It's little guys against big, bad UConn in Final Four

All you need to know about women's college basketball this season is that Connecticut is like a big box hardware store, minus the, um, orange and white.

Orange and white, by the way, are the colors of archrival Tennessee, and probably make the Huskies dry heave. But that's a story for another time.

Anyway, all the rest of the teams out there from coast to coast are like the little Mom and Pop hardware stores that try their hardest to compete with the big box.

Sure, the Mom and Pops do some things better than the big box. They've got their loyal followers. But, at the end of the day, the big box crushes them where it means the most: the bottom line.

Connecticut, riding an NCAA 76-game winning streak that started two years ago, has won every game this season by double digits. The Huskies punched their ticket to this weekend's Women's Final Four in San Antonio (the semifinals begin at 6 p.m. Sunday on ESPN) by thrashing Florida State by 40 points. A 40-point win in an Elite Eight game? That's like real-life profit margins in corporate America!

See, Connecticut fits right in with my analogy.

So, while the Mom and Pops in the Final Four field - Baylor, Oklahoma and Stanford - may win over some customers, I mean, fans, this weekend and may put up a good fight like many real-life Mom and Pops do, expect the big box to flex its big ol' muscles once again.

Perhaps Tara Vanderveer said it best. She's the head coach at Stanford, the last team to beat Connecticut, way back in the semifinals of the Final Four in 2008.

"Sometimes, when (the Final Four) is called the Connecticut Invitational, we say, 'Hey, we just want to get invited,' " said Vanderveer, perhaps half irreverently and yet half sincerely. "But now that we're here, it's like, 'Let's play well.' "

Let's hope that for the Mom and Pops, playing well is good enough to at least keep it close. Forty-point games aren't very much fun to watch.

Sights to be seen: Besides the juggernaut that is Connecticut, there are a few other things in San Antonio worth taking in.

Obviously, Baylor's Brittney Griner is a must-see.

What a roller-coaster season she's had. Earlier this winter, I was singing Griner's praises as a revolutionary. The 6-foot-8 center had just dunked twice in a game. But like a guy. And she was also blocking about 9 shots a game at the time.

With her height and athleticism, people were saying she could single-handedly change the game. And I was on that bandwagon.

Then, near the end of the regular season, Griner went off and clocked an opponent in the face during a dust-up.

She got suspended for a couple of games and everyone was rightly disturbed.

But Griner has since returned and is minding her p's and q's. Plus, she's tearing up the tournament with 35 blocks in four games. She had 14 against Georgetown alone in the second round.

Baylor will take on Connecticut at 8:30 p.m. Sunday in one national semifinal. Stanford and Oklahoma tip off at 6 p.m.

"Every player and coach loves a challenge," Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said of the task of stopping Griner. "And my players are no different."

I bet they aren't. Should be an interesting matchup.

Meanwhile, if post play is your thing, this Final Four is for you.

You've got Griner at Baylor, and her counterpart will be Tina Charles from Connecticut. Charles is an all-American post who will likely be named the national player of the year and be selected No. 1 in next week's WNBA draft.

Likewise, Stanford features two All-American big girls in Jayne Appel and Nnemkadi Ogwumik, and Oklahoma is led in the post by a familiar name: Abi Olajuwon. She's the 6-foot-4 daughter of former NBA great Hakeem Olajuwon.

Feeling a draft: Lost in the shuffle of the Women's Final Four is the fact that the WNBA draft is less than a week away.

On Thursday, the Chicago Sky will have the fourth overall pick in the draft, which means that after Connecticut's Tina Charles is gobbled up by the Connecticut Sun with the top pick, the Sky will be vying for the likes of Nebraska's Kelsey Griffin, Virginia's Monica Wright, and Epiphanny Prince, who left Rutgers early to play overseas this winter.

The Sky will be busy rolling out the welcome mat not only for their draft choice but for their newest acquisitions.

This week, the Sky sent its first draft pick in franchise history, Candice Dupree, to Phoenix and picked up Shemeka Christon and Cathrine Kraayeveld from the New York Liberty.

Christon is a good scorer and fills a hole at small forward while Kraayeveld is a 3-point shooter in a post player's body.

More on them later.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com