Aari McDonald, left, hugs other teammates as the Arizona Wildcats defeated UConn to advance to the NCAA Women's National Championship game.

 Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star

During her team’s run through the NCAA Tournament and into the national sports consciousness, Aari McDonald has picked up more than a few adjectives.

Electric. Amazing. Lightning-quick. Cold-blooded. Fiery.

But best? That description was reserved for another player, a freshman from women’s college basketball’s biggest powerhouse, the AP Player of the Year and a first-team All-American.

The Arizona Wildcats star point guard talks about her 26-point game, how Arizona pulled off the unlikely upset of UConn and why she's proud of her teammates.

UConn’s Paige Bueckers squared off against McDonald on Friday night with a spot in the national championship game on the line, and she saw first-hand just how good Arizona’s star is.

McDonald scored 26 points and hit 4 of 9 3-pointers, and the Wildcats emphatically punched their way into Sunday’s title game with a 69-59 win over the Huskies at the Alamodone.

The third-seeded Wildcats will take on top-seeded Stanford for the championship. The all-Pac-12 final starts at 3 p.m. and will air on ESPN. The Cardinal advanced with a tension-filled victory over South Carolina earlier Friday in a battle of top seeds.

“We just believed,” McDonald told ESPN after the game. “We worked hard to get here.”

Added coach Adia Barnes: “We believed. Our team believed. We were going to Bear Down and fight.”

The UA-UConn game was, by comparison, a breeze. Despite being installed as 13-point underdogs, the Wildcats led by six points at the end of the first quarter, 10 at halftime and nine at the end of the third.

UConn cut the UA’s lead to 58-52 with 1:35 remaining, but then fouled McDonald — who hit two free throws to put the Wildcats back up by eight. Bueckers hit a deep 3-point to make it a five-point game with 1:25 left. The Huskies fouled Sam Thomas, Arizona’s 86% free-throw shooter, who hit two free throws.

UConn never led.

Arizona Wildcats forward Cate Reese (25) embraces Arizona Wildcats guard Aari McDonald (2) after she hit a three-pointer in the first half during the NCAA Tournament Final Four game at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas on April 2, 2021.

Arizona shot its way to the biggest win in program history, blowing past the program — and the player — that was viewed by many as the best in the sport. Bueckers entered Friday’s game averaging 20.1 points, 5.9 assists and 4.8 rebounds per game.

Friday, she was outdueled by McDonald — a second-team All-American, according to both the AP and USBWA.

The UA star drained her first shot attempt, a 3 from the wing, to give the Wildcats a quick lead. After Cate Reese and Trinity Baptiste missed shots on back-to-back possessions, Sam Thomas drilled a 3, making it 6-0 with 7:20 left.

Bueckers responded with a 3-pointer of her own, but then McDonald hit another triple. Bueckers finished with 18 points on 5 of 13 shooting, and added four rebounds and six assists. Dogged by the most relentless defense in college basketball, UConn shot just 37% from the field.

Reese opened the second quarter with a basket, then the Wildcats took a charge and Reese hit a contested runner, giving the Wildcats a 10-point lead.

McDonald scored 15 first-half points, 12 of them coming on 3-pointers.

Perhaps Friday’s result shouldn’t have been a surprise. After all, Arizona’s hot shooting has carried it throughout the NCAA Tournament.

The Wildcats averaged 8.8 3-pointers per game during their first four tourney games, a full three more per game than their regular-season average. They shot 43% from 3 in San Antonio before Friday, 11% better than their season-long mark.

They were defending the 3 well, too, holding Indiana scoreless from long range — the first time that’s happened in a UA game in 11 years — after limiting Texas A&M to just 2 of 8.

UConn hit just 1 of 3 3-point attempts in the first half, and finished 5 of 12.

McDonald didn’t score her first points of the second half until there was 2:12 remaining. Not that the Wildcats were necessarily worse for it: Her two free throws gave Arizona a 12-point lead, two more than their halftime advantage.

By the time Helena Pueyo hit a 3-pointer with 1:29 left in the quarter, extending UConn’s deficit to a season-high 14-points, Arizona’s odds of winning were 94.9%, per ESPN.com.

In the span of two weeks, the Wildcats proved they belonged.

The UA boat-raced Stony Brook in the first round, then persevered in a physical showdown against BYU to advance to the Sweet 16. McDonald scored 31 points in a 15-point win over second-seeded Texas A&M, then put up 33 as the Wildcats beat fourth-seeded Indiana by 13.

Up next in Arizona’s magical season: Stanford, which beat the Wildcats by 27 points and 14 points in the teams’ two regular-season games. Since the day of their last meeting — a 62-48 Stanford win on Feb. 22 — the Wildcats are 6-2.

No win was bigger than Friday’s.

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