UConn vs Villanova for the Big East Championship: What You Need to Know

● Who: No. 1 Connecticut Huskies (25-4, 16-1) vs. No. 2 Villanova Wildcats (23-7, 15-4)

● What: Big East Women’s Basketball Tournament Final

● Where: Mohegan Sun Arena, Uncasville, CT

● Watch: 8 p.m. ET, FS1

The Season So Far

UConn

Little more needs to be said about the Huskies’ 2021-22 journey, a de facto “trying” period that almost every other team in the nation would give their left arm for. Several streaks of dominance ended, primarily the 169-game winning streak against conference competition, one brought about by the Wildcats themselves back on Feb. 13 in Hartford. It was a wire-to-wire victory, one where the Villanova lead summitted at 19 before a late Connecticut surge trimmed the final score to a single possession.

The Huskies have appeared to take the streak’s severing personally, as they’ve gone on to win each of their nine games since then by a margin of over 39 points. Headlines have centered around the return of sophomore sensation Paige Bueckers, but the Huskies have enjoyed breakout sessions from freshman standouts Azzi Fudd and Caroline Ducharme (who missed the Wildcats’ victory), as well as the late emergences from leading scorer Christyn Williams and top rebounder Olivia Nelson-Ododa, seniors looking to conclude their Connecticut careers on the right note.

UConn’s most recent excursion to Mohegan Sun has done little to stifle their progress. Each of their first contests has been over relatively early, as they topped No. 9 Georgetown by 46 in Saturday’s quarterfinal round before handling fifth-ranked Marquette with relative ease via a 71-51 game in the Sunday semifinal.

Villanova

Don’t let the Wildcats’ lack of recent tournament success…their last Big East Tournament trophy hoist came in 2003…fool you. Much like Bueckers took the nation’s breath away as an underclassman, Villanova has enjoyed similar success with Maddy Siegrist. The junior’s hardwood prowess was already well-documented…Big East head coaches named her to her third consecutive First Team all-conference group…but she took things to a whole new level to the tune of a 27.9-point average in regular season conference games and her 26.4 overall average is second to only the touted Caitlin Clark in Iowa.

But Villanova’s title trek has gone far beyond the efforts of Siegrist: senior Brianna Herlihy earned a double-double in the historic win over the Huskies, one of seven earned in her final Pennsylvania excursion. Potential for the Wildcats to continue this strong streak has been manifested in the efforts of sophomore Lior Garzon, a deadly outside threat who hit 5-of-10 against Connecticut the first time around. For her efforts at the helm, head coach Denise Dillon (in her second season after over four decades of Harry Perretta) was named the Big East’s Coach of the Year.

Seeded second in the latest Uncasville proceedings, Villanova topped St. John’s 76-52 in the quarterfinal round before taking a 16-point lead on No. 6 Seton Hall in the semifinal round, withstanding a Pirate push to win 64-55.

The Stars and Studs

UConn

Paige Bueckers-This season has proven that the Huskies are a team whose prowess and strengths stretch far beyond Bueckers, but the fact that the team just happens to have the defending player of the year from several outlets coming off their bench shouldn’t be glossed over. It’s clear that Bueckers still isn’t at full strength, but she offered a 16-point tease in the Huskies’ quarterfinal win over the Hoyas on Saturday.

Azzi Fudd-A freshman has arisen to pick up the slate for the second straight season, as Fudd has proven to be well worth the wait after missing over two months with a foot injury. With Connecticut injuries forcing them down to a six-woman rotation in the first clash with the Cats, Fudd played all 40 minutes and put up a team-best 29 points on 11-of-20 shooting.

Aaliyah Edwards-Last postseason served as a delightful national introduction for the Ontario native Edwards, as she averaged 18 points over the first three rounds of the NCAA Tournament. While it took her a while to match similar production, UConn’s return to familiar blowout antics has coincided with some standout paint performances from Edwards, who has added a full tally to her rebounding average since Jan. 26. Edwards put up a season-best 11 boards in the semifinal win over Marquette.

Villanova

Lior Garzon-The Huskies were far from the first to feel the wrath and impact of Garzon’s prowess from the outside and it’s likely they won’t be the last: the Israel native has sunk at least four triples in three games this season and her clutch tally late on Sunday finally sank Seton Hall’s upset bid.

Brianna Herlihy-Garzon and several other promising underclassmen (including sophomore Bella Runyan and first-years like Anahi-Cauley, Lucy Olsen) have Dillon’s Wildcats very optimistic about the future, Herlihy’s efforts helped pave the way to modern success. Already well-regarded for her paint prescience, the fifth-year senior continued to master a dangerous outside game to the tune of 28 triples.

Maddy Siegrist-When all is said and done, there may be no one better to do it at Villanova than Seigrist, who has already hit lofty heights on the Wildcats’ all-time marks. Having already broken her own record for best single-season scoring average, the junior Siegrist (1,762 career points) is within striking distance of taking down Shelly Pennefather (2,408) as the school’s leading scorer for both men and women.

The Series

UConn leads the series 38-7 (dating back to 1988), but the new century Wildcats have had an uncanny knack for ending historic Husky winning streaks: the aforementioned Big East title was earned in Piscataway when Villanova ended UConn’s nine-year monopoly on the tournament with a 52-48 win. The Feb. 13 between the two teams in Hartford was Villanova’s first win in the matchup since February 2004.

The Huskies and Wildcats were scheduled to meet in Philadelphia on Jan. 7 but was the contest was one of several lost in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Prediction

Villanova will surely be no easy exit and will be looking to make one last impression for any lingering doubters on the tournament selection committee. But, impressive as this final stretch has been, it feels like a little too much to ask them to beat UConn twice in a year…especially in what serves as a de facto second Connecticut home game at Mohegan.

Things have certainly changed for the Huskies since that fateful February meeting. Conventional logic suggests that the return of Bueckers, Ducharme, and Nelson-Ododa will change the course of the game, but UConn should instead appreciate how several of their returnees have improved since that contest: Edwards, thrust into a starting role in February, has upped her game in the paint, notably pulling down a sophomore season-high 11 rebounds on Sunday. Fudd’s 40-minute effort helped UConn linger against the Wildcats in the first place and she’s only blossomed into a fuller player since then.

Villanova’s February upset was a layered one, one where UConn was missing players but the Wildcats earned the elusive win thanks to factors beyond Siegrist. Monday’s championship matchup seems like the perfect venue for a happy medium, a scenario that spawns only through a Connecticut victory that splits the yearly pair created through unconventional means.

Connecticut 74, Villanova 68

Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags