Need Big Lift? Just Try Taurasi

Diana Taurasi made the plays. The big ones, the ones that define a moment, a game, a tournament, a career, the ones that only great athletes make, the ones that will be talked about for years to come.

The plays that sent her basketball team, Connecticut, to a dramatic 71-69 victory over Texas Sunday night at the Georgia Dome, in front of 28,210 in the NCAA women’s Final Four semifinals.

Here’s the first play.

The pass.

It was no-look. Taurasi, a junior from Chino, faced right and whipped the basketball 30 feet to her left, straight past the surprised faces of three Texas players and into the hands of her Connecticut teammate, Jessica Moore.

The ball hit Moore’s palms with a whomp. The sound reverberated and Moore will feel the sting today. Moore didn’t drop the pass. She made the layup so that the defending national champions cut a six-point deficit to four, 64-60.

The Huskies, who had lost only once this season and not at all a year ago, who had been dragged to this point by the excellence of Taurasi and the precociousness of the nation’s best freshmen class, had been behind from halftime until less than four minutes remained. Taurasi’s next play came after the Longhorns had scored again to lead, 66-60. She leaned into the free-throw line as if it were a wall to hold her tired body up and threw in an off-balance 15-footer. It was a shot of desperation and determination, of strength and confidence and as the ball rattled through the basket, a foul was called. Taurasi made the free throw and the Texas lead was down to three, 66-63. There was 2:56 left.

Big play No. 3 came 50 seconds later. The Longhorns had missed a couple of shots, Connecticut freshman Ann Strother had made a free throw and missed one. Texas led, 66-64, when Taurasi caught a pass on the run, stood and shot, a three-pointer with a trigger-quick release and a straight line into the basket, a three to give Connecticut the lead, 67-66, to give the Huskies the energy to finish in a fury.

The fourth big play came with 39 seconds left when Taurasi, 6 feet, wrestled a rebound from Texas’ strong woman, Stacy Stephens. Stephens is listed at 6-1 and she looks to weigh a good 20 pounds more than Taurasi, though Texas doesn’t list the weight of its players. This was a contest for one basketball and was determined by brute strength but also by will and it was won by Taurasi.

The final big play came with Connecticut hanging on, its lead, 71-69, after freshman Willnett Crockett from Harbor City and Narbonne High, had missed two free throws, as freshmen will do at such a crucial point.

Alisha Sare, a Texas senior, dashed up the court and squared to shoot, a three-pointer that would have won this game. Sare’s fingers were damp and the ball slipped a little, enough that Taurasi was able to block the shot and send it skittering away as time ran out. No Longhorn could pick up the ball, no last-second shot could beat the Huskies.

“We have Diana, they don’t,” Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma said. “That’s the biggest reason we’re here.”

“Here” is playing for the national championship again. Against Tennessee again.

The Volunteers had beaten Duke, 66-56, in the first Final Four semifinal Sunday and their point guard, Loree Moore, a sophomore from Lakewood and also from Narbonne, talked about Taurasi. The two have played on competing travel teams in Southern California and against each other in high school. Moore admires Taurasi. “She’s a great, great player who makes great, great plays,” Moore had said before knowing whether Connecticut would win or lose.

“If we play them,” Moore said, “I’ll probably guard Diana some, and she’ll make some big plays. But this is about the team and not one player. I played her once in high school. She probably scored 30, but we won. That’s what I hope happens again.”

Last season Taurasi was a sophomore and just part of a team filled with stars. She could be extravagantly good, but her team could win without a great Taurasi performance.

This season Taurasi has gladly accepted the role of singular star, of leader, of one-woman band. She plays on a sprained ankle that keeps her from rising high for her jump shot. She plays knowing in every close game that a win or loss will be up to her. At a point in the second half Sunday, with the Huskies trailing by nine, after she had badly missed a jump shot, Auriemma sat Taurasi on the bench. The two shouted at each other, volatile coach, volatile leader. Both were dripping sweat and frustration, anger and desire. A minute later Taurasi was back in the game, heart and soul.

“I just had to start making plays,” Taurasi said. “I hadn’t made enough plays before.”

She made them at the end, all of them. The big ones. The ones that matter. The ones that win.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at diane.pucin@latimes.com.