San Antonio — A national championship. A winning streak. A No. 1 ranking. A berth in the Final Four, as the case may be this time.

There always seems to be something at stake when UConn plays Baylor, two of women's basketball's brand names, and that will not change as the teams square off in the NCAA tournament's River Walk regional final at the Alamodome on Monday night (7 p.m., ESPN).

UConn (27-1) is the top seed in the region, with Baylor (28-2) the No. 2, although both coaches believed this game would come further down the line in the tournament. Baylor is the reigning national champion, having won the title in 2019 before the 2020 NCAA tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.

"I think they were underseeded," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said of Baylor on Sunday morning. "Explain to me how they're a No. 2 seed. These things happen, I know, but I think they deserve to be a No. 1 seed if you look around the rest of the tournament. How we ended up in the same region, that's even more shocking given how good they are."

"I wish it was for the national championship and not a chance to get to a Final Four," Baylor coach Kim Mulkey said. "I think both programs are just elite and it's a shame somebody has to lose."

Mulkey said the strange circumstances of the season, rife with postponements and cancellations due to COVID — Mulkey and Auriemma both tested positive for the virus at some point — meant that a lot of the top teams didn't play each other during the regular season.

UConn, for instance, the top-ranked team in the country, had games canceled against No. 5 Baylor and No. 8 Louisville.

"I think COVID cost us the opportunity to play six games this year and four of those six games were against ranked opponents," Mulkey said. "So as the committee sat there, I don't think the committee had top 50 wins or how many ranked teams you played and all that stuff you look at. We haven't complained one bit. You just gotta go play 'em all and eventually you're going to have to play 'em all to win it all anyway."

The history of the series shows the teams are 4-4 against each other. The first time they matched up was actually at the Alamodome in 2010, with UConn coming up with a 70-50 victory in the national semifinals before going on to beat Stanford for the championship.

The Huskies and Bears have met twice (during the 2010-11 and 2011-12 seasons) as the top two teams in the nation. They've played with UConn as the defending national champion and with Baylor as the defending national champion.

UConn ended Baylor's 69-game home winning streak in 2014. Baylor broke UConn's 126-game overall winning streak in 2019 and halted the Huskies' 98-game home winning streak with a 74-58 victory before 12,415 fans at the XL Center on Jan. 9, 2020, a game which ended with Auriemma saying that "we're not at the same level they are."

But a lot has changed since last year.

UConn has eight new players, including All-America freshman guard Paige Bueckers, whom Mulkey, as a former point guard herself, admires for her passing ability. Bueckers is the Huskies' leader in points (19.8) and assists (6.1) per game and staged nearly a triple-double in UConn's 92-72 Sweet 16 victory Saturday over Iowa with 18 points, nine rebounds and eight assists.

"If you're good, you're good," Mulkey said. "I don't think Paige is concerned about it being her first time in an Elite Eight. I don't think Aaliyah (Edwards, fellow UConn freshman) is. ... I don't find any advantage in that Baylor has more experience at all."

Baylor is led by junior All-America forward NaLyssa Smith with an average of 18.2 points and 8.8 rebounds per game. Smith, a national player of the year finalist, showed why she is in Saturday's 78-75 overtime victory over Michigan in the Sweet 16, going a perfect 11-for-11 to finish with 24 points.

The Bears also boast the 2020 National Defensive Player of the Year in DiDi Richards, whom Mulkey switched to the point guard spot this year and leads Baylor with 6.4 assists per game, and Big 12 Newcomer of the Year and Sixth Person of the Year DiJonai Carrington, a transfer from Stanford averaging 13.8 points per game.

Baylor leads the nation in field goal percentage defense at .323 and rebounding margin at plus-19.2.

The Bears' two losses this year came at Arkansas on Dec. 6 (83-78) and at home against Iowa State on Jan. 16 (75-71). UConn's only loss also came at the hands of Arkansas, 90-87 on Jan. 28.

Now, another chapter in UConn-Baylor history will be written in the same building as the first one.

