March Madness: Paige Bueckers and UConn teammate Aaliyah Edwards give their verdict on controversial last-second foul call that cost the Huskies a spot in national title game

UConn star Paige Bueckers, teammate Aaliyah Edwards, and coach Geno Auriemma made their verdicts on the late-game foul call that cost them a chance to win Friday's Final Four game against Iowa.

The Huskies trailed 70-69 in the dying seconds and had the final possession to get a winning bucket. As their play unfolded, Edwards was called for a moving screen on Iowa's Gabbie Marshall while she tried to get Bueckers open for the shot.

The call sparked different reactions from fans as Iowa narrowly escaped with the victory. Bueckers referred to the foul as a tough call but did not blame the loss on the referee's decision.

'Everybody can make a big deal of that one single play, but not one single play wins a basketball game or loses a basketball game,' she said.

'You can look at one play and say, 'Oh, that killed us or that hurt us.' But we should have done a better job -- I should have done a better job of making sure we didn't leave the game up to chance like that and leave the game up to one bad call [not] going our way and that deciding it.'

Edwards, who was called for the screen, said: 'My point of view, it was pretty clean,'

Meanwhile, Auriemma argued that illegal screens should be called 'on every single possession.'

'I just know there were three or four of them called on us, and I don't think there were any called on them,' Auriemma added. 'So I guess we just gotta get better on not setting illegal screens.'

Marshall, who was on the receiving end of the screen, praised the officials for making the call and acknowledged how it favored her team in that situation.

'A great call,' Marshall said. 'And I'm happy that that happened because it was a huge stop -- and we needed it.'

Basketball stars LeBron James and Kelsey Plum hopped on the conversation - both critical of the referee calling the foul at a crucial moment.

James took to X (formerly Twitter) and wrote: 'NAAAAAHHHHHH!!! I ain't rolling with that call.'

Plum, a two-time WNBA champion with the Las Vegas Aces, echoed James' sentiments, writing: ''To call that on a game deciding play is so wrong WOW'.

With Clark at the forefront, Iowa will head into the national championship game on Sunday against a red-hot South Carolina team. The Hawkeyes appeared in the title game last year but lost to LSU - a defeat they avenged on Monday in the Elite 8.

While Auriemma was not thrilled over the late call, the Huskies coach acknowledged other factors to the loss.

'Whether they were right call, wrong call, we had no control over the call on the screen,' Auriemma said. 'But we had control over whether we got the rebound or not. So we had an opportunity at the very end, and if we secured that rebound, now we have one more chance to win the game, and we didn't do it.'

'You can say all you want, and yes we should have won the game, but we didn't deserve to win the game by the way we played the last couple of possessions.'