Destanni Henderson scored a career-high 26 points in the national championship game Sunday night.

It would be natural to make a pun about how it was her “Destanni,” or describe the 3-pointers that helped South Carolina sink UConn 64-49 to win the title, but what would be the point?

Henderson said everything that needed to be said on the court, and her scoreline speaks for itself, even if she didn’t know exactly how monumental it was.

When the buzzer sounded and Henderson commenced celebrating with her teammates, the senior guard wasn’t aware that she had reached a career milestone.

“I didn’t even know I had a career-high, to be honest,” Henderson said with a laugh, after it was brought up in the postgame press conference. “But when people spoke about it and let me know, that is even more of a blessing. It is an honor to do it in this special moment that all of us are going to remember forever.”

Henderson’s offensive outpouring was sparked by her defensive performance.

The senior guard drew the assignment of matching up with Paige Bueckers, holding the UConn star sophomore to zero first-quarter points and 14 for the game.

Staley said she was ready to switch the bigger Brea Beal on Bueckers if necessary — she has six inches on Henderson — but the Gamecocks never had to make the switch.

“We didn’t really have to do that, because Henny was super focused on making it really hard for her,” Staley said. “Paige made some incredible shots, but we wanted 40 minutes of making her work.”

While Henderson made it difficult for Bueckers to score, she had no trouble getting going on the other end.

She had 11 first-half points, including three 3-pointers. Every time Henderson hit from long range, she pulled out her signature bow-and-arrow celebration, eliciting cheers from the South Carolina crowd.

And when UConn made runs to chip away at the lead, and the Gamecocks needed to put them away, it was Henderson who stepped up.

“Henny did it all tonight,” Aliyah Boston said. “She attacked the basket. We knew that they couldn’t guard her, and if they couldn’t guard her, then they’re probably going to put her on the foul line and give her an and-one. And she knew, she embraced her role.”

Henderson scored 15 second-half points, including 10 in the fourth quarter, which accounted for more than half of South Carolina’s second-half production (29 points).

“She’s a quiet soul, a smooth operator,” Staley said of Henderson. “But she had a different look this tournament, because she knew it was going to be her last tournament.”

For Staley, Henderson’s success was the ultimate showcase of a player trusting in the process. As a freshman, Henderson played 15 minutes a game and averaged 5.5 points. During her sophomore year, Staley told Henderson that she was good enough to start, but she would still be coming off the bench. The next year, she started all 31 games and helped her team advance to a Final Four.

This year, she did even more.

“She never wavered,” Staley said of Henderson’s commitment to South Carolina.

On the biggest stage, Henderson’s faith paid off. Four years in a Gamecocks uniform, and she went out the way most players only dream of, with a piece of the championship net and a share of the NCAA trophy.

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Dawn Staley knows the impact that South Carolina’s win in Sunday’s national championship game can have on the game of basketball.

When she won her first title in 2017, Staley sent pieces of the championship net to all of the Black women head coaches in the country.

It was a continuation of a tradition that Carolyn Peck had started when she gave Staley a piece of the net from Purdue’s 1999 championship season. When it came time for Staley to keep the tradition alive, she couldn’t decide on just one recipient. So instead she sent a piece to all the Black women coaches, calling them a “crucial piece of equipment” to the game.

Now, she has to decide what to do with another net.

“The net is going to represent something, something in our game, something that will advance our game,” Staley said Sunday.

The plan is to send pieces of the net to Black male coaches of women’s basketball teams and to Black college basketball journalists. In 2020-21, Black men held 4.65 percent of women’s basketball coaching roles.

Staley recognizes the work that still needs to be done and feels the pressure of winning national championships as a Black coach. She’s the first Black coach — male or female — to win more than one NCAA Division I basketball title.

“I felt a great deal of pressure to win because I’m a Black coach,” Staley said. “Because if we don’t win, then you bring in … just scrutiny. Like, ‘You can’t coach, you had enough to get it done but yet you failed.’ You feel all of that, and you feel it probably 10 times more than anyone else because we’re at this platform. It really makes me emotional. It does. Because I am their hope. I am the person that they strive (to be because of) where I sit winning national championships. That’s what they want to do.”

