With OT win, Baylor ties UConn, months after the battle for women’s basketball royalty is canceled

SAN ANTONIO – The regular season showdown in January was canceled because of a problem with COVID-19, but women’s basketball titans UConn and Baylor will face each other in 2021, after all – in the final of the NCAA River Walk Regional tournament. And after his team survived a battle on Saturday against Michigan’s No. 6 – 78-75 in overtime – Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said his Elite Eight game will combine strength with strength.

“You are looking at two programs that value defense,” said Mulkey. “I think Baylor and UConn are in the top three in the country in percentage of pitch defense. So you look at recovery. That may explain why both programs are respected across the country.

“So, yes, it can be an ugly game. When I say ugly, it can be a low score, it can be some upsets. Some people mean boring. It might not be 80 and 90. I don’t know.”

Arriving on Saturday, runner-up Baylor was in fact the first to defend the percentage of field goal (31.7) and the first ranked UConn in third (32.9), with the Alamo Regional No. 1 seed Stanford second in 32 , 7. In Sweet 16 victories, Baylor allowed Michigan to shoot 46%, and UConn allowed Iowa to shoot 43.3%.

Baylor took a break from COVID-19 in January after Mulkey contracted the coronavirus, which is why Geno Auriemma’s Huskies and Lady Bears didn’t meet at that time.

“These are two programs that are very proud,” said Mulkey. “I’m certainly not going to beat Geno, so our players, it’s better to compete and try to beat his players.

“It is very difficult to sustain something that is an elite level. You see programs that are Cinderella, they do that – up and down – then you see those that are in the middle, they have good programs. stay here and we want to play for the championship. “

The Lady Bears are the national champions in title, winning their third title in 2019. UConn has 11 NCAA titles, the most recent in 2016, and has achieved 12 consecutive Final Fours. This will be the second time the teams have met at the NCAA tournament. It looked like they were going to face each other for the NCAA title in 2013, when Baylor was the defending champion. But the Lady Bears were upset that year at Sweet 16 by Louisville, and UConn won the first of four consecutive championships behind Breanna Stewart.

The record for the series is tied at 4-4, with the first meeting arriving in the semifinals of the 2010 NCAA tournament here at Alamodome. UConn, then on his way to a second consecutive perfect season, won 70-50.

Since then, three UConn-Baylor games have been decided by six points or less. Three others had 11-point margins. Baylor’s 74-58 victory last season in Hartford, Connecticut, was close – 55-52 in three quarters – before the Lady Bears dominated the fourth period and overcame the Huskies by 19-6.

The defense played a big role in Baylor’s victories over UConn. In Lady Bears’ 68-57 victory in January 2019, they held UConn with 29.4% of the field, the worst percentage of Huskies pitches in 20 years. In 2020, the Huskies fired slightly worse at Baylor: 29.0%.

After winning his first two NCAA tournament games this year by 49 and 42 points, Baylor had to sweat his victory on Saturday against a team from Michigan who made their first appearance on Sweet 16.

“The deeper you go, the harder your opponent is and the tighter the games are,” said Mulkey. “I think you could say that we did enough on the offensive and defensive side to win the game in overtime.”

Baylor junior NaLyssa Smith, who tied with a record field goal percentage in the NCAA tournament on Saturday, going 11 to 11 on the way to 24 points, said of facing UConn: “Oh, we’re really excited. An opportunity to play against one top team is what we thrive on [on] the majority.”