is back in the Final Four for the 11th straight year.

UConn vs. South Carolina women’s basketball game score

Coach Geno Auriemma’s top-seeded squad crushed No. 2 South Carolina — the defending NCAA women’s champions — 94-65 in Albany on Monday night, led by Crystal Dangerfield.

The team extended its own record for consecutive NCAA Final Four appearances, and broke a tie with John Wooden and the UCLA men’s team (1967-76) for the overall Division I record.


Last year, the UConn women suffered a last-second overtime loss to Mississippi State in the semifinals. The defeat ended a 111-game win streak and run of four consecutive national titles. Mississippi State lost to South Carolina to give the female Gamecocks their first-ever national title. Their coach announced they would not visit the White House despite being invited.

Next up for UConn will be a matchup against Notre Dame on Friday night in Columbus, Ohio.

“Every team starts the season saying that’s our goal to go to the Final Four. For us, it’s an opportunity to go back to where we felt like we didn’t really give our best effort,” Auriemma said. “We lost to a really good team. Happened in a way that was really, really disappointing. I know that we were anxious to go back and put ourselves in that same situation and see how much we’ve changed since last year.”


The Huskies (36-0) — the 2016 national champs — displayed some impressive three-point shooting on Monday.

Dangerfield scored 19 of her 21 points in the first half. Gabby Williams added 23 points as UConn finished with the most points in school history for this round of the NCAA Tournament.

“Tonight, my teammates did a great job of finding me when I was open and I was able to knock those shots in early,” Dangerfield said.

Katie Lou Samuelson scored 17 points and Napheesa Collier had 16 as UConn shot 59 percent (37-of-63) from the field.

Senior A’ja Wilson scored 27 points for South Carolina (29-7), but it wasn’t enough. Coach Dawn Staley acknowledged how great a team UConn is.

“We got beat by a really good UConn team,” Staley said. “We didn’t have enough to compete in the way we would have liked to. Now all is well in women’s basketball.”

 

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