ALBANY, N.Y. -- Geno Auriemma reached another milestone.
The Hall of Famer became the second coach to achieve 100 victories in the NCAA Tournament as his UConn Huskies pulled off a record rout of Texas, 105-54, on Saturday in the Sweet 16. Auriemma joined Pat Summitt, who finished with 112 wins tourney in her career, as the only two coaches in men's or women's basketball to reach 100.
"That's lots of wins, 100 wins in the NCAA tournament," Auriemma said. "Some people don't get to play in the NCAA tournament ever or play a couple games. We've been pretty fortunate. We didn't win anything in the NCAA in our first couple years."
The Huskies stand three victories away from a third straight national championship and 10th overall. UConn will face Dayton in the regional finals after the seventh-seeded Flyers upset Louisville 82-66.
Breanna Stewart was a key reason why the Huskies set the tournament record for margin of victory. The junior star had 31 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.
"(Today) was a lot of fun," Stewart said. "Right from the start shots were going in and we were being aggressive. ... Texas has a big presence inside, big post players. We knew if we got them moving a little bit, we could get any shot we wanted."
The Huskies shot a blistering 56 percent from the field.
"Like I said to the coaching staff at Texas, when you shoot the ball as well as we did, we're a really hard team to play against," Auriemma said.
UConn (35-1) led 26-19 midway through the first half before blowing the game open with a 44-9 run spanning the half. The burst started with 13 straight points by the Huskies.
UConn led 52-24 at the half and scored 18 points in the first 3:30 of the second half to finish off the run.
Stewart surpassed her previous NCAA Tournament best of 29 points before leaving the game for good with just over 9 minutes left. Moriah Jefferson added a career-high 25 points -- hitting 10 of her 12 shots -- for the Huskies, who have advanced to the regional final for 10 straight seasons. They have been to the Final Four a record seven straight years.
Ariel Atkins scored 11 to lead Texas (24-11). The Longhorns tried to slow the Huskies down with their big lineup of 6-foot-7 Imani Stafford-McGee and 6-5 Kelsey Lang, and were within seven points 9:36 before halftime before the Huskies made their run.
Dayton 82, Louisville 66
ALBANY, N.Y. -- Andrea Hoover scored 26 points and seventh-seeded Dayton continued its improbable run regional with against third-seeded Louisville.
Amber Deane added 15 points and Jodie Cornelie-Sigmundova had 12 and 11 rebounds for the Flyers, who won for the 11th time in the last 12 games. The Flyers become the fourth No. 7 seed to advance to a regional final since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1994, and the first since Mississippi in 2007.
Myisha Hines-Allen scored all 14 of her points in the second half to lead Louisville, which finishes 27-7.
Dayton led by a point at halftime., but a 3-pointer from Deane capped an 11-2 run early in the second half that pushed the lead to double digits, and the Flyers never trailed after intermission.
The Flyers shot 51 percent from the floor and made 26 of their 30 free throws. Hoover was 15 of 15 from the line, becoming the first player with a minimum of 12 attempts to shoot 100 percent from the line.
Dayton upset second-seed Kentucky, 99-94, in the second round. The Flyers made 11 3-pointers against the Wildcats. They were just 2 of 10 from behind the arc in this one, but outscored the Cardinals 42-34 in the paint.
Louisville was just 1 of 15 from 3-point range and shot just 31.5 percent for the game. Jude Schimmel hit just four of her 23 shots and finished with 11 points.
Maryland 65, Duke 55
SPOKANE, Wash. -- Shatori Walker-Kimbrough scored 18 of her 24 points in the second half and Laurin Mincy scored all 15 of her points in the first half for top-seeded Maryland.
The Terrapins (33-2) reached the Elite Eight for the sixth time under coach Brenda Frese, taking down their former foe from the ACC. The Terrapins had lost eight of their previous 10 games against Duke, but Maryland is 2-0 against the Blue Devils in the NCAA Tournament.
Elizabeth Williams led Duke (23-11) with 18 points and nine rebounds.
In the first half, the Terrapins offense was mostly Mincy finding holes in Duke's zone defense and hitting 3s from the perimeter. Mincy scored 12 of Maryland's first 24 points, all on 3-pointers, but she deferred to Walker-Kimbrough in the final 20 minutes. The sophomore made 8 of 11 shots in the second half and just missed topping her previous career scoring high of 25.
Brionna Jones added 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Terrapins. Ka'lia Johnson scored 15 points for the short-handed Blue Devils, but Azura Stevens finished with 11 points on 5 of 15 shooting while Rebecca Greenwell was held to five after averaging 14.3 on the season.
Sports on 03/29/2015