American Conference/ Ben Solomon

Women's Basketball

No. 1 UConn Returns To American Athletic Conference Semifinals With 82-56 Win Over No. 9 Tulane

UNCASVILLE, Conn. – No. 1 seed UConn remained undefeated in American Athletic Conference Women’s Basketball Championship history and will head to its fifth-straight semifinal game after defeating No. 9 seed Tulane 82-56 at Mohegan Sun Arena. The Huskies scored nine 3-pointers and shot 45 percent (31-of-69) from the field, while holding Tulane to 38 percent.
 
The Huskies will face the winner of Game 8, which features No. 12 seed Tulsa and No. 4 seed Cincinnati, on Monday, March 5 at 7:00 p.m. ET. The game will be aired live on ESPN2.
 
UConn put five players in double-figure scoring, led by The American’s two-time Player of the Year Katie Lou Samuelson who had 21 points. Napheesa Collier (19), Azurá Stevens (15), Crystal Dangerfield (14) and Kia Nurse (11) joined her in reaching double digits. Tulane was led by Kolby Morgan, who registered 21 points.
 
The opening quarter score stayed close until the 4:53 mark when Dangerfield hit a 3-pointer to spark an 18-0 run through the remainder of the frame, as the Huskies took a 28-9 lead at the first intermission and refused to look back from there. Nurse accounted for seven points during the run, while UConn shot 48 percent from the field and had seven steals.
 
Dangerfield picked up where she left off, hitting her third 3-pointer of the night for the first second quarter bucket to expand her side’s streak to 21-0. Tulane found answers on back-to-back jumpers by Krystal Freeman, then Meredith Schulte to break the drought, but the UConn offense kept firing on all cylinders. With 3:14 left in the first half, Samuelson drained a trey before UConn registered three more 3-pointers on three straight possessions to move out to a 50-22 lead.
 
The Huskies shot 61.5 percent from the floor (8-of-13) and 66.7 percent (4-of-6) from behind the arc in the second quarter to lead by 30 (52-22) at halftime. Dangerfield and Samuelson each led the game with 14 points at the break.
 
Tulane scored 18 points to keep up with the pace in the third quarter, as Tatyana Lofton hit a buzzer-beater 3-pointer for the Green Wave. However, the Huskies tacked on 19 more points to hold a 71-40 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.