Leave the networks… for now. UConn, as always, plans bigger Final Four celebrations

FORT WORTH, Texas – In Geno Auriemma’s 25th trip to the Final Four, perhaps the NCAA has finally learned this: UConn doesn’t cut down the nets until the national championship. So don’t bother bringing a ceremonial ladder and scissors to the floor at the regional championships. They will remain intact. They will be someone else’s wasted efforts and the Huskies won’t even bother to look at them.

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Last season, it was sitting on the ground in the Spokane region as the loneliest championship ladder in the world until someone, fortunately, pulled it out of the ground. On Sunday, thankfully, no one in Fort Worth stood under the nets that weren’t going to be cut down after No. 1 seed UConn beat No. 6 seed Notre Dame 70-52 to advance to the Final Four.

Because in the world of UConn, Elite Eight victories are not to be celebrated but to be survived. There’s an inherent anxiety that comes with these games (Auriemma knows this better than most) and the margin between the most catastrophic end to a season in history (an Elite Eight loss) and a really good year (advancing to the Final Four), when it gets to this stage, shrinks to 40 minutes.

This specific path to the Final Four for UConn included more than a few tripping hazards, most notably, and recently, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, a player Auriemma will remind you is the best point guard in the country. None of them.

Against the Huskies, Hidalgo finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, three steals and at least a thousand heart palpitations caused as UConn players on every possession peered over his shoulders eagerly searching for the 5-foot-6 player whose speed and quickness have functioned as an invisibility shield for unsuspecting passers.

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“She probably causes more problems for your offense than any player in the country,” Auriemma said. “You can deal with a shot blocker. You can deal with that, but you can’t deal with someone who every time you dribble the ball, you’re more worried about where it is than who you’re passing it to.”

For the first half of the game, UConn couldn’t solve the Hidalgo problem. The nation’s best passing team finished the first 20 minutes with more turnovers than assists, and its two best players, Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd, were held to a combined 10 points, a season low for the duo.

But because this is the machine Auriemma built and because this particular team’s strength is its depth (yes, even on a team with the best player in the country, its strength is more than just the best player in the country), the Huskies had options.

With Fudd and Strong stagnant, freshman Blanca Quiñonez filled the void early. He scored 12 points in the first quarter alone and finished the game with 20 points, eight rebounds and three assists. Like great freshmen of the past, it’s clear that Auriemma has a special bond with Quiñonez, one of which is that he speaks fluent Italian, having played professionally in Italy for five years before coming to UConn. Although Auriemma, who emigrated from Italy to the United States as a child, prefers to yell at him in English, she occasionally pulls out a “Firma la tirare!” (“Stop throwing the ball!”) in Italian.

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When Auriemma talks about Quiñonez’s first season, she says it’s like a compilation of players like Diana Taurasi, Svetlana Abrosimova and Nika Mühl. When you have big games, people will ask you: When was the last time a freshman did what Blanca did?

He can hardly remember most of the time.

But when it comes to the way he played in this Elite Eight game, the answer is in his locker room: strong. Twice last year he finished with at least 20 points, seven rebounds and three assists in the Elite Eight or better. Breanna Stewart did that once. But those are the only players who ever did that as a freshman. Not exactly bad company.

And that’s what makes this UConn team a nightmare for its opponents. Shut down Strong and Fudd, and then there’s Quiñonez. Manage to stop it and Auriemma will have other options on the bench. They may not all be All-Americans, but they are all problems for opponents. There’s Kayleigh Heckel, a defensive headache who manages to make some circus shot at least once a game, or Jana El-Alfy, a 6-5 center who started in the national title game a season ago and, because of the Huskies’ depth this season, has averaged less than 12 minutes per game. When the offense stalled early in the game, Auriemma brought in Allie Ziebell for a time. The sophomore shoots 39 percent from beyond the arc and coincidentally tied the program record by hitting 10 3-pointers in a single game earlier this season.

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And while none of those players came in and blew the roof off the place, what they did do was give the Huskies enough time for Strong and Fudd to settle in and find their games. Because the greats, as Auriemma, who has coached many of them, knows, may have a quarter or two off, but they won’t be down for entire games. Depth gives you versatility and time, but talented depth is a separating factor. And UConn’s depth this season is last.

In the end, Strong finished with 21 points and seven rebounds while Fudd finished the day with 13 points and four assists.

“That’s the challenge you have with that team,” Notre Dame coach Niele Ivey said. “You have players coming off the bench who can start anywhere else. When your starting five is so solid, but you also have a lot of bodies coming off the bench, it’s difficult.”