This Date in UConn March Madness History: Cash, Bird and Taurasi lift women to unbeaten ’02 title

The UConn  men  and  women  have created countless memories through the madness of March and onto the championships won in April. Each day between now and the men’s and women’s Final Fours next month, The Courant will look back through our archives and highlight a memorable men’s and/or women’s game that occurred on that date. Today: March 31, 2002: UConn 82, Oklahoma 70 Two days after hammering Tennessee, 79-56, in the national semifinal, Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, Swin Cash and the Huskies culminated a perfect 39-0 season with a business-like victory over the Sooners in the national title game.

Cash led the way with 20 points , Ashja Jones scored 19, and Bird and Taurasi had 14 and 13 each, as UConn proved too much for Stacey Dales and Oklahoma. It was the second of the Huskies’ unbeaten seasons , after also having gone without a blemish during the 1995 title run. It was also the first of three straight national titles, all of which Taurasi helped win.

Our readers weigh in Twenty-seven years ago today, when UConn played Duke down to the wire in the title game, my wife sat in front of me and asked for a shoulder rub. That game was so exciting that she says it was the best massage she’s ever received. Meanwhile, in Washington DC, my 23-year-old daughter was trading humorous trash talk with a young Duke alumnus in the apartment upstairs from hers.

At the time, they knew each other only in passing, but that game must have lit a spark because five years later, they got married! –Murphy Seawall Windham Share a memory What’s your favorite UConn March Madness memory? Whether you were in the stands or on your couch, tell us the Husky hoops story that you’re always sharing with your friends and family.