Back-to-Back Perfection: UConn Huskies Top Stanford For National Title

The UConn Huskies certainly took an ugly path en route to their 78th consecutive victory.

UConn won their second straight national title on Tuesday night, their seventh overall, putting a cap on another perfect season.

If you tuned in at halftime expecting to confirm yet another bloodletting by the Huskies, man, were you in for a shock.

Both Stanford and UConn were playing terrific defense for the full 40 minutes, but neither team was exactly lighting it up on offense. This game bore no resemblance to the shoot-out that most observers predicted.

The score at halftime was a jaw-dropping 20-12 in favor of Stanford. That was the second time this season that the Cardinal had a halftime lead on the Huskies, but the result would be the same.

When the game began, it seemed that the Huskies had finally succumbed to the enormous pressure of maintaining two seasons of perfection. No recognizable offensive play was run. All shots were forced and missed badly. The Huskies looked tentative and nervous.

Maya Moore, two-time national player of the year, missed badly on her first five shots and was 2-8 in the first half. This year's POY, Tina Charles, shot 1-6. As a team, UConn was 5-28, an amazingly horrid 17 percent shooting for a team that averaged 52 percent for the season.

The 12 points scored by UConn in the first half were an all-time low in the 28 year history of the women's final four, and were the fewest points the Huskies had scored in a half in school history.

The saving grace for Huskies' fans was that Stanford wasn't much better. Senior center Jayne Appel, battling a severe ankle sprain suffered in March and aggravated during the game, was held scoreless for the first time in her glorious career. Nneka Ogwumike, coming off a 38 point performance in the semifinals, was held to 11 points for the game, and was never a serious factor.

The Huskies went to the locker room knowing that they had just played the worst they could possibly play, yet they were only down by eight points.

Winning when nothing goes right is how winning streaks like UConn's happen, and you had to know that things would be different in the second half. Sure enough, Maya Moore came out firing.

Having made the decision that she was going to take over the game, the way the great ones can, she got the Huskies back on their feet by hitting on five of her first six to start the second half. Her points came on a dizzying array of three-pointers, drives to the basket, and mid-range jumpers, proving yet again that she is the single most complete offensive player in the women's college game.

From that point, there was no looking back for the UConn faithful. Maya was back—victory would come.

UConn's 17-2 run to open the half erased their deficit and opened up their first lead since the game was 5-0. The margin would push up to a high of 15, and the outcome was no longer in doubt.

Stanford refused to quit, connecting on a flurry of three point shots in the closing minutes, and were trailing by just seven with 1:12 left to play. Had the Huskies not forgotten how to make free throws (40 percent for the game), the streak of double-digit victories would have been preserved. As it was, they'll have to content themselves with an ugly, hard-fought 53-47 win.

It is fair to ask what would have happened if Stanford had a healthy Jayne Appel, and you have to feel bad for the way her final game transpired, but "if" is a two-sided game—what if UConn's guards played their typical games, what if Maya lit it up to open the game instead of the second half, etc...

Stanford will be back, no worries there. A fourth straight trip to the Final Four is not inconceivable, but this year is in the books.

Are the 2009-2010 UConn Huskies the best team in the history of women's college hoops? No, that honor stays with the 2001-2002 team. But this team can lay claim to something that no team in the history of the sport can—back to back perfection.