In the final seconds of UConn‘s Final Four matchup with Iowa, the game was decided by the referees as Aaliyah Edwards and the Huskies were called for an offensive foul on their last possession of the game.
Down 70-69 with 10.1 seconds left and possession of the ball, Paige Bueckers inbounded the ball as the Huskies were set to run their final play. However, halfway through the play, Edwards was called for a moving screen on Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall and the Hawkeyes regained possession.
The call could certainly be described as questionable and even had NBA star LeBron James talking about the decision.
The Huskies fouled Caitlin Clark on the next possession and the senior made one of two at the line, but Iowa grabbed the offensive rebound on the miss and won the game 71-69, ending UConn’s season.
After the game, Edwards was asked about the controversial call.
“I wasn’t given an explanation [from the officials],” Edwards said. “My point of view was that it was pretty clean.”
Bueckers took a different tact, putting the burden on her shoulders and saying she could have played better.
“Everyone can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game… there was a lot of mistakes that I made that could have prevented that play from being that big or costing the game,” Bueckers said. “You can look at one play and that killed us or hurt us, but we should have done a better job, I should have done a better job.
“Maybe that was a tough call for us, but I feel I could have done a better job of preventing that from happening.”
Coach Geno Auriemma didn’t want to dive into the play too much but made sure to point out one discrepancy in the game.
“There’s probably an illegal screen call that you could make on every single possession,” he said. “I just know that there were three or four of them called on us and I don’t think there were any called on them.”
Edwards has declared for the WNBA Draft and ends her UConn career on a high note. In her final season, the forward averaged 17.6 points, 9.3 rebounds — both career-highs — while shooting 59.5 percent.
Source Agencies
