Mississippi State called a timeout, and in its huddle Coach Vic Schaefer looked at William and said, “Mo, you’re about to win the game.”<br />William averages only about 11 points per game, but she had awakened her scoring in the N. C.A.<br />We didn’t have the kind of maturity that you need to win at this level at this time of the year.”<br />Williams, the swooping post player, kept UConn in the game with 21 points, 8 rebounds, 4 blocks and 2 steals,<br />but the Huskies’ offense was insufficient on a rare night of poor shooting.<br />We had to prove that we’re a way better team than we were last year.”<br />The Huskies (36-1) entered the taut, thrilling game — one full of runs<br />and lead changes and gripping suspense — with a perfect record but were not a perfect team.<br />A championship that seemed inevitable for UConn ended instead with the stunningly improbable — a 66-64 defeat on a last-second shot in overtime<br />and the startling extinguishing of a 111-game winning streak and a run of four consecutive national championships.<br />“When you get to this point in the season and you lose,” Auriemma said, “it’s the worst feeling imaginable.”<br />A version of this article appears in print on April 1, 2017, on Page D1 of the New<br />York edition with the headline: At the Last Second, UConn’s Aura Is Pierced.<br />With 26.6 seconds left in overtime, UConn had tied the game at 64-64 on a pair of free throws by Katie Lou<br />Samuelson after a flagrant foul for elbowing was called on Mississippi State’s Dominique Dillingham.
