Connecticut has Maya Moore and not much more, losing in national semifinals

4/6/2008 9:44 PM

By PAT EATON-ROBB
Associated Press Writer

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma has been hiding the holes in UConn's lineup for months.

On Sunday, Stanford exploited those very deficiencies.

Freshman All-American Maya Moore had 20 points, including 14 in the second half, but the injury-depleted Huskies just didn't have enough else in an 82-73 loss to the Cardinal in the national semifinals.

The first time Connecticut played Stanford this season, in the Virgin Islands in November, Kalana Greene had 18 points and helped hold All-American Candice Wiggins to 15. UConn won that one, 66-54.

Wiggins had 25 points in this game with Greene sitting on the bench, where she has been since blowing out her knee in December. Guard Mel Thomas, the Huskies' best 3-point shooter, had a similar knee injury a month later.

``We've been hiding it and we've been masking it and we've been covering it up, hoping that it would never catch up to us,'' Auriemma said Saturday, a day after winning national coach of the year honors.

``This is the one team we can't match up with without the two guys that were hurt,'' he said Sunday.

Ketia Swanier got into foul trouble covering Wiggins, forcing Auriemma to use freshman Lorin Dixon at the point for 21 minutes. UConn had to go to a zone defense, and eventually full-court pressure.

``We had to have shorter people guarding Candice a lot,'' said Montgomery. ``She was able to get her shot off pretty much any time she wanted. In the beginning, in the Virgin Islands, when we had Kalana and Mel, it was tougher for her to get shots off. We missed them all year, but yeah, definitely it showed up tonight.'

With Thomas missing, the Huskies struggled from long range against Stanford. UConn was 7-of-26 from behind the arc, and couldn't get the big shot when it mattered.

Also, center Brittany Hunter, plagued all season by soreness in her surgically repaired right knee, played just 9 minutes against the Cardinal, and the Huskies were outrebounded 43-37.

The Huskies (36-2) had made it their goal this season to get the senior class to the Final Four, where Connecticut had not been since winning its last of five national championships in 2004.

``Nobody on this team had ever been here,'' Moore said. ``Now we have that experience. We've accomplished that experience and now the bar is higher, and we have to make it to another Final Four, and another semifinal, and hopefully another championship.''

UConn is now 10-3 in Final Four games.

``Life's thrown a lot of things at us this particular season,'' Auriemma said. ``Took away two of our players, limited one of them, and now the fairy tale didn't have a happy ending. But that's life.''