Megan Walker scored 24 points and Napheesa Collier added 23 to lead No. 2 UConn to an 81-45 rout of South Florida on Sunday and move Huskies into their sixth straight American Athletic Conference championship game.
Christyn Williams scored eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter and second-ranked UConn finished the game on a 9-0 run to pull away to a 57-47 regular season-ending victory over South Florida on Monday night.
Koi Love and Maria Alvarez have carried Miami Country Day from "Hell Week" to the top of the heap.
Senior guard Kitija Laksa, who was averaging 16.3 points and was on espnW's preseason list of top players, has a torn ACL and meniscus and is out for the season.
Hours after Mid-American counterpart Central Michigan pulled off an upset, No. 11 seed Buffalo upended sixth-seeded South Florida. It's the first time since 1996 the MAC has had two teams reach the second round.
The Mercer Bears are back in the AP Top 25 for the first time in 38 years, thanks in part to their current 24-game winning streak.
In upstaging one of the country's top scoring threats, Kitija Laksa hit eight 3-pointers and finished with a career-high 41 points to lead South Florida to an upset of No. 13 Ohio State.
Connecticut leads South Florida 65-19 at halftime and the question is no longer will the Huskies win their 90th consecutive game. It's when will they possibly lose again. UConn only faces two more ranked teams in the regular season: No. 5 South Carolina on Feb. 13, and this same USF team to close the season on Feb. 27.
The South Florida bench has grown increasingly quiet as Connecticut has stretched the lead past 40 points midway through the second quarter.
At the end of the first quarter in Hartford, No. 1 Connecticut leads No. 20 South Florida, 30-6. Three different UConn players have outscored USF to this point, and almost all the drama has been taken out of the Huskies' quest for a 90th consecutive win.
It didn't take long for Connecticut to show why it's the No. 1 team in the nation. The Huskies stormed out to a 9-0 lead, forcing an early USF timeout. The Bulls will try to regroup after missing their first five shots.
USF comes into this game 13-1 and ranked 20th in the latest AP poll. For the Bulls, this isn't just a chance to stop Connecticut's 89-game win streak, it's a chance to take control atop the American Athletic Conference.
| TEAM | CONF | GB | OVR |
|---|---|---|---|
| UConn | 16-0 | - | 35-3 |
| UCF | 13-3 | 3 | 26-7 |
| Cincinnati | 12-4 | 4 | 24-11 |
| Houston | 9-7 | 7 | 15-16 |
| South Florida | 7-9 | 9 | 19-16 |
| Temple | 7-9 | 9 | 11-19 |
| East Carolina | 6-10 | 10 | 16-15 |
| Tulsa | 6-10 | 10 | 13-18 |
| Tulane | 5-11 | 11 | 15-15 |
| Wichita State | 5-11 | 11 | 12-18 |
| SMU | 5-11 | 11 | 11-19 |
| Memphis | 5-11 | 11 | 11-20 |
