Destanni Henderson was the X factor in South Carolina's national championship win

It was Destanni.

It was Aliyah Boston’s South Carolina against Paige Bueckers’ UConn. That’s how the women’s national title game was billed – and for good reason.

Boston is the 2022 Naismith player of the year who led South Carolina to a wire-to-wire season as the country’s top-ranked team. Bueckers is the 2021 player of the year whose return from injury is likely the reason UConn reached the title game. 

But when the game tipped off, the team that prevailed did so because it was more than its biggest star. Boston and Bueckers played well, but South Carolina prevailed because of the others. And none of the others were better than senior guard Destanni Henderson.

Henderson finished the game with a career-high 26 points on 3-of-6 shooting from deep, with four assists and three steals. She did it all for SC, from pushing the ball in transition, hitting shots from the outside, getting to the free throw line and everything in between.

Henderson’s outbreak performance is far from outside of her abilities — she was an All-SEC first teamer along with Boston. But she saved her best performance for the biggest stage in college hoops, and that was the X factor in this game.

Bueckers scored 14 for UConn, but no other player for the Huskies cracked double-digit points. As a team, they shot just 41 percent from the field and 25 percent from three. They were out-rebounded 49-24.

South Carolina played impeccable team defense, holding UConn to 49 points, including a season-low quarter total of eight points in the first quarter. But while Boston was doing her usual work on the boards with 16 rebounds to go with 11 points, someone needed to pick up the scoring slack and Henderson did that. 

She was the difference in the game.