Victory over Syracuse would give Connecticut its fourth consecutive title

INDIANAPOLIS —  Breanna Stewart came to Connecticut with the lofty goal of winning four national championships and the Huskies are one victory away from history.

They will play former Big East foe Syracuse on Tuesday night with a chance to become the first women’s team to win four consecutive Division I titles. Only UCLA, with seven in a row from 1967-73, has done it on the men’s side and a Connecticut victory would give Coach Geno Auriemma 11 national championships — one more than John Wooden for most in the history of college basketball.

While Stewart didn’t guarantee four titles when she was a freshman, she did promise a victory against Syracuse.

“I’m not going to go and say that we’re going to lose,” Stewart said after the Huskies defeated Oregon State in the semifinals. “To end my college career, to end it with the other seniors, there is no other way that I want that to happen.”

Syracuse Coach Quentin Hillsman wasn’t planning on using the comments as extra motivation for his team.

“I don’t think she knew who she was playing yet,” he said, laughing. “So what is she supposed to say? I told our fans and our crowd that we’re going to win too.”

Auriemma shrugged it off.

“Having said it and now being on the verge of being able to do it, those are amazing things that it’s like a storybook,” Auriemma said. “You have to admire her. She’s got a lot of guts, Stewie does. And you know what we talk about on our team a lot is courage. And it takes a lot of courage sometimes to say certain things and to be able to do certain things.”

Stewart and her fellow Connecticut seniors have won 74 consecutive games and have never lost in the NCAA tournament, going 23-0. To win the title, Stewart and the Huskies will have to beat her hometown team.

“It definitely feels like it’s coming full circle,” Stewart said. “From my freshman year, when we played in the Big East, we played against Syracuse. Following that, there was no Big East, so we obviously didn’t get to play them and now having an opportunity to finish it off against them.”

The former Big East foes met at least once a season before the Orange moved to the Atlantic Coast Conference after the 2013 season. The Orange have lost their last 23 meetings against Connecticut, a skid that dates to 1996.

“I’ve been on every possible end of the spectrum of a UConn game, on a regular-season game, in a Big East Tournament game, on senior night at their place,” Hillsman said. “I think teams get overwhelmed with their speed and quickness and their strength. It is an overwhelming thing because they’re very good, but at least we understand that because we’ve seen it and we’ve experienced it.”

Connecticut is 10 for 10 in title games.

“I think at this time of the year your confidence level and your ability have to mesh,” Auriemma said. “There’s teams maybe that come here with a lot more confidence than ability and it catches up to you or a lot more ability than they have confidence. So when those two things mesh, I think you have a pretty unbeatable combination.”

Syracuse has been stellar in the tournament from behind the three-point line. The Orange have made 48 three-pointers in the NCAA tournament, averaging nearly 10 a game — up one from the regular season. They have made 33.6% of their shots from behind the arc, up 4% from the regular season.

“Our goal is to make 10 threes a game,” Hillsman said. “If it takes 40 to make 10, it’s 40. If it takes 50, it’s 50.”

Connecticut will be without freshman Katie Lou Samuelson, who suffered a broken foot in Sunday’s victory over Oregon State.