GLENDALE, Ariz. – The UConn men are on top of the basketball world. Again.
For the second year in a row, it was Dan Hurley and the Huskies cutting down the nets and lifting the national championship trophy on the sport’s biggest stage, completing their remarkable run as reigning champs with a 75-60 win in a mammoth matchup against Purdue Monday night.
“What could you say. We won. By a lot. Again,” Hurley said, after the program’s 12th consecutive NCAA Tournament win by double-digits.
UConn is the first repeat men’s national champion since Florida in 2006-07, the eighth all-time and only the third since the NCAA Tournament expanded in 1985 – including the 1991 and ’92 Duke teams that had Bobby Hurley, Dan’s brother, at point guard.
Now with six titles in as many championship game appearances, all since 1999, UConn is tied with North Carolina for the third-most of any program in the nation behind UCLA (11) and Kentucky (8).
“For the last 25, 30 years, UConn’s been running college basketball,” Hurley said on the podium.
“It’s crazy, I ran out of words,” Bristol native Donovan Clingan said at his locker. “It’s been the best two years of my life. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made to come to UConn. There’s no better feeling of walking off the court, especially after today, with no regrets. Just knowing that you left it all out there and you won everything you possibly could.”
The national title caps off a 37-3 season, the best in program history, which included Big East regular season and tournament titles.
Clingan, 7-foot-2, was matched up with Purdue’s 7-4 Zach Edey in what was only the second-ever battle between two 7-foot starters in the national championship game – the only other was between Georgetown’s Patrick Ewing and Houston’s Hakeem Olajuwon in 1984.
UConn’s star sophomore finished with 11 points and five rebounds to Edey’s 37 and 10, but had the advantage of a supporting cast which was led by All-American point guard Tristen Newton’s 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds. Freshman Stephon Castle added 15 points with five rebounds and Cam Spencer had 11 with eight boards. UConn’s backcourt outscored Purdue’s, 55-17.
The Huskies only trailed for a minute and 36 seconds.
Newton was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Tournament as Spencer, Castle and Clingan earned All-Tournament team recognition.
Spencer started the game with a 3-pointer and seven of UConn’s first 11 points, but on the other end Edey, an immovable force in the low post, scored 14 of Purdue’s first 23 points.
Clingan got the Huskies started on a 6-0 run with 3:29 left to take the largest lead for either team in the first half, 32-25. Braden Smith, who had nine first half points for the Boilermakers and finished with 12, made a midrange and a 3-point jumper – Purdue’s only made 3 on seven attempts – to cut it back to two. Newton and Castle scored the only points in the final two minutes and sent the Huskies into halftime up, 36-30.
Newton, who scored his 2,000th-career point in the first half, got the Huskies going in the second with a 3-pointer and later found Samson Johnson, after Clingan was called for his third foul, for consecutive alley-oop dunks to double the lead.
“We knew they were gonna be tired, we saw them at the end of the first half, they don’t play the type of game like this (was),” Newton said. “Just keep our foot on the gas and we would win the game.”
Foul trouble continued to hurt the Huskies. Johnson was whistled for his fourth around the 14-minute mark and Clingan picked up his fourth with 7:52 left, forcing Hurley to go back to Johnson. UConn started to pull away with Alex Karaban’s first triple and a Hassan Diarra layup in transition, and led by 17 with 5:38 on the clock when Johnson fouled out.
Hurley gambled with his small-ball lineup, giving 6-foot-9 Karaban the Edey assignment for the next three minutes and the Huskies maintained a 13-point advantage.
“I was definitely a little stressed then just because he’s back-to-back Player of the Year, he’s damn near a foot taller than me so it was probably going to be an automatic two every time. We just had to be smart,” Karaban said.
“Let (Edey) score 70 and beat us, that was the plan,” Clingan said. “Let him get his jump hooks without fouling, just try to force the shots out of the center, out of the restricted area and just don’t give up 3-pointers.”
Edey, 15-for-25 from the field, the most shots he’s attempted in a game all season, continued to score for the Boilermakers but the Huskies were able to wind the clock. Hurley emptied the bench with 36 seconds left and each starter received a bear hug.
“We’re going to try to replicate it again. We’re going to maintain a championship culture. We’re bringing in some very talented high school freshmen. Our returning players, through player development, will take a big jump. We’ll strategically add through the portal,” Hurley said. “I don’t think that we’re going anywhere.”
