Geno Auriemma, Aaliyah Edwards, Paige Bueckers react to controversial foul call at end of game vs. Iowa

As everyone had hoped, UConn and Iowa‘s Final Four matchup came down to the final possession. However, controversy reigned supreme.

Trailing 70-69, the Huskies had the ball with a chance to win the game in the final seconds. The outcome of that possession was as deflating as they come.

In the final moments, Husky forward Aaliyah Edwards sets a screen to free space for Paige Bueckers to make a game-winning play. An offensive foul was called on Edwards for the play, awarding Iowa the basketball and subsequently sending Caitlin Clark to the free throw line to ice the game.

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“There’s probably an illegal screen call that you could make on every single possession,” Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma said post game. “I just know there were three or four of them called on us and I don’t think there were any called on them. So I guess we just gotta get better on not setting illegal screens.”

Edwards appeared to slightly lean in on the screen, which was set on Iowa’s Gabbie Marshall. Marshall flung her hands around to accentuate the play and the officials made the call. At the same time, putting the game in the officials’ hands at the point in such a high profile game isn’t something Huskies fans appreciated. Edwards said postgame that she never received an explanation for why the call was made, either.

From Bueckers’ perspective, she didn’t see that play happen in real-time. She was trying to break free off Edwards’ screen and with under five seconds left in the Huskies’ Final Four matchup — Bueckers wasn’t exactly fixated on the screen that got her the ball. However, Bueckers is a believer that one play doesn’t decide a game.

“I feel there were a lot of mistakes that I made that could have prevented that play from even being that big or causing the game,” Bueckers said. “So, you can look at one play and say, ‘Oh, that killed us, or that hurt us.’ But we should have done a better job, I should have done a better job of making sure we didn’t leave the game up to chance like that and leave the game up to one bad call going our way and that deciding it.

“Yeah, maybe that was a tough call for us, but I feel like I could have done a better job preventing that from even happening.”

Bueckers would finish the game playing all 40 minutes and shooting 7-of-17 from the floor to go with 17 points and five assists. Edwards posted 17 points as well while hauling in a team-high eight rebounds and three assists.

While the outcome ended up rolling in Iowa’s favor, Edwards has to quickly think about her future as she now has a choice to return to school for one more year or head to the WNBA Draft. Her decision must be made 48 hours following the loss. With that looming in the back of her head, Edwards praised the 2024 UConn team for making it this far in the first place.

“I’m going to leave this game with being proud of the team and proud of how we, game in, game out, just continued to believe in each other and lean on one another,” Edwards said. “And unfortunately, we just didn’t leave this game with a W, but we fought hard up until the very end. Yeah, there were some decisions that, even myself, I wish I could take back. But that’s just how the game went. And we left it out there on the court today.”