Cardinals Face UConn in National Championship Game
April 08, 2013 | Women's Basketball
April 8, 2013
Practice Photo Gallery | Tournament Central
| No. 5 Seed Louisville (29-8) vs. No. 1 Seed UConn (34-4) |
| Date: Tuesday, April 9 |
| Time: 8:30 p.m. ET |
| Location: New Orleans Arena | New Orleans, La. |
| NCAA Notes: Louisville | UConn |
| TV: ESPN / Dave O'Brien (play-by-play), Doris Burke (color analyst), Holly Rowe (sideline) and Rebecca Lobo (sideline) | Watch Live! |
| Live Stats: GameTracker |
New Orleans (AP) - Connecticut beat Louisville comfortably back in January and didn't even have star Breanna Stewart on the floor at the time.
That doesn't mean the Huskies are going to be brimming with confidence about their chances of winning an eighth NCAA national title on Tuesday night against the Cardinals.
After all, Louisville (29-8) has become the master of the upset.
The Cardinals beat Cal 64-57 in the semifinals in the latest game they weren't supposed to win, rallying from 10 down to do it. Louisville stunned defending national champion Baylor and knocked off perennial power Tennessee just to get to New Orleans.
Next up are the Huskies, who know how little one should read into previous meetings. UConn (34-4) lost to Notre Dame three times this season, only to beat the Irish handily, 83-65, in Sunday night's other semifinal.
"We've got a problem Tuesday night, I think, because I think Louisville really thinks they're the best team in the country right now," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "After the way they've played and what they've done in these last couple weeks, they probably think there's nobody that can beat them."
If the Louisville women pull off a fourth-straight upset and the men's team beats Michigan on Monday night in Atlanta, then Louisville would become the first school to win men's and women's NCAA titles in the same year since UConn did it in 2004.
"If it were easy, it would have been done a lot of times, but the fact it's only been done once shows you how difficult it is to do," Auriemma said. "At the same time, this has been a magical year for Louisville. ... It's just amazing what they've been able to do, so I think we're playing against Louisville and we're playing against a certain karma maybe."
Incidentally, that 2004 women's title for Connecticut came in New Orleans.
The last time Louisville made it to a title game was in 2009, losing to - that's right - Connecticut, 76-54.
Louisville coach Jeff Walz has a simple answer when asked what changed between the end of the regular season and the NCAA tournament to make his team so tough to beat.
"We're playing our best basketball at the end of the year and that's all that matters," Walz said. "We're figuring out a way to pull them out and win and play well at the right time."
Still, there are reasons to wonder how Louisville will manage to do it against UConn. They will need to deal with Stewart, who poured in 29 points against Notre Dame on Sunday night. She did not play when the Huskies beat Louisville by 14 points nearly three months ago.
UConn is a complete team, strong on defense (allowing about 50 points per game) with an array of scoring options.
Four of their starters average double-figures in points, including 6-foot forward Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis at about 17 per game (she had 16 against the Irish) and 6-5 center Stefanie Dolson, who's averaged nearly 14 points.
Advantage UConn?
The Cardinals aren't all that concerned with history, unless they're the ones making it. By beating Cal, the Cardinals, who were seeded fifth in the Oklahoma City Region, became the first team seeded worse than fourth to win a game in the women's Final Four.
Louisville has been carried mostly by its offense in the tournament, with Antonita Slaughter hitting a lot of 3s - six against Cal - and Shoni Schimmel hitting from all over the court. Schimmel's younger sister, Jude, has also been a clutch play-maker in a reserve role.
"Right now anything can happen," Walz said. "Why not us?"
Reid's Tough Journey Concludes in Title Game
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - It hasn't been an easy journey for Monique Reid.
Louisville's fifth-year senior returned this season from microfracture surgery on her left knee, only to re-injure it in January. She was faced with the choice to either play through the pain until the season was over or undergo career-ending surgery. She chose to keep playing.
"It's amazing, I'm glad I didn't give up," Reid said. "I could of. I'm just happy all this is happening. All that we've accomplished."
Reid has helped the Cardinals reach the national championship game for the second time in five seasons. She's the only holdover from the team that lost to UConn in the 2009 title game. Now her basketball playing career will end against the Huskies on Tuesday night, hopefully with a national championship.
"I mean it's definitely ironic," Reid said of playing UConn twice for the title. "I cherish the '09 season, but have to say this was the best season. I wouldn't trade it for the world."
Reid grew up going to Louisville games long before her hometown school starting playing games in an NBA-style arena. She went to basketball camps and sat in the first row when the Cardinals played.
Fast forward a decade later and Reid hit the two biggest free throws in school history to clinch the regional semifinals win over top-seeded Baylor.
Reid was starting to round back into form with consecutive 20-point efforts in December before she hurt her knee in practice in January. She missed five games before returning to help the Cardinals earn a crucial win over DePaul.
"To see what Mo's gone through this year, that just shows that anything's possible," Louisville sophomore Sara Hammond said. "You can go through any adversity and of course we've faced adversity all year long. But for her, to see her fight through her injury and to say, 'It's going to be OK guys, I'm coming back, I'm not going to sit out, I'm going to play as long as I can, I'm not going to quit on you all.' I think that gave us more fire or more heart."
Reid tweaked the knee in the Final Four against Cal in the first half, but came back to play. Her playing basically on one leg has served as an inspiration for her teammates
"For her to come back after being hurt in the middle of the season is great for us and to have that on the court with us brings even more confidence to us," Louisville guard Shoni Schimmel said. "If Mo can do it on one leg and we have two nothing should stop us."
Chasing Eight
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Hanging on the wall in UConn's locker room in Storrs is a photo of the team running side by side with the phrase "Chasing 8".
A win on Tuesday night over Louisville will get UConn's its eighth championship matching the Huskies with Tennessee for the most ever by a women's program.
"We were trying to come up with something for the locker room," UConn associate head coach Chris Dailey said. "And between (assistant coach) Shea (Ralph), (assistant coach) Marisa (Moseley) and I, we were talking and I think I may have come up with the title just as a reminder. ... We're just not big on a lot of stuff. Talking about it is not what we want to do, but having that as a reminder when you walk out to the lounge every day and you see it it's a good reminder to know what the goal is."
The photo was taken in early September during team photo day. Dailey joked that getting the picture right probably took longer than the season.
"It definitely means a lot," UConn junior Bria Hartley said. "I remember when we were taking the picture at the beginning of the year. That national championship is something that we've been striving for, particularly like me and Stefanie (Dolson) and Kelly (Faris) and everyone that's been here the last two years. We've been pretty close. We didn't make it to the national championship game, but we made it to the Final Four the last two years. And I think we're just trying to go out there and prove that we can win because both of those years we were there we felt like we could win a national championship."
