PHOENIX — Ta’Niya Latson had 16 points and 11 rebounds to lead a balanced South Carolina attack, and the Gamecocks stunned undefeated and top-seeded UConn 62-48 in the NCAA Women’s Final Four on Friday.
“I knew I had to impact the game in any way I could,” Latson said. “I wanted this win. Whether that was rebounding, scoring, assisting, I was going to do what I had to do. The balls were coming my way, so I had to grab ’em and snag ’em.”
Agot Makeer scored 14 points, Joyce Edwards had 11 and Tessa Johnson added 10 for the Gamecocks (36-3), who avenged an 82-59 loss to the Huskies in the 2025 national championship game.
The Gamecocks will play for their fourth national championship and third in five seasons on Sunday against UCLA, which beat Texas 51-44 in the second semifinal. South Carolina completed a 38-0 season with an 87-75 victory over Iowa in the 2024 title game.
“This is my why,” Latson said. “This is why I came to South Carolina.”
National player of the year Sarah Strong had 12 points and 12 rebounds, Ashlynn Shade scored 10 points and Azzi Fudd had eight points and five assists for the Huskies (38-1), who had a 54-game winning streak broken.
Strong’s 3-pointer, her first points in the second half, closed the deficit to 51-47 with 4:39 remaining, but South Carolina scored the next 11 points to pull away.
Strong shot 4 of 16 from the field against a sticky South Carolina defense that pressured the perimeter. Fudd was 3 of 15. The Gamecocks limited UConn to 31.1% shooting and outshot the Huskies 45.8% to 22.6% in the second half.
“Yeah, I just thought that we made it real difficult for them to get clean looks,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said. “We made them put the ball on the floor. That’s disruption to UConn, because they’re a passing team, they like to assist. They did get 15 assists on 19 field goals. If they’re allowed to play that way throughout an entire game, they win.
“I thought our players just locked in once we built a little lead, and we got suggestions from coaches as to should we change our defense, start switching everything.”
UConn coach Geno Auriemma said, “I think, and we do this a lot, the more defensive pressure you try to put on the other team’s best player, you are hoping that there is a level of frustration a little bit and it starts to affect the way they play.”
Latson made six free throws in the final 1:45 and UConn missed 11 of its last 12 field-goal attempts.
Auriemma and Staley were seen having a heated exchange on the sideline as the clock wound down, but neither offered much additional clarity on the situation following the game.
“You can ask Geno the question, he’s the one that initiated the conversation,” Staley said in the postgame presser. “I don’t want what happened to dampen what we were able to accomplish today.”
Auriemma told ESPN that Staley “rants and raves on the sideline and calls the referees some names you don’t wanna hear.”
After the Huskies held a 26-24 halftime lead, the Gamecocks opened the second half on a 12-2 run for a 12-point lead, the largest deficit UConn had faced all year. All but one of the Huskies’ wins were by at least 10 points.
Latson made a pair of free throws for a 40-30 lead with 3:09 left in the third.
Consecutive 3-pointers by Kayleigh Heckel, Blanca Quinonez and Fudd brought UConn within 40-39 with 1:10 left in the quarter, but the Huskies were never closer. The Huskies had made 1 of 11 3-point tires before that and finished 6 of 21. The Gamecocks led 44-39 after three.
–Jack Magruder, Field Level Media