But as much as Staley feels the pressure, she also recognizes the importance of her position.

She’s had an incredible run at South Carolina since being hired on in 2008. She’s the first Black woman to lead a No. 1 team all season long and go on to win a title. She has led the Gamecocks to four Final Fours in the last seven NCAA tournaments – besting Vivian Stringer, who did it three times at three separate schools. She’s also one of just two Black female coaches alongside Peck to win a national title.

“If I can be that ray of hope, if I can be a vessel to them being successful, I am a willing giver of this game, because the game has given me so much,” she said. “I mean, so much. My cup runneth over when it comes to what the game has given to me, so I am forever in debt in trying to repay the game.”

As for the 2017 net, Staley held on to a piece of it for the entirety of the tournament. She brought it out prior to the championship game as a reminder.

“It’s a constant reminder of how hard it is,” she told Peck postgame. “We rode the wave when it was hot and we’re going to continue to do that. But in the meantime, people’s national championship may not be hoisting the national championship trophy.

“That’s what this signifies,” she continued, gesturing to the piece of net she carried. “We won before we won. We won because of who we have to care for every single day.”

MINNEAPOLIS — Aliyah Boston was in high demand after the buzzer sounded and hordes of people rushed the court to celebrate South Carolina’s triumph Sunday night. The towering, smiling junior danced around with her teammates at center court, stopped for television interviews, shouted across the crowd to her idol, Candace Parker, and shared a moment with 2017 South Carolina champion A’ja Wilson.

There were more people who wanted to catch a glimpse or a soundbite of Boston than the star player had time for. Then, Dawn Staley found her in the crowd.

“That’s it right there!” Staley said, as she cupped her hands around Boston’s face and pointed at the cameras to catch her smile.

The lasting image from South Carolina’s run to the Final Four last year was of Boston’s face, tears welling up in her eyes and cascading down her cheeks as soon as her game-winning putback attempt against Stanford bounced off the rim. The Gamecocks walked away two points away from the national championship game, while Stanford went on to win it all.

One year later, South Carolina didn’t leave any question as to who was the best team in the country, jumping out to a 14-point lead over UConn in the first quarter and never trailing in the 64-49 win. Boston, in a fashion that has become almost automatic, finished with a double-double of 11 points and 16 rebounds to win her first national championship and the program’s second.

“God has blessed us, blessed us with great teammates who made the decision to trust Coach Staley, trust the process, and we’re victorious tonight,” Boston said after the trophy ceremony, off to the side of the celebration.

As Boston made her rounds through the fallen confetti and the feeling sunk in, there were tears. But this time through the tears, her eyes sparkled and her lips turned up into a smile, showing the mouth full of braces everyone has come to see this season.

That’s the image Staley wanted remembered.

“I think a player like Aliyah doesn’t realize her power. I think she’s really a nice young lady, and she wants everything to be smooth, smooth sailing. She doesn’t want any conflict. She’s not confrontational,” Staley said later on. “When you are like that, you don’t really understand the power of being dominant.”

Dominance was the theme for South Carolina and Boston all season long. The No. 1 team in the nation from the AP preseason poll through the NCAA Tournament, the Gamecocks lost just two games while rolling through the rest of their SEC schedule and tough non-conference slate. Boston was the biggest reason why, averaging a double-double for the Gamecocks (that at one point reached a streak of 27 straight) and finishing the season as the National Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year.

But there were many times, especially during Boston’s first two seasons under Staley, that the coach had to be hard on the 6-foot-5 forward because she shied away from her greatness. It wasn’t Boston’s nature to demand the ball and step into the spotlight, so she needed a nudge.

“I’ve been around a lot of great basketball players who have been dominant, and I saw it in her, and I would not allow her to be anything less than that, even if I had to hurt her,” said Staley, the National Coach of the Year. “From a basketball standpoint, I think I’m the perfect coach for her because I recognize what her gifts are and how to walk into that.”

