Connecticut Still Has Chance to Hit the Three

In the end the glass slippers were a little too big for Minnesota to fill.

The Gophers had a scintillating tournament run, but on Sunday they ran into Connecticut, a team determined to remind anyone watching just who was the defending champion.

The final score -- 67-58 in favor of Connecticut, in front of 18,211 at the New Orleans Arena -- was closer than the Huskies would have liked. That’s because the Gophers, the first seventh-seeded NCAA tournament team to reach the women’s Final Four, never quit chasing Connecticut in the second half and never quit believing it could somehow pull off another tournament stunner.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had to coach against a team that is as hard as they are to defend,” Connecticut Coach Geno Auriemma said of Minnesota. “They were phenomenal.

“I don’t like playing against teams that are really smart. They’re really smart. I don’t really like playing against teams that really believe they can beat you. And they really believed they could beat us.

“I don’t think that at any point of the game they looked at us and said, ‘This is Connecticut, we’re Minnesota, and we don’t belong here.’ ”

Nonetheless, it is Connecticut (30-4), which had 18 points from Diana Taurasi and 10 points by Maria Conlon, that is in position to win a third consecutive NCAA championship on Tuesday. It’s been done only once before -- by Tennessee (1996-98), the team Connecticut will face, and the team it defeated last year in the title game.

“For the most part I would think people would like someone else to be in the finals,” Taurasi said. “But as long as I’m wearing a Connecticut jersey I don’t care what people think. We’re going to be in the finals.”

Minnesota (25-9), which had 18 points by Janel McCarville and 11 points and seven assists from Lindsay Whalen -- who was frustrated into a three-for-11 shooting night by the Connecticut defense -- will need time to appreciate its season and tournament run.

McCarville had a sense of accomplishment, considering that four years ago the Gophers were the worst team in the Big Ten and this year they reached the national semifinals.

“We’ll be upset today and maybe next week,” McCarville said. “But once we realize what we’ve done, it will feel pretty good inside.”

Minnesota had only one lead in the game, 9-8 on a layup by McCarville, and by the 6:06 mark of first half trailed the Huskies, 31-20.

Connecticut’s lead was 37-29 at the half and the Huskies again ran the lead to double digits, 46-35, with 14:12 to play.

The Gophers, however, never saw the hole they dug for themselves as too big.

A three-pointer by Jamie Broback at the 7:42 mark trimmed Connecticut’s lead to 53-51. And with 5:50 to play Minnesota, down only 58-55, made three consecutive defensive stops of the Huskies and had a chance to tie the score.

They couldn’t get that tying basket. And when Connecticut forward Ann Strother swished a three-pointer to put the Huskies up, 61-55, with 3:24 remaining, Minnesota’s last rally had seen its last gasp.

“I kept thinking, ‘If we could just hit one of those shots,’ ” said Minnesota Coach Pam Borton. “But it was around that (4:00) media timeout. We had spent so much energy coming back that we needed that timeout pretty desperately because our kids were pretty tired on the last couple of possessions.”