UConn wins fifth NCAA title by overwhelming San Diego State

HOUSTON — The Connecticut men’s basketball team has endured many trials in recent weeks. The Huskies walked into dirty hotel rooms when they arrived in Las Vegas for their first games in the NCAA Tournament. Their bus was broken into while they were practicing. And Jordan Hawkins, their observant, was curled up on the floor of his hotel room on Friday, sick and complaining of some calamari.

As for difficulties on the basketball court?

Those were insignificant things for the Huskies, who, after fighting their way into the championship game of the tournament, showed they also possessed a rock solid chin and a cool hand by turning back San Diego State, 76-59, to take their fifth title in the past 25 years.

This wasn’t another freewheeling romp, but a crushing effort where the Huskies relied on their defense to take control before making enough plays on the stretch – and were near perfect at the free throw line, going 21 of 23 in the second half – to repel the game, but scattered Aztecs.

Tristen Newton scored 19 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to lead Connecticut, which also got 17 points and 10 rebounds from Adama Sanogo, who was named the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player. Hawkins added 16 points, including a critical three-pointer that San Diego State impeded.

With 30 seconds left, coach Dan Hurley removed his starters and greeted everyone with a bear hug as they returned to the bench. As the final buzzer sounded, Newton leapt off the edge of the raised field and into the arms of relatives wearing his number 2 jersey.

San Diego State, who had never made it past the round of 16 before, attempted to replicate what Kansas did a year ago, coming back from 15 points in the second half to claim a championship. But the Aztecs just didn’t have enough offense, shooting 32.2 percent from the field and missing 14 consecutive shots in the first half, as the Huskies took control.

The Huskies were nothing like a team that finished fourth in the Big East Conference during the regular season. In their march to the national championship, they won their six tournament games with 24, 15, 23, 28, 13 and 17 points.

“The group had a lot of confidence in how we played for most of the season,” said Hurley on the field after the game. “We knew we were the best team in the tournament and we just had to play like that.”

While Newton contributed the most points and Hawkins provided the biggest bucket, the Huskies at both ends of the field – as in all tournaments – revolved around Sanogo, which celebrates the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and does not eat food or drink water from sunrise to sunset.

After sunset, he eats high-protein meals, hibachi steak and chicken with fruit, and gets up around 5 a.m. to eat another meal before going back to sleep. On game nights he lives on lighter fare: coconut water and fruit.

“I just want to say that anything is possible,” said Sanogo, who grew up in Mali and whose ambition was to continue his education in France, until an uncle living in the United States suggested he was talented enough to play basketball. come.

The win was seen in the UConn locker room as a restoration of the program to its rightful place in the college basketball universe. Since the last title nine years ago, Kevin Ollie, himself a former Husky, was fired and subsequently sued to reclaim his salary, being awarded $14.9 million via an arbitrator’s ruling and a settlement with the university. And until last month, Connecticut had not won a tournament game since 2016.

Many of the players expressed a desire to uphold the standard that stands at the entrance to the basketball facility, where the first thing you see is the 11 women’s championship trophies and, through Monday, the four won by the men.

There are also mementos of all-Americans and high draft picks.

“Those are big shoes to fill,” said Andre Jackson Jr., the team’s leader, nodding to the other side of the locker room, where former Connecticut stars Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor and Rudy Gay were holding court with reporters. “As a basketball player, if you don’t walk in there and feel inspired by it, I don’t know what will inspire you.”

The title also served as validation for Hurley, who has had his basketball life overshadowed by his older brother, Bobby, a star at Duke when Dan was a role player at Seton Hall, and his father, Bob, a high school graduate. coach at St. Anthony in Jersey City, NJ

Just over a decade ago, Dan Hurley was a coach at St. Benedict’s Prep in his home state.

As blasphemous and flammable as he can be on the sidelines, biting his lip so hard when he yelled for a foul against Gonzaga that he drew blood, he hasn’t been afraid to reveal his vulnerabilities throughout the tournament. He said he was “bad” when he first started coaching in high school, revealing that he took up painting at his wife’s suggestion while acknowledging that he is not Picasso.

The seeds of Connecticut’s celebration were planted last March, after the Huskies were upset in the first round of the tournament by 12th-seeded New Mexico State. Hurley called together his three cornerstones – Sanogo, Jackson and Hawkins – and promised them he would put a better roster around them, studded with perimeter gunners who wouldn’t budge in big moments. Among them was Newton, who played with East Carolina for the past three years.

Basketball observers were not impressed. The Huskies started the season unranked.

Winning their first 14 games, which included a loss at Alabama, the Huskies had a touchstone to return to. And appropriately, they did it again late Monday.

After Joey Calcaterra buried a 3-pointer to put Connecticut ahead, 56-41, the Aztecs mustered one last charge. Jaedon LeDee, a chiseled forward who played in his hometown, scored a pair of baskets in court that caused a Huskies timeout.

Hawkins left a jumper short, Keshad Johnson tapped in a 3-pointer from the wing, Darrion Trammell followed that with a steal and a layup, and San Diego State fans enlivened the cavernous arena as they went to 56-50 crawled.

The Aztecs – who had shown their mettle in the tournament, Alabama trailing by 9, Creighton by 8 and Florida Atlantic by 14 heading into the title game – envisioned bringing in the Huskies.

“It was that March feeling – wow, this is happening,” said Trammell, whose free throw had beaten Creighton in the South Regional final with 1.2 seconds left. “We will be that team that overcomes another deficit, and we can come out and win this game.”

The Aztecs would go close to 60-55 with less than six minutes left, but Hawkins, rolling off a series of screens at the top of the arc, unfurled his silky shot and whipped a three-pointer that kept San Diego State at bay by hitting start a 9-0 run.

“Great shot from a great player,” Trammell said, grinning at the thought.

Hurley said, “I thought the group was a little frustrated that we didn’t put them away, and they focused on performance.”

It was an orderly finish for this unpredictable, robber of a tournament.

Three neophytes made it to the Final Four, including Florida Atlantic, which plays in a gym band box and was the lowest seed – at No. 9 – to play in the championship game in no time.

Fairleigh Dickinson had provided a signature moment as it became the second No. 16 to win a first-round match and rock Purdue. The other No. 1 seeds – Kansas, Houston and Alabama – had all gone by the regional finals, something that had never happened before. Alabama had been trying to win its first national title while the team was embroiled in a murder investigation.

Instead, a team was left standing at the end that fully expected to be here – even though few others did.

When Hurley stood in a corridor outside the dressing room, having changed his clothes and wearing a net around his neck, it was with a certain satisfaction.

“It’s about being able to deliver on what you said you would,” Hurley said, recalling a promise he made to the government leaders who hired him five years ago. “The program was in a bad shape and they needed someone who could come in here and prove he was an elite coach and bring the program back to this level. It feels good to do what you said you would do.”