With Staley’s help, Boston emerged as South Carolina’s leader this year and infused her teammates with confidence along the way.

Whenever Boston got the ball Sunday night, she was swarmed by at least two UConn defenders. So, she kicked it out to Destanni Henderson, who had a career-high 26 points on 9-for-20 shooting, and Zia Cooke, who had 11. And she did the grunt work in the paint, helping South Carolina haul in 49 rebounds (including 21 offensive) to UConn’s 24 and making two key blocks in the fourth quarter to prevent the Huskies from regaining any momentum.

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(Bri Lewerke/Just Women's Sports)

A’ja Wilson watched Boston with pride from her front-row seat behind the Gamecocks’ bench. When South Carolina was last cutting down the nets in 2017, Wilson was in a similar position to Boston, a junior who overcame two short-lived tournament runs to capitalize finally on the promise of Staley’s program.

Wilson, too, credits much of her growth as a player to her former coach.

“This team is so special,” Wilson said. “When you’re real, when you’re loyal, when you speak the truth, people buy in.”

Boston bought into what Staley was building four years ago. Having narrowed her college choices down to four schools — UConn, Ohio State, Notre Dame and South Carolina — and grappling with the final decision, she called Staley in November 2018. She felt a special connection with the coach, a former player she could learn from, a Black woman she could look up to and, as she calls Staley today, a “second mom off the court.”

Since the day she committed to the program, Boston has taken all the lessons Staley’s given her and evolved into the best player in college basketball and now a champion.

Among the people who wanted a moment with Boston on Sunday night were young girls who stuck around for an hour after the final whistle blew. Hearing her name, Boston stepped away from the noise and made her way from one endline of the court to the other, stopping every few feet to sign hats and sheets of paper and take selfies with fans.

A superstar and a champion, Boston is the pride of South Carolina. A torchbearer of the game, Boston is ever the student of Dawn Staley.

Hannah Withiam is the Managing Editor at Just Women’s Sports. She previously served as an editor at The Athletic and a reporter at the New York Post. Follow her on Twitter @HannahWithiam.

South Carolina basketball star Aliyah Boston was featured in Whistle’s “No Days Off” series ahead of the Final Four. She breaks down her love of the sport and what motivates her to play the game.

Boston initially took up basketball because her sister played, but she quickly fell in love with it on her own terms. The support of friends and family has helped her stay motivated to reach new heights — including Sunday’s national championship game against UConn.

She considers anyone playing in the WNBA to be her role model because “they were living the life that I wanted to at some point,” she said. “And so I looked up to every single one of them.”

But for Boston, the all-time WNBA GOAT is Candace Parker.

“When I first started playing basketball, I loved everything about her game,” she said. “The way that she was just so versatile, she could do whatever, whenever and make it look good.”

Boston is on the same path, as she has become one of the most versatile players in college basketball. Her hard work was rewarded Wednesday when she swept the Naismith national basketball awards, being named both national player of the year and defensive player of the year. She also won the Associated Press player of the year award.

Throughout the season, Boston averaged 16.8 points and 12.2 rebounds per game, posting double-doubles in 27 straight games and helping South Carolina remain the wire-to-wire No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll. Her double-double streak was snapped in the Elite Eight, but she roared back with 23 points and 18 rebounds in the Gamecocks’ Final Four win against Louisville.

She says that the decision to attend South Carolina and play for coach of the year Dawn Staley was the “best decision I’ve ever made.”

But while the expectations have risen over the years, the junior forward tries not to put too much pressure on herself – though she recognizes that pressure can sometimes be a good thing.

“Pressure means that you’re doing a lot of things right,” she said, adding that she tries to go along with the ebbs and flows of the game.

“If something is going really good, don’t necessarily go up with it because you need to stay level headed,” she continued. “And if things are maybe not going your way, don’t get too low because that can just take you completely out of what you’ve already had in mind.”

Catch Boston’s full appearance on “No Days Off” below:

No. 1 seed South Carolina and No. 2 seed UConn will face off in the NCAA title game, with a national champion set to be crowned.

