Senior guard Destanni Henderson scored a game high and career high 26 points on Sunday night in leading the South Carolina Gamecocks to a 64-49 win over the Connecticut Huskies in the NCAA Division I women’s basketball national championship game at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
South Carolina (35-2) never did trail, bolting out to a 22-8 lead after the first quarter. That advantage was extended to 30-12 early in the second, before UConn would end the first half on a 15-5 run to slice the margin to 35-27 at halftime. The Gamecocks scored the first eight points of the third quarter to push the lead back to 16, but the Huskies weren’t quite done yet. A 10-0 spurt capped off by a three-pointer by Evina Westbrook got UConn as close as they had been since the first quarter at 43-37 with 1:18 to play in the period. South Carolina would take a nine point lead into the final 10 minutes. A jumper by Aaliyah Edwards early in the fourth would make it a seven point game, but South Carolina scored the next six for a 13 point lead and UConn would never get closer than 10 the rest of the way. Henderson, who had never scored more than 23 points in her 73 career games, would score 10 in the last period to help her team pull away.
Henderson added four assists and three steals to her point total in the win. Aliyah Boston and Zia Cooke each added 11 points. Boston also had 16 rebounds. Boston who is a junior was the SEC Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, and also recorded 30 double doubles in the course of the 37 game season. Paige Bueckers was the only double digit scorer in the loss for Connecticut with 14 points and six rebounds. The Huskies end their season at 30-7. The story of the game was rebounding throughout, as South Carolina owned the glass 49-24 overall (21-6 on the offensive end). The Gamecocks are now 2-0 all-time in national title games, winning their first since 2017. Coach Geno Auriemma was in his 22nd Final Four with the Huskies, and suffers his first championship game loss (now 11-1).
