Huskies 2018-19 Season: Success or No?

Senior superstar Katie Lou Samuelson drives for two of her team-leading
20 points vs. Notre Dame.

Commentary

By Bob Phillips

So, yet another season ends with the University of Connecticut Huskies falling short of their ultimate goal, a national championship. That, of course, is the point of view from the “glass half empty” crowd.

Here are a few quick facts:

• After beating Notre Dame early in the season, the Huskies fell to the Irish 81-76 Friday night at the Amalie Center in Tampa in the national semifinals. Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale led all scorers with 23 points. Katie Lou Samuelson led the Huskies with 20.
• After winning the national championship as freshmen, this was the third straight heart-breaking loss in the Final Four for seniors Napheesa Collier, a Naismith Player of the Year candidate, and Samuelson.
• This was the 12th consecutive trip to the Final Four for the Huskies. Let that register before you complain. About anything.

And here’s another: The Huskies did not choke. They did not “underperform,” as many Internet trolls are spewing. They were simply beaten by a better team. On Friday at least. Just as the Huskies were determined to make up for an early season loss to Louisville when the met the Cardinals in the Albany Region Final, so too the Irish were determined to atone for an early season thumping—in South Bend, no less—at the hands of the Huskies.

And that’s exactly what they did.

Not to harbor on details of the game because the assumption here is that 99 percent of the readers of this article saw the game, but the Huskies, who led the end of each period, entered the fourth leading by two and saw their lead grow to eight points with about nine minutes remaining in regulation. But they simply could not hold off the furious final surge by the talented Irish.

Down the stretch, the Irish looked for their leader, Ogunbowale, and she delivered, scoring 14 points in the fourth quarter.

“I don’t think it was any mystery who was going to be taking the majority of their shots in the fourth quarter,” said UConn head coach Geno Auriemma, a Hall-of-Famer, after the game. “That’s the way they’ve always played since Arike has been there. She still has to make those shots, and she did.

“She’s an almost impossible matchup one-on-one; we knew that going in,” continued the Huskies’ Hall-of-Fame mentor. “We knew we had to make shots, and we didn’t. I thought we did everything else right, but shots we’ve been making all year long, we didn’t make them. Like I said, that happens at the Final Four.”

For the record, this game was lost in the paint. While the Huskies actually outscored the Irish 34-32 in the paint, Notre Dame out-rebounded UConn 54-37 resulting in 22 second-chance points for the Irish compared to just nine for the Huskies.

In the postgame locker room, as one might expect, the Huskies were crushed.

“I wanted it so bad for [Husky fans]; they deserve it,” junior guard Crystal Dangerfield, who was shut down by the Irish, told NBC Connecticut from the locker room. “I don’t know what’s going to make them feel better. I don’t know what’s going to make me feel better.

Dangerfield, at least, will have another shot at a championship. UConn senior leaders Katie Lou Samuelson and Napheesa Collier will not. Both will be in the WNBA next year and, in all probability, playing oversees as well. With them go a combined total of 4,743 points—the most by a pair of teammates in NCAA history.

“Still not believing this is my last time in this jersey,” said a distraught Katie Samuelson, who led the Huskies with 20 points in her collegiate swan song.

“True Husky fans always held out that they could make it here,” said UConn fan and Branford resident Robert Grande, who made the trek to Florida this year to support his team. “Katie Lou had a fantastic game against Louisville [in the Albany Region Final], and that was the difference in that point of the season. We’re proud of them for getting this far.”

“I’m not going to say you get used to it, because nobody likes to lose,” added Rick Skodinski of East Windsor. “It’s heart-wrenching. Hopefully we’ll have a good time next year [in New Orleans, the site of the 2020 Women’s Final Four.

“It sucks losing in the Final Four,” said freshman guard Christyn Williams in the locker room after the crushing defeat. “But I learned a lot from this season, and those experiences will help me [during] the next few years.” Williams led all scorers by a wide margin in that first game against the Irish with 28 points. She had a decent game—19 points—in this one.

For many in Husky Nation, anything short of a national championship is tantamount to a failure. And that is pure nonsense.

In the end, the Huskies finish their season with a 35-3 record. That, my friends, defines outstanding.

—with staff reports