The Trio of Breanna Stewart, Morgan and Moriah Jefferson...along with their teammates had a relatively easy time breezing thru their first four games of the NCAA Tournament. Beating Texas in Bridgeport to earn the programs' 9th straight trip to the Final Four...And other than the Huskies, it was three teams no one expected to get there. Washington an 8 seed, Syracuse a 4 seed and Oregon State a 2 seed, who beat Baylor to get to Indianapolis.
The Beavers were next for the Huskies, led by the trio of Guard Jamie Weinser, Forward Sydney Wiese and 6-6 Center Ruth Hamblin...But they had a quandary on how to defend the Huskies ? Ultimately, they put Hamblin on Morgan Tuck who was agile and had the ability to shoot and make the three...And Tuck went off in the first quarter. At 5-2 Morgan scored 10 straight points, a jumper, three ball, a layup +1 and another layup where Moriah Jefferson became the schools all time assist leader. Suddenly it's 23-8 where Tuck had 13 in the first and the Huskies never looked back...
Tuck made her third three in the second as part of a 15-2 run to extend the lead to 47-26 at the half..where the the Huskies shot 59%. Little did we know at the time that the games first hoop, courtesy of freshman Katie Lou Samuelson would result in a broken bone in her left foot. She played the entire half without knowing. Felt discomfort in the locker room, got a quick x-ray and sadly, we knew that bad news...The trio of Naphessa Collier, Gabby Willams and Kia Nurse picked up the slack, accounting for 23 points.
Tuck finished the evening with 21 and made four three pointers, Stewart a so so 16 + 8 and Jefferson added 10 with 7 assists and the Huskies rolled 80-51 in advancing to the National Championship Game against Syracuse. Just a reminder that while Stewart is the superstar, Morgan Tuck is the grinder and once again, #3 showed it on the big stage...
Watch this game at UConnHuskyGames.com