Donovan Clingan elevates over Nick Pringle (23) as UConn defeated Alabama to set up national championship matchup with Purdue. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)
A combination of a dynamic offense, relentless defense, and significant depth has made UConn seemingly bulletproof in postseason play, a quality that has helped the Huskies win their five NCAA Tournament games this year by an average margin of 25 points.
The giant is once again the irresistible force and immovable object of the college basketball world this weekend, with a chance to defend its national championship after taking down Alabama on Saturday to reach the final night of the season for a second straight year.
UConn (36-3) punched its ticket to Monday night with a systematic 86-72 triumph over the Crimson Tide, becoming the first school to reach consecutive title games since North Carolina avenged its 2016 heartbreak with championship redemption the following year. The Huskies will face Purdue, on the grand stage for the first time since 1969 after the Boilermakers disposed of NC State earlier in the day, for all the marbles inside State Farm Stadium.
“Everyone came to UConn to try to be a part of history,” sophomore center Donovan Clingan said after he contributed 18 points to bring his team back to the doorstep. “We’re one step closer to our goal, but none of us in this locker room are satisfied.”
“They’re good,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats conceded. “Like Danny (Hurley) says, they’re close to being bulletproof. They got out in transition on us a little bit. We let it get away from us.”
Even after UConn scored seven straight points — a run that culminated in a Stephon Castle dunk — to turn a slim one-point lead into a more comfortable eight, the Tide battled back, ultimately drawing level with the Huskies once more on a Grant Nelson basket to make the score 56-all with 12:41 remaining in regulation. Castle, whose 21 points tied a career-high and paced the winning side on this night, scored the next four to swing the pendulum for good and spark a 9-2 run from which Alabama was unable to recover.
“He’s not like any other freshman,” Clingan said of Castle and his ability to blend his impact into an established core. “He’s out there to do whatever his team needs him to do to win, he puts a lot of work in. He’s the most unselfish player on this team.”
Aside from Castle and Clingan, Alex Karaban and Cam Spencer, the latter of whom celebrated his 24th birthday in the winning effort Saturday, each tallied 14 points and secured eight rebounds apiece. Tristen Newton, recognized earlier in the day with the Bob Cousy Award, bestowed upon the nation’s best point guard, added a dozen markers and a team-best nine assists. Mark Sears’ 24 points topped the ledger for Alabama, who also received 19 points and 15 boards from Nelson, along with 13 points from former Saint Peter’s and Hofstra guard Aaron Estrada in his collegiate swan song.
The 14-point margin of victory is the narrowest for UConn in this tournament run, and second-thinnest over the past two seasons, beating only a 13-point win against Miami in last year’s Final Four. Dan Hurley has commented about his team’s ability to make tournament games look like routine non-conference blowouts, but both he and Karaban elaborated on just what makes the Huskies so formidable.
“Coach Hurley never let the returners be complacent with what happened last year,” Karaban revealed. “The new guys are hungry for what we did last year, to have that feeling. There’s no letup.”
“Our identity is to be pretty relentless,” Hurley expounded. “We might not break you for 18 minutes, 25 minutes, but at some point, if what we’re doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”
Purdue represents the third Big Ten Conference team UConn will face in this tournament, after previously eliminating Northwestern and Illinois. The Huskies used their power in the first half to steer clear of the Wildcats before their historic 30-0 run last Saturday at the expense of the Illini, and have averaged almost a full 10-0 run — dubbed a kill shot by analytics expert Evan Miyakawa — per game this season. When asked of the tendency to punctuate such outbursts, Hurley attributed the efficiency and explosive spurts to the familiarity of his roster with the atmosphere it exists in, as well as the muscle memory of closing games out that could be the tipping point in Monday’s clash with the Boilermakers.
“I think we’ve got a lot of confidence,” Hurley proclaimed. “There’s a factor with teams now that they’ve seen us play, where we get on a run, I think it’s disheartening for the other team because they’ve seen us do it a lot.”
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