Let’s remember Diana Taurasi’s best performance at UConn

Spoiler: It came during one of her many trips to the Final Four. And no, it didn’t come against Tennessee, but it helped cement Taurasi as one of the GOATs.

It was the NCAA Tournament run that led Geno Auriemma to first speak the now iconic, yet simple phrase: “We got Diana and you don’t.”

And that statement was perhaps never more true than in the 2003 Final Four against Texas.

Diana Taurasi – if not the, then certainly one of the greatest women’s basketball players of all time – finally called it quits on her playing career Tuesday night, telling Time: “I just didn’t have it in me. That was pretty much when I knew it was time to walk away.”

Taurasi leaves the WNBA as perhaps its most iconic player. In addition to being the league’s all-time leading scorer, her resume includes three WNBA titles, 14 All-WNBA selections, 11 All-Star nods and two Finals MVP trophies. She led the WNBA in scoring five times. She won the Rookie of the Year in 2004 and the MVP in 2009. She owns six Olympic gold medals, which is more than anyone else who has ever played for USA Basketball.

Before she broke records, won titles and busted down doors (literally) in the WNBA while spending 20 seasons with the Phoenix Mercury, Taurasi helped turn UConn into the sport’s standard. She led the Huskies to three straight national championships, was twice the Most Outstanding Player at the Final Four and was twice named the National Player of the Year. In her four seasons playing for Auriemma, UConn had an astounding win-loss record of 139-8.

There’s a few different games one could make a case for as Taurasi’s best outing while wearing No. 3 for the Huskies in the early 2000s.

How about the time she lit up TCU in the NCAA Tournament for a career-best 35 points on 12-of-17 shooting? What about when she swished seven 3-pointers in a regular season victory over Rutgers? Or when she posted 26 points and 12 rebounds in a Sweet 16 win over Boston College?

And remember that half-court shot she hit against Tennessee with Kara Lawson’s hand in her face at the buzzer? Or the time she blocked six shots and grabbed 14 rebounds in a win over USC?

Those are all worthy of consideration.

But no.

Taurasi’s best performance as a UConn guard came in the 2003 national semifinals in front of more than 28,000 fans at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta against Jody Conradt’s Longhorns.

This goes down as Taurasi’s top game as a member of the Huskies for a few reasons, but chief among them is that she was the lone returning starter from their 2002 national title team and they don’t get the chance to repeat without her saving the day against the Texas. There was no Sue Bird or Swin Cash or Tamika Williams. Taurasi was the singular reason why the Huskies were in a position to win this game. It was her willpower that put them over the top.

After connecting on a tough close-range jumper while being fouled, Taurasi knocked down a free throw to tighten the score. Still, Texas – as it had for most of the second half – led UConn, 66-63 with 2:56 to play. After her teammate drained a free throw, Taurasi kept the team on her back, banging in a rainbow 3-pointer from well beyond the top of the key just moments later to give the Huskies their first lead of the game, 67-66.

UConn never trailed again.

Taurasi dished out an assist and then notched a steal – knocking the ball away from Alisha Sare during a layup attempt just before the buzzer – in the game’s final moments as the Huskies went on to win 71-69. Taurasi hugged the ball tightly as a grin grew across her face.

It goes without saying, but the victory doesn’t happen without Taurasi, the swaggering trash-talking guard from Southern California who idolized Magic Johnson as a youngster. Taurasi scored 11 of her 26 points in the game’s final nine minutes to help UConn erase a nine-point deficit. The win marked Auriemma’s 500th of his career, and put UConn back in the title game where it would beat rival Tennessee for its fourth national championship.

Along the way, Taurasi played with flair and flamboyance. She taunted Duke and tortured Tennessee. And for teams like Texas that wanted to be contenders and thought they might have the chance to grasp greatness, she ripped their hearts out without mercy.

“When there are three minutes or five minutes left in the game, we have Diana Taurasi, so we have a much better chance of winning the game than you do,” Auriemma once told ESPN. “She will do whatever she has to do to win the game. Exactly the little, or big thing she has to do. She’s not afraid of the consequences of failure.”

In addition to her 26 points, Taurasi had four assists, four rebounds and a block in 38 minutes while battling what the Associated Press called a “sore ankle and back.” But Taurasi never showed that she was bothered by it.

Speaking to the New York Times before facing UConn in the national championship game that year, former Tennessee assistant coach Mickie DeMoss said this of Taurasi: “Pretty much, when it leaves her hand, I’m shocked when it doesn’t go in.”

In the final moments of that Final Four clash against Texas, and for pretty much every big moment of her career – in college, the Olympics and the WNBA – isn’t that how we all felt? No stage was too large for Taurasi. No deficit her teams faced were insurmountable. No shot was impossible. No victory was ever in doubt.

Because UConn, the Mercury and Team USA had Taurasi. And everyone else didn’t.