UConn will meet San Diego State in the Finals after romping past Miami
A year ago, when Connecticut blazed out of the NCAA Tournament, upset by 12th-seeded New Mexico State in the opening round, Coach Dan Hurley was back in his office at 7 a.m. the following Monday to meet with his staff and his players.
He had been in Storrs, Conn., for four years and had not yet won a postseason game. He didn’t need time for reflection.
“The other coaches didn’t want me to do it,” Hurley said of the meetings. “They thought I was too emotional to make decisions, but I knew exactly where we had to go.”
Hurley laid out his plan that day. He would make the roster again, bringing in players to round his three-man squad of center Adama Sanogo, forward Andre Jackson Jr. and security guard Jordan Hawkins. The additions had two main qualities: they could shoot the ball out of the air and they wouldn’t back down in big moments.
The seeds of that cold March morning a year ago propelled Connecticut all the way to a spot in the national championship game after Miami’s 72-59 defeat on Saturday night. The Huskies play against San Diego State on Monday night, which ruined the night for another South Florida team when Lamont Butler Jr.’s jumper fell to the ground. at the buzzer saved a 72-71 victory over Florida Atlantic.
The Huskies are able to restore some semblance of order to a chaotic tournament with a capstone victory, which would be their fifth championship in 25 years – something none other than UCLA and Duke have achieved.
They reached the final with another emphatic victory in front of a parade of UConn royalty – including Kemba Walker, Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor and Richard Hamilton. The Huskies’ only awkward moments were caused by flurries of turnovers fueling Miami’s transition breaks after they built a 20-point lead in the second half.
“There’s no place where we’re weak as a team, and we’re in deep,” Hurley said after UConn’s best game in the tournament. “So we’re able to blow up our opponent a little bit and continue to put together quality assets on both sides.”
He added: “It has a cumulative effect. It has been able to break opponents.”
The catalyst for the Huskies on Saturday night was Sanogo, the junior from Mali who loved to play the nightcap because he celebrates Ramadan, the Islamic holy month in which he fasts from dawn to dusk.
“If I get my coconut water and fruit, I’ll be fine,” said Sanogo, who credited the minor Hurricanes, contributing 21 points, 10 rebounds and 2 blocks.
The Huskies were also backed by Hawkins, who had 13 points.
It was unclear until shortly before the tip whether Hawkins, UConn’s sharpshooting sophomore wing, would play. He missed Friday’s practice with a stomach flu after a steak and calamari dinner on Thursday night, which left team doctors so concerned that they isolated Hawkins from his teammates at their downtown Houston hotel.
But Hawkins, who “felt like death for the past two days,” according to Hurley, was in the lineup and quickly gave a sign that his stomach had settled, swinging a long three-pointer from the wing 14 seconds into the game.
When forward Alex Karaban sank a 3-pointer at the halftime buzzer while holding a gunner’s gooseneck shape for effect, the Huskies hopped to the locker room leading 37-24, even with Jackson playing just over four minutes. after choosing played. to two quick fouls.
It was not a good sign for the hurricanes. The Huskies had gotten here in this tournament largely by jockeying their opponents for a half before overwhelming them with a second-half offense. They trailed Iona at half-time to lead St. Mary’s by a point and Gonzaga by 7 at the break. Only against Arkansas were they comfortably up front.
That second half against Iona may have been what decided the Huskies.
Sanogo said it was normal to think about last season’s flop.
“I myself felt the pressure,” Sanogo told Iona about his walk to the dressing room. “I was like, ‘Damn why do we have to go up against Iona?’ But when we thought about it, our studying wasn’t good, we figured it out, changed our defenses a bit, and we were able to fly.
The Huskies in the tournament closely resembled the team that started the season with 14 convincing wins, including a blowout of Alabama, who would finish the regular season as the top-ranked team in the nation. But after that hot start, the Huskies went off the rails, losing six out of eight before stabilizing for the tournament.
By the time the National Semifinals arrived, Connecticut presented the Hurricanes with perhaps the most intimidating opponent of those available in Houston.
One of the questions Miami faced was how Norchad Omier, a six-foot-tall, 240-pound power forward disguised as a center, would hold up against the Huskies’ spinning towers: the chiseled Sanogo and the towering Donovan Clingan , a 7-2 freshman.
Omier, who grew up in Nicaragua and wanted to play in the big leagues until he became sufficiently proficient in basketball that he moved to Miami for his senior year of high school, had little resistance to Sanogo, nor much offense. He scored his first basket only two minutes into the second half, when Miami trailed by 17.
On the rare occasions when Connecticut’s free-flowing offense stalled, the Huskies could simply throw the ball into Sanogo, who made 9 of 11 shot attempts – including a pair of three-pointers. Clingan only had 4 points, but his offensive rebounds and towering arms repeatedly thwarted Miami.
The Hurricanes had taken the hardest road to Houston.
They trailed Drake late before scoring the final 10 points in a first-round victory. They confused No. 4 seed Indiana, blitzed No. 1 seed Houston and blasted past No. 2 Texas to win the Midwest Regional.
The Connecticut matchup brought back fond memories for Miami’s paternal 73-year-old coach Jim Larrañaga. His previous trip to the Final Four came in 2006 with a Cinderella-in-Sneakers George Mason team that defeated top-seeded Connecticut in a regional final.
This time, Larrañaga would have no such memories.
When Miami guard Nijel Pack sat on the bench for several minutes in the second half after blowing out a shoe, it may have been a sign. It took a few trips to the locker room for the equipment manager to find a shoe that fit.
Neither, it turns out, did a glass slipper.