Everything you need to know ahead of the final matchup:

When: Tip-off is at 8 p.m. ET Sunday, with the game broadcast on ESPN, ESPN 2 and ESPN U.

Where: UConn and South Carolina will play in front of a packed crowd at Target Center in Minneapolis.

Championship experience:  Both UConn coach Geno Auriemma and South Carolina coach Dawn Staley are undefeated in championship games; however, Auriemma has more experience, with an 11-0 record to Staley’s 1-0 record.

Head-to-head record: South Carolina defeated UConn 73-57 in the teams’ Nov. 22 matchup in the Bahamas. The Huskies, however, have a healthier and more robust lineup than they did in their early-season showdown.

Case for South Carolina: The Gamecocks have been the No. 1 team wire to wire and have the undisputed Player of the Year in Aliyah Boston, making South Carolina an obvious favorite to cut down the nets. Boston heads into the title game after a commanding Final Four outing against Louisville in which she posted 23 points and 18 boards. If Boston gets going again on Sunday, the onus will be on Aaliyah Edwards or Olivia Nelson-Ododa to quiet the South Carolina big, however, there is no shutting down Boston completely.

Beyond Boston and the other core players in Zia Cooke and Destanni Henderson, South Carolina will also look to Brea Beal to hush UConn’s perimeter shooters. If Beal can shut down Paige Bueckers or Azzi Fudd the same way she did Hailey Van Lith in the Final Four, the Gamecocks will be hard to beat.

Case for UConn: The Huskies enter the national championship with a lot of confidence after a pseudo-Cinderella story, taking out NC State and Stanford in close games. Coach Auriemma’s daunting 11-0 track record in title games should also instill UConn with a level of assurance.

Star sophomore Bueckers is also hitting her stride late in the tournament after coming off a mid-season injury. The UConn guard has been clutch for her side down the stretch, sinking big shots with poise. Bueckers’ performance could also be buoyed by the fact that she will be playing in her hometown, in front of what is expected to be a friendly crowd.

Fudd is also in top form entering the championship after a season plagued by injury. If the freshman can hand in a performance similar to her 19-point stand against NC State, then the Huskies could be walking away with an NCAA trophy at the end of Sunday.

After going wire-to-wire as the nation’s top team, the South Carolina Gamecocks will play for an NCAA championship on Sunday.

Aliyah Boston dominated in the paint, and South Carolina cruised past No. 1 seed Louisville, 72-59, in the Final Four on Friday to clinch the program’s second-ever appearance in the title game.

Boston led the Gamecocks with 23 points, 18 rebounds and four assists, notching her first double-double since her 27-game double-double streak was halted during the Creighton matchup.

Four other South Carolina starters finished in double figures. Brea Beal recorded 12 points and three rebounds, while Destanni Henderson added 11 points and four assists. Victaria Saxton and Zia Cooke each ended the night with 10 points.

The Gamecocks shut down Louisville’s offense, with the team converting only one 3-pointer and star Hailey Van Lith logging just nine points.

“It feels amazing we’ve been waiting all season for this moment and it’s finally here,” Henderson said after the game.

South Carolina will meet UConn on Sunday at 8 p.m, ET on ESPN in the NCAA title game.

MINNEAPOLIS — Before UConn’s two games in Bridgeport, the ones they needed to win to earn a 14th straight trip to the Final Four, the players took time to ruminate on the season they’d had.

There were injuries up and down the roster, including the three-month absence of star guard Paige Bueckers. There were humiliating losses to unranked teams. And on Monday, they’d lost key bench contributor Dorka Juhász to a gruesome wrist fracture.

Even for UConn, the 11-time national champion powerhouse, the odds of them making a run at the national championship seemed long during the low points. And this week, few pundits had them beating the reigning champion Stanford Cardinal on Friday without Juhász.

The players, and head coach Geno Auriemma, knew all of this. Instead of letting the adversity break them, they entered Friday night’s game stronger for it and outlasted Stanford in a defensive-minded battle, 63-58, to advance to the national championship game against South Carolina on Sunday, UConn’s first appearance there since 2016.

