We did, in fact, make it to Hartford last night: Nathan loved the UConn pep band (thanks to sousaphonists Josh, Chrissy and Andy, and to clarinet-player Melissa, for greeting him after the game).

Almost everybody else in the XL Center loved the second-half performance from the home team; UConn turned a two-point halftime deficit into a very big win.

Moore and Charles combined for 43 and 21, and almost all their rebounds came after the break: with steals, breakaways, and open-look jump shots made good, the second-half Huskies made Stanford look rather fatigued. The Huskies are "head and shoulders above anybody," coach VanDerveer said.

Q explains how they did it: the short answer is "more pressure on Stanford's guards"; the long, and fascinating, answer involves some math.

Voepel compares this one-vs-two matchup to last season's lopsided win against UNC. "How powerful the Huskies are can be obscured," Voepel says, "because they so rarely play teams that bring out the best in them."

But this game didn't look lopsided until about 28 minutes had elapsed: I kept thinking instead of UConn's come-from-behind win, two years ago, against UNC. (Yes, that was the year UConn lost to Stanford.)

Hays explains how Tina outplayed Jayne Appel last night; Geno called it Tina's best game ever.

Coach TV points out that Jayne's still not wholly recovered from offseason surgery. Appel and Charles both give classy quotes: "She's the one opponent I know every little thing about," says Tina, "because I've been playing against her since we were 12 years old."

Barring big surprises and dreadful happenstance, last night may have settled the number one overall seed come March. Creme points out that unlike in years past, overall top seed cannot keep UConn close to home: the predetermined early-round sites for this year's Big Dance have nothing in New England, nor in New York.