Geno Auriemma says UConn was always going to need 'a little bit of luck' to beat No. 1 South Carolina in NCAA final

MINNEAPOLIS — UConn's women's basketball team played in and won its first NCAA final in this city in 1995. And in 10 subsequent appearances in the national championship game, coach Geno Auriemma and his program were undefeated — until Sunday night.

Back in Minneapolis 27 years later, that 11-0 streak ended as the No. 2 seed Huskies fell to No. 1 South Carolina 64-49.

Those 49 points were the second-fewest UConn had ever scored in an NCAA tournament game; the lowest came in a 75-47 loss to Vanderbilt in the second round of the 1992 tournament.

Prior to Sunday, the last time the Huskies struggled this much offensively in an NCAA tournament loss was the 2008 Elite Eight, in a 73-50 loss to an LSU team led by a dominant post player in Sylvia Fowles. On Sunday, they ran into another in South Carolina's Aliyah Boston, the consensus national player of the year and Final Four Most Outstanding Player.

«I've said this all along: You have to be really good, and you have to be a little bit lucky to win the national championship,» Auriemma said. «First things first, though, you have to be really good. You have to be really well-balanced and you have to be all the things that South Carolina is. You have to have good guard play. Your big guys have to be able to dominate either at one end or the other. Then you need a little bit of luck.

»The 11 times that we won, I would say maybe all 11 — but at least 10 — we had the better team. We played like we were the better team, and we were well-balanced and we had all the bases covered and we had everything that you needed to win a championship."

Auriemma didn't feel that was the case this season. The Huskies had to get past a serious challenge from UCF in the second round and then survive a