“So many years that we’ve come here, we’ve been a No. 1 seed, we had the best team going in. Everybody knew it, and it was, let’s just go do our thing and I don’t think anybody is going to be able to beat us if we play our A game,” Auriemma said.

“This year, I didn’t think any of that.”

UConn led Stanford for most of the game Friday night, but the advantage never felt safe.

Azzi Fudd and Aaliyah Edwards got into foul trouble in the second quarter, forcing Auriemma to dip into his reserves earlier than expected. Christyn Williams struggled to get into a shooting rhythm, going just 3-for-13 from the floor. Olivia Nelson-Ododa didn’t convert her first field goal until late in the third quarter, the result of a physical battle with Stanford’s Cameron Brink. And Paige Bueckers, UConn’s de-facto closer, was subbed out with 5:07 remaining in the game and later returned walking gingerly on her leg.

So, when Stanford started to cut into UConn’s lead with under two minutes to play, it still seemed like anyone’s game. That was especially true after UConn, up 58-54 with 34 seconds left, beat Stanford’s press and Evina Westbrook inexplicably threw an errant pass out of bounds, giving the ball right back to the Cardinal.

In that moment, as Haley Jones hit a jumper at the other end, UConn could have caved. But this type of challenge was nothing they hadn’t seen before.

“We’re still not complete. We’re still missing Dorka and Aubrey [Griffin],” Nika Mühl said after the game. “We just stuck together, like every other time. I don’t think there was ever a doubt in ourselves.”

Fittingly, Fudd and Williams, who combined to shoot 24 percent from the floor Friday, sealed the win for UConn with clutch free throws down the stretch. Bueckers finished with a team-high 14 points, and Nelson-Ododa and Edwards had near double-doubles to help the Huskies out-rebound Stanford 46-37, but no player’s stat line jumped off the page.

Throughout UConn’s season, when one player went down, another stepped up. On Friday night, the recipe was the same, just more resolute after months of bending but not breaking.

Auriemma won’t think his team is the better of the two taking the floor Sunday night in the national championship game. South Carolina, the No. 1-ranked squad all season long, beat the Huskies (with Bueckers) by 16 points back in November.

UConn was a different team then. They were more complete, as the injuries hadn’t set in yet, but they were also more fallible. They hadn’t yet weathered the punches and come out better for it on the other side.

That other side, now, could very well include an NCAA trophy.

“Sometimes you don’t have to have the best team to win this game,” Auriemma said. “Sometimes you just have to play the best that night, and you have to make some big plays in big moments, and you do just enough with what you have.”

Hannah Withiam is the Managing Editor at Just Women’s Sports. She previously served as an editor at The Athletic and a reporter at the New York Post. Follow her on Twitter @HannahWithiam.

It’s the little things that make Brea Beal special.

It’s also the big things.

It’s the small action of taking two steps down the block to aid Aliyah Boston in a triple team. And the big commotion caused by blocking not one, but two Hailey Van Lith jump shots in the first quarter.

It’s the blink-and-you-might-miss-it impact Beal has had all season for South Carolina.

Against Louisville on Friday night, Beal made her mark in every way imaginable, finishing with 12 points, three rebounds, three assists, two blocks and two steals to help the Gamecocks to a 72-59 win and a place in the national championship game Sunday.

“She’s so underestimated,” coach Dawn Staley said. “She’s so unassuming. Her personality makes it easy for people to overlook her. Except the people who know what she does every single day.”

A lot more people know now.

Going into the Final Four game, Van Lith, Louisville’s star guard, was averaging 21.5 points in the tournament. Beal, who often draws South Carolina’s most difficult defensive assignment, was tasked with guarding her.

Down 5-0 to start the game, Van Lith started to work on Beal, setting her up for a stepback jumper. The South Carolina junior blocked the shot, and then fielded a pass on the other end from Aliyah Boston for a layup.

Beal was able to limit Van Lith to nine points on 4-for-11 shooting with her relentless defense.

