The coach wanted to send his senior All-American Renee Montgomery out on top.

Tuesday night, he got all three as the Huskies (39-0) completed one of the most dominant runs in NCAA history with a 76-54 win against Louisville (34-5) at Scottrade Center.

"I'm so overwhelmed about the way that it ended," Auriemma said. "These kids deserve it. She deserves it."

The Huskies became the first team to beat every opponent in a season by double digits, and they won six tournament games by an average scoring margin of 25.1

Center Tina Charles controlled the middle at both ends, with 25 points on 11 of 13 shooting and 19 rebounds en route to Most Outstanding Player honors in the Final Four.

"I just wanted to show my teammates that they could depend on me," said Charles, an All-American who has drawn Auriemma's wrath for inconsistent play.

Louisville thought it could get a different result this time because it was facing the Huskies on a neutral floor at Scottrade Center, unlike in a regular season loss (93-65) and the Big East tournament final last month (75-36).

It looked possible as Angel McCoughtry came out on fire for the Cardinals, scoring 11 of their first 15 points. She assisted on one basket and kept the ball alive with an offensive rebound that led to another.

Midway through the first half, the Cardinals were tied at 17. Montgomery and national player of the year Maya Moore were contained, but Louisville didn't account for Charles.

She scored seven of the next nine points as the Huskies went on a 22-8 run that all but put the game away.

"She's so active in the post," Louisville coach Jeff Walz said. "We can defend post players who like to stay on the block and just try to post up because we've got some kids that will work and battle and fight to do that.

"But what she does so well is she just moves from block to block so quick that at her size we have a hard time trying to keep up with her. And then when you can't throw a 6-4 body at her, it just makes it really difficult for us to slow her down."

Charles came within one rebound of posting only the second 20-point, 20-rebound performance in championship game history. Charlotte Smith had the other for North Carolina in its championship victory in 1994.

Louisville went without a point for almost five minutes to start the second half until a layup by Monique Reid and eventually trailed by as many as 26 points.

"We came in with the same mind-set as the other 38 games," said Huskies guard Kalana Greene, who contributed nine points and five rebounds. "We didn't do anything different.

"We weren't going to take a team like Louisville lightly. We know how dangerous they are.They gave us a run the first few minutes, but coach said this is a game of five-minute segments. After the first five minutes, we won all five-minute increments. We put our heart into it and won the national championship."

The Cardinals had more offensive rebounds (19-14) than Connecticut and only turned over the ball nine times. But they shot just 30.9% from the field as McCoughtry finished 9-for-24, Candyce Bingham 4-for-14 and Deseree' Byrd 1-for-10. Reid was 2-for-9.

"I felt really good about things," Walz said about his team's start to the game. "We just started to rush some shots.

"The ball just did not go in the basket for us. You have those games, and you just really don't want it to be your national championship game."

Connecticut came within a field goal of winning by the largest margin in title game history, set in 1987 when Tennessee beat Louisiana Tech by 23 points.

Auriemma, who is undefeated in championship games, also has won national titles in 1995, 2000, '02, '03 and '04.

He wouldn't compare this team to his past ones, and he hesitated to predict Connecticut could have another three-peat as it did under Diana Taurasi

Montogmery, who finished with 18 points, will be gone. But Charles will be a senior next season, and Moore — who had 18 points, nine rebounds, five assists and three steals — will be a junior.

Enlarge By Scott Rovak, US Presswire Connecticut's Tina Charles, who led the Huskies with 25 points, gets a hug from a teammate during their defeat of Louisville in the title game.