TAMPA, Fla. — There may never be a better storybook written than the one the UConn women’s basketball team completed on Sunday afternoon at Amalie Arena with an 82-59 win over South Carolina in the 2025 NCAA Championship game.
In the 40th year of coach Geno Auriemma’s legendary career at the helm of the program, the Huskies defeated the reigning national champions to bring home the 12th NCAA title in program history after a nine-year drought.
As the only No. 2 seed in the Final Four, UConn dethroned three consecutive No. 1 seeds by double-digit margins to emerge as the last team standing in 2025. Their point differential across two wins in Tampa was plus-57, the second largest in NCAA history behind only the Huskies’ 2016 title team that went undefeated en route to its legendary four-peat.
“You don’t prepare speeches for something like this. Today I was thinking, man, what am I going to say if things don’t go our way?” Auriemma said. “I just kept thinking, something good has to happen, because if we were going to lose, it would have been before now … I’m glad they were rewarded. This is one of the most emotional Final Fours and emotional national championships I’ve been a part of since that very first one.”
Star guard Azzi Fudd made her name as an elite 3-point shooter, but the redshirt junior dominated the Gamecocks despite going just 1-for-6 from beyond the arc. Fudd led the Huskies with 24 points shooting 9-for-17 from the field, and she added five rebounds plus three steals for one of her most complete games of the season on the biggest stage.
Freshman Sarah Strong‘s star also shined brighter than ever under the lights of the national title game. She logged her fourth double-double of the 2025 NCAA Tournament and her 13th of the season finishing with 24 points and 15 rebounds plus three blocks, two steals and five assists. She shot 53% from the field and went 5-for-5 at the free throw line, breaking Tennessee legend Tamika Catchings’ record for most points by a freshman in the tournament.
Though her final stat line wasn’t eye-popping, Sunday’s victory was truly a fairytale ending for superstar Paige Bueckers. The redshirt senior ended her UConn career by accomplishing the single biggest goal she set when she committed to the Huskies as the No. 1 recruit in the class of 2020, logging 17 points, six rebounds, three assists and two blocks in the victory. She surpassed Hall of Famer Maya Moore for the most points by a UConn player in NCAA Tournament history, finishing her career with 477.
“We talked about it as a team, we thought leading up to this weekend … that we hadn’t played our best team basketball yet in the tournament,” Bueckers said. “We thought we were saving our best performances for this weekend, and it’s been just, I think, a great summary of what we have been this entire season: Being a team, staying connected, on any given night it can be anybody’s night. I think it was just a great showing of that between (the Final Four) and this game, so it’s extremely fitting.”
Both teams put on a show in the first quarter, going bucket-for-bucket over the opening minutes. There were five lead changes before the first media timeout, and neither team led by more than four at any point in the quarter. All five starters on both rosters had points in the first six minutes, and both teams were shooting nearly 60% from the field to start the game.
After the early back-and-forth, the matchup quickly evolved into a defensive battle as both teams went scoreless for more than three minutes late in the first. The Huskies forced four turnovers in the opening quarter all off of steals led by two from Strong, and though they also gave up three of their own, the Gamecocks were never able to capitalize with points off the lost possessions. Bueckers sent the team into the second quarter with a burst of momentum, hitting a baseline jump shot assisted by Strong in the final seconds to put the Huskies ahead 19-14.
UConn began to slowly build its lead in the second quarter after Bueckers opened it with one of her signature mid-range pull-ups. But it was Strong who truly took over on both ends of the floor to enter halftime two points shy of a double-double. She logged 11 rebounds in the first half plus eight points shooting 50% from the field, and she added two blocks, two steals and two assists.
The Huskies pulled ahead by double digits for the first time after Fudd hit a layup to lead the team with 13 points at halftime, but South Carolina scored on back-to-back possessions to get back within seven in the final 35 seconds. After the team started 0-for-6 from 3-point range, sophomore Ashlynn Shade caught a pass from Bueckers in the corner and nailed the wide-open look to send UConn into halftime leading 36-26.
South Carolina put up a fight at the start of the second half, keeping the Huskies from widening their deficit for the first seven minutes of the quarter. But coach Geno Auriemma took a timeout with three minutes left in the third, and Fudd immediately hit her first 3-pointer on the game out of the break. Strong added her first 3-pointer seconds later, and the UConn faithful in the crowd reached a fever pitch as they started to feel victory within reach.
“I think we all were connected in every single play, and we took every single play one at a time,” Shade said. “That was kind of our focus and our mindset, and I think we had control the entire time. Even when they did go on their runs, we were able to get composed, stop it, and then go on another run for us … Every single person on this team, from playing 40 minutes to playing one minute, contributed to this win tonight.”
The Huskies’ bench exploded after Bueckers drew an and-1 against Gamecocks star MiLaysia Fulwiley on a driving layup and hit her free throws to put the team on an 8-0 run at the beginning of the final quarter. South Carolina struggled to recover from a nearly three-minute scoring drought, and there was never a doubt for the Huskies down the stretch, outscoring the Gamecocks 20-17 in the fourth after pulling most of the starters with more than two minutes remaining.
“There’s so many emotions. Gratitude was the main one, for the journey, for the ups and downs, everything that it took to get to that point,” Bueckers said. “And just overwhelming joy. I’m just so happy for every single person who was a part of this journey.”