“It’s just the mentality to have every single game,” she said. “You can’t just turn it on and turn it off when you choose to.”

Beal blocked another Van Lith jumper before the quarter ended, but the Louisville sophomore still found ways to make an impact. With 1:50 left in the first, Van Lith drove and dished to Olivia Chochran, who finished a layup and was fouled. She missed the free throw, but Van Lith came up with the rebound and Emily Engstler scored on a layup to cut the South Carolina lead down to 15-10.

It was that kind of game. South Carolina would create distance, and Louisville would string together high-energy plays to ensure the Gamecocks were never too far out of reach.

“Louisville did an extremely great job just competing,” Staley said. “We could never put them away because of their fight and their competitiveness, and their ability to hang in there and score and turn us over.”

With 25 seconds left in the first half, Louisville’s fight was apparent. The Cardinals had been down nine, then ahead three, then tied. Going into the final possession, they trailed South Carolina 32-28.

Boston caught the ball in the paint and was swarmed by three Louisville defenders. She faked the shot, and then the ever unassuming Beal stepped to the hoop. Boston dumped the ball to her, and Beal finished to give the Gamecocks a six-point lead going into the half.

While Beal was a quiet impact player, Boston’s performance was much, much louder. The National Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year finished with 23 points, 18 rebounds and four assists.

“She’s really good,” Louisville coach Jeff Walz said of Boston. “I mean, it doesn’t take me to tell you what she’s good at. I’ve got a 6-year-old at home that can sit here and watch the game and be like, ‘Damn, she’s good.’”

Engstler was the catalyst for Louisville, keeping the Cardinals within striking distance. When she fouled out with 4:56 left in the game, and her team trailed by nine points, the deficit only grew.

A few minutes later, with the victory sealed, Boston and Beal subbed out and were met with cheers from the South Carolina crowd. No doubt they were cheering for Boston’s monster performance. But they were also cheering for Beal because, as Staley says, those who watch her every day know what she does for the Gamecocks.

South Carolina is one game away from a national title, in no small part because of Brea Beal.

Eden Laase is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She previously ran her own high school sports website in Michigan after covering college hockey and interning at Sports Illustrated. Follow her on Twitter @eden_laase.

Four teams, three matchups, two game days and one weekend. That’s what we have left of the 2021-22 college basketball season.

It’s also what we have left to bet on.

With every major regulated sportsbook finally offering women’s college basketball lines, we have several options to choose from. Let’s break down how, where and what to bet when it comes to this weekend’s Final Four.

Betting options

For an overview of the basic types of bets you can place and how to make sense of the numbers, you can check out our primer from last fall. While that was for the WNBA, the lines and odds work the same way for any basketball game at any level.

If you’re interested in some slightly more advanced options, we’ll break those down here. If you’d rather stick to the basics, or if you’re already well versed in these options, feel free to skip to the game analysis below.

Every sportsbook is a little bit different, so not all of these will be available everywhere. Books that now offer women’s college basketball lines include PointsBet, BetRivers, FanDuel, DraftKings, Caesars, BetMGM and WynnBet. Each of the following options can be found on at least one or two of those books.

Alternate lines

Every sportsbook will set the main spread at exactly or approximately equal odds on both sides, but if you’d rather bet on a different spread, some sportsbooks will allow you to do that at different odds. The less likely the bet is to win, the more it pays if it does.

Most sportsbooks have South Carolina favored over Louisville by about eight points. A bet on South Carolina -8 would be around -110 odds, but you could also bet on South Carolina -10 at longer (higher paying) odds or South Carolina -6 at shorter odds. South Carolina is less likely to win by double digits than they are to win by at least eight, so a bet on South Carolina -10 would pay even more if it wins.

These alternate lines are often available for game totals as well.

Half and quarter lines

These are also offered by some sportsbooks, and the concept is pretty simple – they work the same way as the moneylines, spreads and totals for the full game, except only for a specific quarter or half.

