HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – The opponent is Connecticut, the crowd will be large and hostile, and the game will be the most significant the team has ever played.

UC Santa Barbara, the little-known team from the idyllic campus by the Pacific, has hit the big time in women’s basketball.

Unranked and seeded 11th, the Gauchos (27-6) play second-seeded Connecticut (27-4) in the East Regional semifinals on Saturday at the 16,294-seat Hartford Civic Center, UConn’s second home.

No, it’s certainly not The Thunderdome, the cozy arena where UCSB beat sixth-seeded Colorado and third-seed Houston to reach the round of 16 for the first time. But if anything, that’s just added to the Gauchos’ enthusiasm.

“We’re euphoric to be here,” coach Mark French said. “When you talk about our plane flight out here, I think we could’ve made it without our plane, probably just on our own energy and excitement.”

They’ll need all the energy they can muster to stay with a UConn team seeking a record fifth straight Final Four trip and its third consecutive national championship. After losing two of their last four regular-season games, the Huskies have bounced back with two impressive performances, winning by 36 and 26 points.

Yes, it will be a challenge for the Gauchos, but one they’re eager to take on.

“We’re just as good as any of them,” said Lindsay Taylor, UCSB’s 6-foot-8 center. “We didn’t come here because people felt sorry for us, that we were the only team from the West Coast. We proved ourselves. We did beat the No. 3 seed.”

Top-seeded Penn State (27-5) plays No. 5 seed Notre Dame (21-10) in the first game Saturday. The regional final is Monday night, with the winner advancing to the Final Four in New Orleans.

UCSB does have some tradition in women’s basketball. The Gauchos have been ranked in the Top 25 several times and their winning percentage of .821 since the start of the 1997-98 season trails only Connecticut, Tennessee, Louisiana Tech and Duke.

This season’s team lost early to some good competition, including Texas Tech, Florida, Purdue and Ohio State, and hasn’t been ranked since late December. French said that might have helped his team in the first two rounds of the tournament – that and playing at home.

“I think we’re like stealth Gauchos this year,” he said. “Hardly anybody’s paying any attention to us. Then all of a sudden, we start playing really well at the end.”

That low profile is what concerns the Huskies.

“I think that can kind of scare you the most, when you don’t really know a team,” forward Barbara Turner said. “They kind of came under the radar just lately. We’re not overlooking them at all.”

It’s certainly hard to overlook Taylor, who draws double- and triple-teaming that frees up teammates such as Kristen Mann and April McDivitt on the perimeter. Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma once had 6-7 Kara Wolters in the middle, but his tallest starter now is 6-3 Jessica Moore.

“Coaching one is a lot better than trying to defend one, that’s for sure,” Auriemma said. “When we had Kara, I always felt every game we went into, we had an advantage. It adds another dimension that’s impossible to re-create.”

Then again, UCSB has no one like Diana Taurasi, the two-time UConn All-American who tends to take her already splendid game to an even higher level in NCAA tournament play.

“Diana’s a competitor,” said McDivitt, who transferred to UCSB after playing three years at Tennessee. “She’s always been the one that’s really beat us at Tennessee. She was a great player then, she’s a great player now.”

The Penn State-Notre Dame game brings a Saint Joseph’s connection to the women’s tournament. Penn State coach Rene Portland used to coach at Saint Joe’s. Her point guard her first season there was a senior named Muffet McGraw, now Notre Dame’s coach.

“Everybody understands that I am a point guard coach,” Portland said. “She fits the mold of the great point guard. All point guards need to be tremendous leaders and she was a great captain for our team.”

Portland has a solid point guard now in Jess Strom, plus All-American Kelly Mazzante and Tanisha Wright, a tenacious defender who has turned into a scorer this season.

Notre Dame, in the round of 16 for the fourth time in five years, relies on stingy defense and junior forward Jacqueline Batteast, who’s averaging 22 points and shooting 55.6 percent in the NCAA tournament. Last year, Batteast shot 6-for-43 in three NCAA tournament games.

“They’re just going in,” Batteast said. “They were the same shots that I took last year. It feels really good to see the net actually moving instead of it careening off the back of the rim.”

AP-ES-03-26-04 1753EST