Champs! South Carolina captures 2022 national title with win over UConn
South Carolina set sights on its ultimate goal — winning the national championship — before the season’s first tip. The Gamecocks turned their goal into reality Sunday night, winning the 2022 NCAA tournament championship with a victory over the UConn Huskies.
Dawn Staley’s Gamecocks (35-2) defeated Geno Auriemma’s Huskies 64-49 in front of a sellout crowd at Minneapolis’ Target Center in the teams’ second meeting of the 2021-22 season.
South Carolina’s win Sunday solidified the program’s second national title and first since 2017. Both of the Gamecocks’ championships have come under Staley.
“I do think this is our best team, just the roster from top to bottom, the commitment to their roles,” Staley said. “Then you’ve got to go back to last year — no other (USC) team has played in back-to-back Final Fours. No other (USC) team has been the No. 1 team in the country from beginning to the end and then win the national championship.”
South Carolina played the nation’s strongest schedule, according to RealTimeRPI, going 11-0 against teams ranked in the AP top 25. The Gamecocks defeated two of the 2022 Final Four teams, 1-seed Stanford and 2-seed UConn, in the regular season.
“I don’t think, from the beginning of the game, our offense ever looked like it was in any kind of rhythm, any kind of flow,” Auriemma said. “We usually don’t have any problem getting (Paige Bueckers) shots, but tonight it was a problem, and I think South Carolina had everything to do with that.”
Staley became the first Black coach in men’s or women’s college basketball to win multiple national titles. Gamecocks star Aliyah Boston was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
USC came into the NCAA tournament as the top overall seed and defeated No. 16 Howard, No. 8 Miami, No. 5 North Carolina, No. 10 Creighton and No. 1 Louisville to make it to the national championship meeting with UConn.
Henderson shines in Gamecocks’ championship win
South Carolina senior point guard Destanni Henderson made it clear she didn’t want to leave South Carolina without a national title under her belt.
Henderson catalyzed the Gamecocks’ offensive effort, sinking early 3-point shots and playing a key role in pacing USC’s offense. She scored a career-high 26 points in South Carolina’s national championship victory.
“I really didn’t even know I had a career high, to be honest with you,” Henderson said. “But when people spoke about it and let me know that, it’s just even more of a blessing and just an honor to do it in this moment, a special moment that all of us is going to remember forever.”
Henderson also spent much of the game defending UConn star Paige Bueckers, who was neutralized to just 14 points.
“We started (Henderson) off on Paige. Plan B was to put a bigger body on her, like Brea Beal, and we didn’t really have to do that because Henny was super focused on just making it really hard for her,” Staley said. “Paige made some incredible shots, but we wanted 40 minutes of making her work, making her work, exhausting her.”
Henderson led fellow South Carolina veteran starters, who all scored by the first quarter. South Carolina’s Aliyah Boston tallied her 30th double-double of the 2021-22 season. She put up an SEC record 27 straight double-doubles throughout the season. Zia Cooke also scored in double figures.
Gamecocks find success again behind strong defense
South Carolina held UConn to its lowest single-quarter scoring output of the season when it built a 22-8 lead at the end of the first 10 minutes.
The Gamecocks were able to push their advantage to as many as 18 points in the second quarter and never gave up the lead, even when offensive lulls allowed the Huskies to bring the game closer.
The Gamecocks reached the NCAA championship behind their lockdown defense, which led the NCAA tournament heading into Monday by allowing an average of 44.8 points per game. South Carolina’s defense made history in the tournament’s first two rounds, allowing Howard and Miami just 54 combined points.
Rebounding guides USC once again
The Gamecocks used their dominance on the offensive boards for guidance on a night when their shots weren’t falling as efficiently as they had been in their previous two games.
Sunday, South Carolina hauled down 21 offensive rebounds, and 49 total, outpacing UConn 49-24 overall, and 21-6 on the offensive glass.
“They can defend,” Staley said. “This team can really, really defend. I think we’re an elite defensive team. That’s the separator from my other teams.”
Despite having a less efficient field goal percentage (36.7) than the Huskies (40.7), the Gamecocks were able to find more opportunities to score behind its offensive rebounding.
Final Four all-tournament team
▪ Aliyah Boston, USC*
▪ Zia Cooke, USC
▪ Destanni Henderson, USC
▪ Haley Jones, Stanford
▪ Paige Bueckers, UConn
*Boston was named the most outstanding player
This story was originally published April 3, 2022 at 10:14 PM.
