UConn’s final battle this season symbolic of what Huskies have become

From L-R: Alex Karaban, Hassan Diarra, Dan Hurley and Samson Johnson walk off court for final time together as UConn’s season, and quest for third straight national championship, ended Sunday in 77-75 loss to Florida. (Photo by UConn Men’s Basketball)

When Dan Hurley previewed UConn’s second-round NCAA Tournament contest against Florida, he praised the Gators, but also offered a somewhat bold declaration when he said someone—whomever it may be—had to put his team down once and for all to take the championship belt of sorts that had resided around the waist of the Huskies since April 2023.

Hurley, a self-admitted wrestling fan, would appreciate that that statement he made Friday after UConn turned back Oklahoma to advance to the round of 32, was akin to the gesture Shawn Michaels made in the final singles match of his career, when Michaels slapped The Undertaker in an act of defiance, in essence daring him to end Michaels’ iconic WWE run. Coincidentally, that match took place at what is now State Farm Stadium in Arizona, where the Huskies cemented their claim to a college basketball dynasty last April by repeating as national champions.

On Sunday, The Undertaker—in this case, Florida’s Walter Clayton, Jr., who was a sophomore at Iona when the Gaels led UConn at halftime before becoming the first of its 13 consecutive March Madness foes to be vanquished, obliged. His back-to-back three-pointers in the final minutes were the basketball equivalent of the two tombstone piledrivers that put Michaels down to stay 15 years ago. The Gators never gave up the lead after Clayton’s two daggers splashed through the Lenovo Center nets, holding on for a 77-75 win in Raleigh.

“If it’s going to come to an end for us, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be in a game where we lost to a lower seed,” Hurley reflected. “We played in a manner that gave us a real chance to win. Credit Clayton, he made some NBA-level threes off the dribble to beat us. It took that for somebody to put us down in this tournament.”

UConn, as one would expect from a fighting champion, defended its title with desperation this weekend, with a caginess befitting a veteran program. The Huskies dug deep Friday to fend off an Oklahoma team done in by poor shooting and Alex Karaban rising up one more time to hit clutch shots, and carried the momentum from the win over the Sooners into Sunday. UConn did not go quietly against a Florida side who could very well be the national championship favorite—it would likely be either the Gators or Duke at this point—and played perhaps its best defense of the year while Hurley coached circles around Todd Golden for a majority of the day. But an 8-0 Florida run started by Clayton’s two shots, and foretold by minor miscues where the impact of each was not truly revealed until the lead changed hands, signified a changing of the guard.

“I didn’t want to go home today,” Samson Johnson said. “I just wanted to win the game. You gotta give it everything you have. That’s the mentality I came into the game with and I was trying everything in my power to have my team win. We just came up short.”

“I thought we played with tremendous honor,” Hurley told CBS’ Tracy Wolfson. “I thought we played with the heart of a championship program and a program that’s gone back-to-back. With a worthy opponent like that, there’s honor in the way we went out.”

And so ends the careers of Johnson and Hassan Diarra in Storrs, the two winningest players in UConn history. Karaban, with an additional year of eligibility remaining, still has a decision to make about his own future, and did not tip his hand one way or the other on Sunday. For now, though, they exit the stage having made their mark on a coach who was unsure of his future following the now-seminal loss to New Mexico State three years ago.

“Young men like that change your life,” an emotional Hurley said through multiple cracks of his voice and steely facade. “The players change your life when you have such special people.”

“I just love them,” he told Wolfson when interviewed by CBS. “This year, it’s been a real battle. We’ve battled and at times, I don’t think we liked each other a whole lot with some of the things we had to go through together. But I don’t think I’ll ever love a team more for how hard we fought for what we were trying to accomplish and for the honor we played with today.”

“We’re a passionate program. The players play with it, I coach with it. You’re always fucking drained when it’s over.”

The heartbreak kids have left the building.