Leave the nets … for now. UConn, as always, plans for bigger Final Four celebrations
FORT WORTH, Texas — On Geno Auriemma’s 25th trip to the Final Four, perhaps the NCAA has finally learned this: UConn doesn’t cut the nets until the national championship. So don’t bother bringing a ladder and ceremonial scissors onto the floor at the regional championships. They will go untouched.
It will be someone else’s wasted efforts and the Huskies won’t even bother to look at them. Last season, it stood on the floor in Spokane Region as the loneliest championship ladder in the world until someone mercifully pulled it from the floor. On Sunday, luckily no one in Fort Worth perched it under the not-to-be cut nets after No.
1 seed UConn beat No. 6 seed Notre Dame 70-52 to advance to the Final Four . Because in UConn’s world, Elite Eight wins are not to be celebrated so much as they are to be survived.
There is an inherent anxiety that comes with these games — Auriemma knows better than most — and the margin between the most catastrophic ending to the season ever (a loss in the Elite Eight) and a really good year (advancing to the Final Four), when it comes to this stage, comes down to 40 minutes. This specific path to the Final Four for UConn was one that included more than a few trip hazards, most notably, and recently, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, a player that Auriemma will impress upon you is the best point guard in the country. Not one of them.
Against the Huskies, Hidalgo finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and at least a thousand heart palpitations caused as UConn players on every possession peeked over their shoulders anxiously searching for the 5-foot-6 player whose speed and quickness has worked as an invisibility shield for unsuspecting passers. “She probably causes more problems for your offense than any player in the country,” Auriemma said. “You can deal with a shot blocker.
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