The winner goes to the Final Four to meet either Indiana or Arizona on Friday in the national semifinals. UConn is bidding for its unprecedented 13th straight Final Four bid.

"If you watch Baylor play you can't be anything but impressed with their size and their physicality and their athletic ability," Auriemma said. "... I think the entire Baylor team is exceptional defensively. You don't necessarily crack the lineup or get a lot playing time at Baylor if you're not a great defensive player."

"This isn't the national championship and we want to get there so we have to continue to play like we're not there because we aren't," Baylor senior guard Moon Ursin said. "We want to keep fighting. We want to keep battling so that's what we have to go out there and do."

v.fulkerson@theday.com

No. 1 UConn vs. No. 2 Baylor

NCAA

tournament

Elite

Eight

River Walk Region

Location: Alamodome, San Antonio

Tip: 7 p.m. (ESPN)

Records: Baylor 28-2 overall, UConn 27-1.

Last game: Baylor beat No. 6 Michigan in the NCAA Sweet 16 Saturday 78-75 (OT); UConn beat No. 5 Iowa in the NCAA Sweet 16 Saturday 92-72.

Probable starters: Baylor, 6-2 F NaLyssa Smith (18.2 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 3.2 apg), 5-6 G Moon Ursin (12.6 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 3.8 apg), 6-3 C Queen Egbo (11.2 ppg, 8.6 rpg, 1.9 bpg), 6-2 G DiDi Richards (6.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 6.4 apg), 5-9 G Trinity Oliver (4.5 ppg, 3.2 rpg).

UConn, 5-11 G Paige Bueckers (19.8 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 6.1 apg, 2.3 spg), 6-3 F Aaliyah Edwards (11.1 ppg, 5.6 rpg), 5-11 G Christyn Williams (16.0 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.3 apg), 6-5 F Olivia Nelson-Ododa (12.7 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 3.0 apg, 1.7 bpg), 6-0 G Evina Westbrook (9.4 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 4.4 apg, 1.8 spg).

Noteworthy: Baylor is the reigning national champion, having won the 2019 title over Notre Dame 82-81 in Tampa, with last year's NCAA tournament being canceled due to COVID. The Bears have also won their last two meetings against UConn, 67-58 in Waco, Texas, in 2019, and 74-58 last year at the XL Center in Hartford. ... In last year's game, Baylor outscored the Huskies in the paint 32-18 with UConn's Olivia Nelson-Ododa finishing the game scoreless. This season Nelson-Ododa, now a junior, has a sidekick in the frontcourt in Aaliyah Edwards, a confident 6-foot-3 freshman who has excelled in the NCAA tournament thus far and now undertakes a starting role due to the injury of fellow freshman Nika Muhl. "Having somebody like Aaliyah, that's an element that we didn't have last season," UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. "That allows Liv an opportunity to be more of a distributor for us and be someone who can occupy one of their defenders at the high post and gives us some defensive flexibility. Last year the entire defensive assignment was pretty much Liv vs. the rest of them." ... Baylor leads the nation in field goal defense percentage at .323. What makes the Bears' defense so good? "They're long, they're athletic, they're physical. They really try to intimidate you and impose their will on you," Auriemma said. "They're a very athletic, very physically intimidating team. I don't know that anybody would ever call us that. They remind me of when we had Tina (Charles) and Maya (Moore) and Renee (Montgomery), Kalana (Greene), that group back then." ... Baylor played overtime Saturday before surviving against Michigan, with four different Bears playing at least 44 minutes in NaLyssa Smith, Moon Ursin, DiDi Richards and DiJonai Carrington, but Baylor can't afford to be tired on Monday, Ursin said. "We just got to dig. We just got to keep going," Ursin said. "We can't be tired. We won't be tired." ... UConn is gunning for its 13th straight trip to the Final Four. In the 2019 NCAA tournament, the Huskies were the No. 2 seed in the Albany Region behind Louisville but beat the Cardinals 80-73 in the regional final behind 29 points from senior Katie Lou Samuelson, who hit seven 3-point field goals.

— Vickie Fulkerson