Final Four report: UConn's Azzi Fudd limited vs. South Carolina with illness

Connecticut freshman phenom Azzi Fudd, the team's third leading scorer and maybe best shooter, missed Sunday morning's shootaround after she became ill Saturday night.

She played fewer than 17 minutes, only five in the first half, in a 64-49 loss to South Carolina in the national championship game at Target Center.

Sunday's loss ended a season beset with injuries, from Hopkins' own Paige Bueckers' December knee that sidelined her for two months to Dorka Juhasz's gruesome arm injury in last week's regional final – and everything in between.

"It's just one more thing to throw on top of all the other things," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said afterward.

Senior guard Evina Westbrook and sophomore forward Aaliyah Edwards were the only two Huskies to play all 36 games.

Auriemma said Fudd didn't feel well Saturday night and didn't feel well enough to attend shootaround.

"We knew it was going to be iffy," he said. "She said she wanted to give it a shot to play."

Fudd started the game, but played just those five minutes before halftime. She went 1-for-3 from the field, made one of two three-point attempts and played 11 more minutes in the second half.

She did so on a night South Carolina outscored her team 22-8 in the first quarter and led by as many as 18 points against a UConn team that never led.

"It maybe wouldn't have mattered anyway," Auriemma said. "South Carolina was just that good. You have to win with what you have."

Late in the second quarter, Westbrook left the game after she turned her ankle, but returned after halftime to play 18 ½ minutes total.

"I wasn't thinking about it," Westbrook said. "I was limping a bit. The last game of the season whether I rolled it or broke it, I was going to play regardless."

South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said after Sunday's national title win that it was incorrectly reported that her team purposefully skipped the national anthem by remaining in the locker room before Friday's semifinal vs. Louisville.

"We're just creatures of habit," she said. "The national anthem was played around the 10-12 minute mark. And that's just not the time we are out there on the court because of our pregame ritual."

The Gamecocks did join UConn's team out on the floor for the national anthem in the championship game.

"Please do your research asking questions before you go and write an article and then I'm called all kinds of names and our players are called all kinds of names," Staley said. "Please fact check. Don't put us under the gun like that because it was a distraction for us."

The Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women's Basketball Coaches Association announced its five positional national award winners – also known as the Women's Naismith Starting Five — during ESPN's game broadcast.

Nancy Lieberman Point Guard of the Year: Iowa sophomore Caitlin Clark.

Ann Meyers Drysdale Shooting Guard of the Year, Connecticut senior Christyn Williams.

Cheryl Miller Small Forward of the Year: Iowa State senior Ashley Joens.

Katrina McClain Power Forward of the Year: Baylor senior NaLyssa Smith.

Lisa Leslie Center of the Year: South Carolina junior Aliyah Boston.

The all-tournament team was named Sunday after the championship game: Boston was Most Outstanding Player and was joined on the team by South Carolina's Destanni Henderson and Zia Cooke, Bueckers and Stanford's Haley Jones.

Auriemma took a perfect 11-0 record in national championship games into Sunday's matchup. Before he did so, he revealed his secret recipe.

"Make sure you bring the best team," he said. "So I would venture to say that all 11 times – maybe there was one time – I don't think we surprised anybody by winning because we had the best team. We had the best team all year. We had the best talented players. We played harder than everybody. We were just better than everybody.

"The 10 times we lost [in the semifinals], sometimes we had the best team and didn't win. Sometimes we didn't have the best team and didn't win. One thing was sure: Every time we did win, we had the best team and we played great that particular night."

This time, South Carolina – 34-2 arriving at Target Center on Sunday – has been that best team all season.

Target Center was packed to the rafters again Sunday, for the second time in three nights. Attendance was announced as a second sellout for the weekend: 18,304.

"It's a great environment," Boston said. "You think about people on social media and they always have something to say about women's basketball – nobody watches it, nobody really cares. I mean, 18,000 people is amazing, looking at the little girls in the stands.

"We are really helping young girls because, I mean, we were in those stands. I remember being in the stands, watching Final Four games."

The NCAA issued nearly 600 media credentials, the most ever for a women's Final Four. Adding broadcast partners and other issued credentials makes it nearly 1,000.

The last women's Final Four held with fans, in 2019 in Tampa, issued 716 total credentials.

Nearly unstoppable down low in this Final Four, Boston had 11 points and 16 rebounds Sunday for her 30th double-double of the season. She worked on low-post moves with Basketball Hall of Famer Tim Duncan in San Antonio last summer, another double-double machine in his time. Both grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"I mean, I'm not there yet," she said.

Staff writer Marcus Fuller contributed reporting.