If you want to bet on South Carolina but are worried that their 269th-ranked free-throw shooting won’t hold up enough in the final minute for them to preserve an eight-point lead, maybe it’s worth betting on them to win the first half rather than winning or covering the spread for the whole game.

Live bets

Every major U.S. sportsbook has been offering this option as we’ve gotten deep into the tournament. Live betting is just betting in the middle of the game rather than before it starts. Because the lines are constantly changing throughout the game depending on the score and time remaining, sometimes it can be hard to place a bet before the line moves again, so this usually works best during a dead ball or a timeout.

The most value in live betting is often when there is a game situation that the sportsbooks may not be accounting for. Injuries are an unfortunate one, but factors like players fouling out or teams going on a run after a shift in strategy can also lead to good live betting opportunities.

Player props

Player prop bets are just bets on a specific stat for one player – typically something common like points, rebounds or assists. They work the same way as an over/under bet for the game: You bet on whether that player will go over or under the line in that particular category.

For example, in Monday’s Elite Eight game between Louisville and Michigan, FanDuel had the line at 18.5 for Naz Hillmon’s points scored. That means a bet on the over would have won if Hillmon had scored at least 19 points, but because she finished with 18, the under won.

Most “real” sportsbooks don’t yet offer player props on the women’s side (which is why it’s important to keep pushing for equal betting options). But PrizePicks, which brands itself as a daily fantasy site rather than a sportsbook, offers what essentially amount to player props on women’s college games. And as of the Elite Eight, FanDuel and DraftKings began offering some player props as well.

Final Four breakdown

Now that we have a sense for how and where to bet on these games, let’s take a look at where the value is.

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Destanni Henderson and South Carolina enter the Final Four as the No. 1 overall seed. (Kevin Langley/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

South Carolina vs. Louisville

We’ve reached the point of the season where everyone remaining is a team that has been a good bet all season. These two teams have covered quite a few spreads, as have the two in the other matchup Friday, so picking against one of them is tough.

Ultimately, this one may come down to the Cardinals’ defensive game plan. It’s no secret that the way to stop South Carolina is to pack the paint – outside of Destanni Henderson, the Gamecocks don’t have outside shooting that can come close to matching their dominance inside.

Easier said than done, however. We’ve seen other teams try this and fail for various reasons. Creighton did an excellent job of swarming Boston and company, but when you’re giving up that many inches, sometimes it just doesn’t matter.

If there’s anyone who can make it work, though, it’s Louisville and Jeff Walz. Remember when they knocked off the Oregon team that had just beaten Team USA and was supposed to go 40-0, largely thanks to Walz’s uniquely brilliant defensive scheme? In that one, he had Kylee Shook, his rim protector, matched up with Oregon guard Minyon Moore, who wasn’t a 3-point threat. That allowed Shook to freely roam the paint, while Moore didn’t hurt them from the perimeter.

The personnel and the opponent are much different here, of course, but the defensive brilliance is the same. Expect Louisville’s havoc-wreaking backcourt to apply enough pressure to make it difficult for South Carolina to get the ball inside in the first place, which could neutralize the Gamecocks’ height advantage.

Louisville will have to keep them off the glass as well, but at the current line of South Carolina -8, it’s worth taking a shot on the Cardinals to do that. Every game this time of year seems to come down to the final minute, so a three-possession spread is pretty wide.

Stanford vs. UConn

The heartbreaking reality of betting this game is that it may come down to the injury to Dorka Juhász. While Juhász isn’t the star that, say, Paige Bueckers is, the impact of her absence will be substantial.

When Juhász went down Monday during UConn’s Elite Eight win over NC State, the Huskies were up 25-18 with a chance to extend the lead at the free-throw line. That was midway through the second quarter, at which point Elissa Cunane had managed just three points.

Cunane scored 15 of her 18 from that point on as the Wolfpack went on a run to get back in the game and turn it into a thriller. Without Juhász, the Huskies are left with only Aaliyah Edwards and Olivia Nelson-Ododa as true post players in the rotation. That problem is magnified by the fact that both are foul prone and, at times, have trouble staying on the court.

Edwards fouled out of that Elite Eight game, and Nelson-Ododa had to play several minutes with four fouls. We saw Cunane get a few easy buckets at the rim late in the game, when Nelson-Ododa was forced to be less aggressive defensively on the interior.

While Stanford doesn’t have a back-to-the-basket threat at Cunane’s level, they do love to score at the hoop via layups and back cuts out of their Princeton offense. If Edwards and Nelson-Ododa get into foul trouble in this one, UConn may be forced to go small and sacrifice rim protection and rebounding.

Most books opened with UConn favored by 1.5, but that has already reversed in several places. Even with a line of Stanford -1.5, the Cardinal are still a solid bet in this one.

Championship futures

There is perhaps no better illustration of the value of “line shopping” (searching on various sportsbooks for the best odds on a particular bet) than in the championship odds.

Some lines have moved since that post, but there are still plenty of discrepancies from one book to another, so it’s worth checking around to see where you can find the best odds on the team you want to bet on.

As far as value, South Carolina is the clear favorite and should have over a 50 percent chance to win it all. The +115 odds above were from Caesars, and those have moved, but FanDuel still has that line at +100. If you can find the Gamecocks at plus odds, don’t overthink it, just take it.

Stanford is the other team that seems to be undervalued in a lot of places. Several books still have Stanford with longer odds than UConn, despite the fact that most of those same books also have Stanford as slight favorites over UConn.

Don’t bet on Stanford at anything +300 or worse, but if you can find +400 or better, then hop on the defending champs.

Calvin Wetzel is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports, covering basketball and betting. He also contributes to Her Hoop Stats, CBS SportsLine and FiveThirtyEight. Follow him on Twitter at @cwetzel31.

The Final Four is almost here. Each of the four teams remaining in the NCAA women’s tournament has made at least four previous trips to the national semifinals.

UConn leads the way and will be making its 22nd Final Four appearance on Friday while Stanford will be making its 15th. South Carolina and Louisville will each be making their fourth appearances.

UConn: 22

With 21 previous Final Four appearances, UConn is no stranger to the game’s biggest stage. The Huskies have featured in every Final Four since 2008, making 14 straight runs to the semifinals, and they have gone on to win the tournament seven times in that span.

In the Huskies’ 21 appearances before this season, the team advanced to – and won – the NCAA tournament final 11 times. UConn has never finished as the runner-up in the NCAA tournament, which just adds to the program’s impressive résumé.

Minneapolis, the site of this year’s Final Four, holds special meaning for the Huskies – it’s where UConn won their first national title in 1995.

Stanford: 15

Both Tara VanDerveer and Geno Auriemma joined their respective teams in 1985 and, since then, have brought them unprecedented success. While UConn’s Final Four success has no equal, Stanford and Tennessee are the only two other programs to reach more than 14 Final Fours.

Since its two NCAA titles in the ’90s, Stanford has made eight other Final Four runs – including last year when the Cardinal won the title again. Twice they’ve been runner-up, in 2008 and 2010.

Tennessee, UConn and USC are the only teams to win back-to-back national titles. Stanford will be looking to become the fourth this season, and if the Cardinal pull it off, they’ll join an elite club of champions.

South Carolina: 4

Unlike Stanford and UConn, South Carolina’s Final Four dominance has come within the last 10 years. After making their first Final Four in 2015, the Gamecocks made their second in 2017 and went on to win their first national title.

South Carolina made the Final Four again last year, losing to eventual champion Stanford by one point.

Since then, they’ve only gotten better, finishing the 2021-22 regular season the wire-to-wire No. 1 team in the nation.

Louisville: 4

While Louisville has made the Final Four three times prior to Friday and the championship game twice, the Cardinals have yet to win a national championship.

But they’ve been one of the nation’s better – if not slightly underrated – teams in the past few years, making the Final Four in 2018. All four of their appearances have come in the Jeff Walz era.

“We’ve been pretty good all year,” said Walz after the team’s Elite Eight win. “It’s not this year. You go back five years, we’ve won the third-most games.”