The Soul of a Champion

ST. LOUIS

You probably predicted Connecticut would win the NCAA women's basketball championship, and it's safe to say no one will be asking, "Oh my God, how did you know that?" The Huskies' title was a drama-less affair; the real contest was whether their ambition would hold up for 39 games, and it did. They remained greedily sensational, right to the end.

Young players take note: The inconsequential possession didn't exist for this team. They did nothing casually. They didn't have an ounce of cool.

There was never a chance U-Conn. was going to lose to Louisville, understand? Not a chance. Not a team with such good habits, so exacting in its execution and so confident in its hard work, and not with the forceful Tina Charles and all-American point guard Renee Montgomery leading them to a 39-0 record and victories by an average of 30.5 points all season. They played all-out, every second.

There was just one moment in the NCAA final at the Scottrade Center when any of them did something that seemed off-handed. It came with 14 minutes 46 seconds to go, when Coach Geno Auriemma noticed something on his loafer. He reached down and polished it.

It was tempting to believe, watching the Huskies undo Louisville, 76-54, in a contest with no suspense after the 10-minute mark, that everything came easy to them. It didn't, in fact. They were a long-term project, and they learned their principles the hard way, through some agonizing losses during a four-year title drought. No one personified them more than Montgomery, the ringless senior who was taking her last shot at a championship.

Montgomery was a little thing, but she cracked games wide open, and her 18 points and four assists were a critical accompaniment to Charles's game-high 25 points and 19 rebounds. Montgomery, who settled the Huskies down after a nervous start Tuesday, set the tempo for the team all season and carried out their unselfish doctrine.

Montgomery is a slight, hazel-eyed creature, seemingly too delicate to be such a killer on the court. She was just 114 pounds when she entered U-Conn., and a lesser-known recruit than her high school teammate and good friend Alexis Hornbuckle, who overshadowed her growing up in Charleston, W.Va.

"It was easy to overlook her," Auriemma said earlier in the week. "And you look at her now, and to me, she's still one of the little guys out on the floor. Now imagine her even 20 pounds lighter."

Auriemma recruited Hornbuckle, older by a year, but when she went to Tennessee (where she would win NCAA titles in 2007 and 2008), he shifted his attention to the little rag-doll guard with the sweetheart face. Auriemma came back from a recruiting trip and told his assistant, Chris Dailey, that they probably wouldn't get Hornbuckle,

"But don't worry about it," he said. "We're going to get the right one."