UConn is anything but an underdog even if Michigan is championship favorite Monday

INDIANAPOLIS — Early prognostications, as well as the preliminary point spreads for those of you who engage in that activity, have labeled UConn as an underdog in Monday’s national championship game against Michigan.

But while the Wolverines are in the midst of what could ultimately be an historic run to a potential second title in program history, the Huskies should only be dismissed at one’s own risk. In fact, Dan Hurley has already rendered that a non-factor in terms of how he will fuel his team one last time this season.

“Not at all,” the UConn coach said when asked if he would use the public perception of how Monday’s game will play out as a motivator. “When you get down to winner-take-all at this point, it’s just something that doesn’t even probably register.”

“You don’t have to be the best team, you don’t have to have the best season to win this tournament. There’s been plenty of times in the history of this tournament where the best team hasn’t won it. You’ve just gotta be better for one night, and obviously for us, we need to play the game a certain type of way where we obviously can’t get into a certain type of game with Michigan. The good thing for us (is) it’s not a seven-game series.”

Michigan boasts a combination of length and athleticism few teams in the country can match, plus a three-headed frontcourt monster of Big Ten Conference Player of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg, Morez Johnson, Jr., and 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara. The Wolverines also possess a playmaking point guard who can stand up to Silas Demary, Jr. in North Carolina transfer Elliot Cadeau, something Hurley also warned of being a tall task for the Huskies.

“They’re an incredibly dominant team,” Hurley said. “Incredibly well-coached, talent up and down the roster, physically imposing, all those things. They’ve just been dominant, just scary with the size, scary with the rebounding. We’ve gotta make them work defensively.”

“It’s going to be a great challenge,” center Tarris Reed, Jr. said of facing his former team with a championship on the line. “They play with a lot of tremendous size, especially in the frontcourt. It’s gonna be a challenge for us guarding them, and (for) them guarding us. That’s the beauty of basketball.”

The games are not played on paper, which lends further credence to Hurley’s dismissal of the underdog label. Furthermore, UConn’s track record and brand creates an expectation base and a pressure unique to its program, something he says has shaped his team for how to handle situations such as the one it encounters Monday.

“We’re not the underdog,” he reiterated. “We’re not the underdog story (where) you get a Sweet 16 berth and everybody’s kissing your butt, telling you that you’ve had an amazing season. We don’t have the benefit of going in under the radar. I do think when you get to those pressure moments in the tournament or in big spots, that becomes beneficial because you’re playing under pressure the whole year.”

“When we lose a game, our fans are brutal on social and obviously I’m disliked by a number of different programs. When we lose, the celebration that goes on, and the mocking, that’s kind of like, loud external (noise), so I don’t know that we necessarily feel Ike a huge underdog. Obviously, we acknowledge Michigan’s greatness and the team that they are, but we’re a 34-win team coming into the game tomorrow night.”