FORT WORTH, Texas – Sarah Strong chose UConn over North Carolina instead of staying home, and the All-America sophomore forward is a step closer to a second national title after helping knock the Tar Heels out of the women's NCAA Tournament.
Strong, who is from Durham, not far from the UNC campus, had 21 points and 10 rebounds as the defending champion and overall No. 1 seed Huskies won 63-42 on Friday. UConn is going to the Elite Eight for the 30th time, and will face familiar foe Notre Dame.
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“She’s just such a hard guard. I mean, I love the kid. I love the kid, who she is, her core. I love her family, but I really love her as a basketball player,” said North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart, who recruited Strong. “She’s so fun to watch. And she’s a problem, right? She hurt us in off-ball action and non-ball action.”
After Blanca Quiñonez made a layup at the start of the second quarter to put UConn (37-0) ahead to stay, Strong then made four consecutive field goals in a two-minute span. That was part of a stretch when the Huskies outscored fourth-seeded North Carolina 37-13 over the second and third quarters.
“I started looking at ... being more aggressive, and I know that probably opens up my teammates,” Strong said. “It gives me confidence to keep doing it, and gives my team confidence to keep shooting and keep playing well.”
UConn will play the sixth-seeded Fighting Irish (25-10) in the Fort Worth Region 1 final Sunday to fill the first slot for the Final Four in Phoenix. Hannah Hidalgo had a 31-point triple-double in Notre Dame's 67-64 win over No. 2 seed Vanderbilt earlier Friday. The Irish lost 85-47 in a regular-season game at UConn on Jan. 19.
It will be the ninth meeting between UConn and Notre Dame in March Madness. Their first eight tourney games, the last in 2019, were all in the Final Four, including back-to-back national championship games in 2014 and 2015. UConn won both of those during its run of four consecutive titles.
Indya Nivar scored a career-high 20 points for fourth-seeded North Carolina (28-8).
Azzi Fudd, also an AP All-American, had 10 points for the Huskies, who are seeking their 13th national championship and extended their overall winning streak to 53 games. Quiñonez finished with 16 points off the bench, including the go-ahead basket before Strong's quick scoring spurt.
“The hardest job that we as coaches have is getting her to do that for not seven minutes but 27 minutes,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said of Strong. “To act like that, to think like that, you know, to impose herself on the game like that. It’s a real challenge. ... Then when she does it, she makes it look so easy.”
A second-quarter surge into the second half
Strong, the Big East Player of the year, had 11 points in the second quarter, when UConn outscored the Tar Heels 17-8 to take a 28-20 halftime lead. Also the league's top defender, she finished with two blocked shots and five steals.
UConn came out of the break with a 12-0 run that included a layup and a 3-pointer by Fudd, who in the first half was held to two points on 1-of-7 shooting.
The Tar Heels had 24 turnovers and shot a season-low 28% (17 of 60) from the field.
“Especially defensively that first half, we were about as good as you want to be,” said Auriemma, who got his 1,287th career win. “Then that third quarter our offense caught up to our defense, and we kind of separated ourselves.”
Not so sweet for the Tar Heels
North Carolina hasn't advanced past the Sweet 16 since 2014, which was 20 years after its only national title.
This was another disappointing Sweet 16 game. Their season finished in the same round last year with a 47-38 loss to Atlantic Coast Conference rival Duke.
Huskies steal a record
UConn's 18 steals pushed its season total to an NCAA-record 583, breaking Grambling's mark 580 set in 1997.
“Sometimes you just have the kind of team that enjoys playing like that, and you have players that have that kind of mindset,” Auriemma said. “It’s really just a mindset and a constant pressure leads to the other team making mistakes. ... I didn’t know there was any record available to steal, but we do have a lot of them over the season, and we do force a lot of turnovers.”
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness