Breanna Stewart made a strong case for herself as the best women's college basketball player in the history of the sport Tuesday night.
 
UConn’s 6-4 senior forward won an historic fourth NCAA tournament Most Outstanding Player award as the 38-0 Huskies blew away Syracuse, 82-51, at Bankers Life Field House in Indianapolis. Hall of Fame coach Geno Auriemma surpassed the great John Wooden of UCLA by winning an unprecedented 11th national championship.
 
There are no other worlds to conquer.
 
Stewart, a three-time AP Player of the Year, scored 24 points, grabbed 10 rebounds, contributed six assists and three blocked shots to put an exclamation point on the final game of a brilliant career by defeating her hometown team.
 
“That's it,” she said. “We're going out with a bang. We did what we were supposed to do.”
 
Stewart deserves to be the lone college graduate to make the USA Basketball Senior National Team that will be coached by Auriemma and compete in the 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
 
Her competition for the best all time college player includes Theresa Grentz of Immaculata, Nancy Lieberman of Old Dominion, Cheryl Miller of USC and Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore of UConn. But Stewart is the most accomplished player of all time and none of the other candidates can match her dominance at both ends of the court.
 
Not only was Stewart the nation's top player in offensive rating this season, she was the top player in defensive rating. She finished her career with 2,676 points, 1,179 rebounds, 426 assists and 414 blocked shots. She is the only player in the history of the sport with 400 blocks and 400 assists.
 
“When you feel the most satisfied, when you you've done all that you can do, when you're working this hard and performing at that level, there's nothing else that can be asked of us,” Stewart said. “No matter, win or lose, you're putting it all out there. That's what you want.”
 
The truly great ones like Stewart make it look easy.
 
Stewart said when she arrived on campus four years ago that she wanted to win four titles. She delivered on that promise in a big way.
 
“It's unbelievable,” she said. “That was our goal coming in here once we were freshmen and to carry it out and win like this as seniors is unbelievable.”
 
UConn is the only program in either men’s or women's basketball that can set that goal.
 
The Huskies have the best coaching and produce the best players on a regular basis and they have been a model of consistency, especially in the past four years since the arrival of Stewart, and two other All Americans-- point guard Moriah Jefferson and forward Morgan Tuck.
 
The Huskies are 151-5 in the last four years. They lost four games in Stewart’s freshman year and only one since. The win over Syracuse was the 75 straight for UConn -- all by double figures. Stewart and her teammates were 24-0 in NCAA tournament games.
 
This was a flawless team, beautiful to watch.
 
 
Stewart and Jefferson should go first and second in the upcoming WNBA draft. Tuck, who technically has another year of eligibility because she was a medical red shirt, could go at No. 3 if she decides to declare for the draft.
 
The three players celebrated in a unique way.
 
Tuck found the team sword-- the kind a U.S. Marine officer carries-- that was presented to Auriemma when Marines discovered he was a big fan on their team and knighted a kneeling Jefferson and Stewart as Connecticut Huskies. Auriemma had given it to the players to use as inspiration because he figured it wouldn't be a bad thing to have the U.S. Marines on his side.
 
“In each of the three weekends of the tournament, we'd do this in the locker room,” Tuck said. “I don't know, after one of the first games, I just said, 'Who wants to be knighted?' And different people on the team volunteer.”
 
The Huskies' success has brought out some backlash from media critics, some who have tarnished women’s basketball for UConn’s overwhelming success. There were suggestions that the Huskies were actually bad for the game.
 
“When Tiger was winning every major, nobody said he was bad for golf,” Auriemma said. “Actually, he did a lot for golf. He made everybody have to be a better golfer. And they did that. And now there's a lot of great golfers because of Tiger.”
 
The Michael Jordan Chicago Bulls of the 90's had two separate three-peats which was celebrated rather than criticized. The same with the Bill Russell Boston Celtics, the John Wooden-UCLA men’s teams, the New England Patriots and the Showtime-era of the Los Angeles Lakers.   
 
No one is trying to downplay UConn's dominance. The Huskies have put together six undefeated seasons, making the sport better because they force everyone else to play at the highest level if they want to knock off this powerhouse. They have drawn more viewers to the TV set, if only to see whether anyone can pull off the titanic upset – the way the Notre Dame men did in the 1974 regular season when they broke UCLA's 88 game winning streak in South Bend; or like North Carolina State did in 1983, when the Wolfpack stunned seemingly unbeaten Houston, 54-52, in the NCAA championship game.
 
Opposing fans might not like it, but most players from other teams get it.
 
“UConn has to be there,” Chiney Ogwumike of Stanford told USA Today. “People need to stop complaining about UConn's dominance because it's not them, it's us. It's the rest of the field that has to rise up. We do have some great teams that fly under the radar and because of UConn's dominance, we can’t talk about them as much. But I think UConn basketball belongs in history for every reason they've earned it.
 
“Anybody who hates on UConn isn't being realistic about their work ethic. But I do think players and teams need to look at them and use that as motivation. We can't be settling for days off. We have to fight to get to where they are.”