GREENSBORO, N.C. — Maya Moore stole the ball and was looking at a sure-thing layup that would have put Connecticut ahead to stay, until she dribbled the ball off her foot and out of bounds.

That was just the latest reason why the Huskies’ season seemed doomed to end in the regionals once again: After trailing by double figures, their sharpest shooters couldn’t get shots to fall and their surest hands couldn’t keep the ball.

Doubts, anyone?

“No. You can never let that thought enter your mind if you’re trying to win a national championship,” Moore said. “We have been a team where, when things get hard — throughout the season and even in practice — we just try to embrace it, overcome it. This is just another little example — big example — that we can use (to find) confidence.”

She found plenty two possessions later, when she made up for it by hitting the shot that propelled the Huskies to the Final Four.

Yes, UConn is headed back to the biggest stage in women’s college basketball, thanks to Moore’s tiebreaking 3-pointer with less than 3 minutes left that propelled the top-seeded Huskies past No. 2 seed Rutgers 66-56 on Tuesday night in the Greensboro Regional championship.

Renee Montgomery and Ketia Swanier each scored 15 points to lead the Huskies (36-1), who rallied from a 14-point deficit against their Big East rivals to win their 15th straight game and reach their ninth Final Four — but first since winning the 2004 national championship.

“One more Final Four to me doesn’t change my life one bit,” UConn coach Geno Auriemma said. “But the look on their faces and the emotion that was in their faces and in that locker room, because it’s their first opportunity to do something like this, that’s what makes you coach year after year after year, just to be able to experience that.”

Moore, an All-American selected the regional’s most outstanding player, was held to a season-low-tying seven points and her second single-digit performance of the season by a Rutgers defense intent on stopping her.

Still, her final basket couldn’t have come at a better time.

“I was being face-guarded all night, and I’ve never been face-guarded the whole night by such an athletic team,” Moore said. “We just ran our offense there towards the end. ... What was really the key was, we started screening. For 80 percent of the game, we were setting horrible screens, and we weren’t helping each other get open.”

With the game tied at 49-all, Moore ran off Tina Charles’ screen on two-time Big East defensive player of the year Essence Carson at the top of the key, pulled up and swished the 3 that put UConn ahead to stay with 2:55 left.

“It looked to me like (Carson) slipped,” Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said. “(Carson) normally would have been on her tail. But give Maya credit. She did something that some of our young people playing today had a little problem doing. ... They might not score 20 points, but when she stuck that dagger in, she rejuvenated everybody else.”

The Huskies then were perfect on 14 free throws in the final 2-plus minutes to end their three-year Final Four hiatus. No. 1 overall seed UConn will face Stanford, the No. 2 seed in the Spokane Regional, in a national semifinal April 6; the Huskies beat the Cardinal 66-54 in the Paradise Jam tournament in the Virgin Islands in November.

“As much as everybody thought, ’Yeah, you’re the best team in the tournament. It’s your tournament, the only way you can lose is if you beat yourself,’ I just never bought into that,” Auriemma said. “I knew how hard it was going to be. ... They deserve every single thing that’s happened to them, and I’ve never been happier for a group of guys, really.”

Matee Ajavon scored 18 points on 8-for-23 shooting to lead Rutgers (27-7), the defending Greensboro Regional champion which was denied its second consecutive Final Four berth.

Carson finished with 12 points and 12 rebounds, but was held scoreless in the second half, and Kia Vaughn added 11 points for the Scarlet Knights, who gave UConn its only loss of the season two months ago before the Huskies beat them by 20 points in the regular-season finale.

This time, two of the Huskies’ highest-profile players struggled on the offensive end for much of the night, but came through when it counted most. Moore had trouble getting touches while being swarmed by defenders Brittany Ray and Heather Zurich and managed just seven shots, making three.

“I didn’t really take a lot of shots, but my teammates stepped up and hit open shots,” Moore said.

Namely, Montgomery. After scoring at least 20 points in each of the teams’ two previous meetings, she was just 4-for-14 from the field and made only one of her nine attempts from behind the arc. But twice in the second half she knocked down tying jumpers, including one with 7 1/2 minutes left that highlighted the 15-5 run that gave UConn its first lead.

“Every time I missed it — which was almost every time I shot it — the whole team and all the coaches were just like, ’That’s a good shot. Stay with it,”’ Montgomery said. “I think that’s why I didn’t really hesitate when I was about to shoot it the next time, because everyone was happy with the shots I was taking, and I was open. I just could not get one to fall.”

Kaili McLaren, whose layup less than a minute later put the Huskies ahead for the first time, finished with 10 points, and Charles added 12 rebounds for UConn, which erased a huge deficit with a 19-5 run that bridged halftime.

“We’re not going to quit,” Moore said. “If there’s still time on the clock, we still have a chance.”