How Dan Hurley, UConn beat Zach Edey, Purdue to win second straight national championship

WEST ORANGE, N.J. – His favorite stop was The Nevele, since it was effectively two hotels in one. Right next to The Fallsview. Each had its own game room, so Ian Eagle could play video games in one and easily head to the other and pick up a pingpong paddle. There was no babysitter, unless you counted the television. His parents had shows to prepare for. Sometimes three per weekend, maybe 40 weekends of the year. Their son roamed free.

This was the mid-1970s in the Catskills Mountains. The Borscht Belt. Monica Maris opened, Jack Eagle followed, and then they closed together, and their schtick killed, because the audience didn’t know they were married until then. For a few months around the end of 1975 and the beginning of 1976, Ian joined them on stage. He was 6, almost 7. He put on a suit he hated – “I looked like a dummy from a ventriloquist act” is how he describes it now – and did impressions of Howard Cosell, Muhammad Ali and W.C. Fields.

Exciting, at first. The crowds? Ate. It. Up. Still, he didn’t last long on the grind. When Ian didn’t perform, his father gave him money for a toasted bagel with butter and a milkshake. “​​And it hit me that I wanted the bagel and milkshake,” Ian Eagle says. “So the determination was made. I was wise beyond my years.”

It’s Presidents Day lunch hour at the Chit Chat Diner, and this eclectic spot is buzzing. (Eagle had predicted as much. A lot of big Herbert Hoover fanboys in West Orange, he texted on his drive over.) In about a month and a half, clear across the country, he’ll sit in a football stadium and call three games as the new primary television play-by-play voice for the Final Four. It’s a fairly imposing responsibility, given that the previous guy did the job for 32 years.

But when Eagle spins yarns about his mother’s singing voice, or his dad’s trumpet, or a thousand people packing a room at The Concord Hotel, he’s tying now to then. A kid sometimes backstage, sometimes occupying an empty seat in the room, always curious which bits of the act hit and which don’t. Or on stage, all dressed up, just trying to make sure everyone has a hell of a time, including those right beside him.

“You go back and forth a little bit with quips, but at some point, I come to tears,” says Sarah Kustok, Eagle’s partner as the color analyst for Brooklyn Nets broadcasts. ​”I’ve got my finger on the cough button, gut-laughing so hard, and no one from the audience would know. There’s all those small little moments that make every experience a beautiful one.”

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — The magazines. Bring up Matt Painter to former Purdue teammates, and everyone usually starts with the magazines. “The Hoop Scoop,” “Street and Smith’s Official Yearbook.” Whatever he could get his hands on.

Tony Jones remembers the first time he saw Painter with one. It was 1989. Jones was a senior with the Boilermakers and Painter was a freshman. Jones walked through the basketball facility and passed assistant coach Bruce Weber’s office.

There Painter sat with his nose in a basketball magazine. And just in that moment, the thought flashed through Jones’ mind. “This kid’s going to be a head coach someday.”

Thirty-five years later, it’s necessary to question Jones. After all, didn’t everyone look at preview magazines back then?

An airline pilot, Jones, a former point guard and coach himself, tried again.

“Here’s the comparison,” he said. “I was a point guard. And in my view, point guards always make better coaches. We have to know the whole system. We have to know where everybody is. Our brain is kind of like a thunderstorm with everything going on. A forward or center, it’s like a clear sky in their heads every time down the floor.

“But the difference between him and I, I would read those magazines, but when Matt read them, it was like he was studying them. When I walked by, he didn’t even look up. He was a basketball junkie. I loved the game, but I don’t think I was a junkie.”

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — During a quiet beat in the national anthem before Purdue played at Illinois on March 5, someone in the crowd screamed loud enough for everyone else to hear: “F— Zach Edey!” Boilermakers assistant Brandon Brantley and director of operations Elliot Bloom looked at each other and mouthed, “Thank you.” They knew what was coming. A poked bear proceeded to maul the Illini: 28 points, eight boards, three assists, two blocks and a steal in a 77-71 road win over the second-best team in the Big Ten.

“When he was younger, I’d tell him, ‘Oh, that big guy, he’s my favorite in the league. He’s the best in the league,’” Brantley said. “He’d look at me like, What? I’d tell him, ‘Hey, there’s a package in my office. (Maryland center) Julian Reese sent you roses.’ It’s harder now, because he knows how good he is.”

There just aren’t many big men left who anyone could consider a legitimate threat to Edey, the 7-foot-4, 300-pound, two-time national player of the year. There were supposed to be two of them here at the Final Four, but Edey swatted away the first — NC State’s dancing bear, DJ Burns Jr. — in the semifinals Saturday night. Fittingly, the final boss is the next-best center in America: Connecticut’s 7-foot-2, 280-pound Donovan Clingan.

On Monday night, it’s Big Maple vs. Cling Kong for a national championship.

“It’s going to be fun to watch,” Purdue guard Fletcher Loyer said Sunday, in part because both gentle giants find their inner maniac when their supremacy is challenged. “Zach likes that. You saw it the other day with DJ Burns. The media hyped him up — rightfully so, he’s a great player, same with Clingan. It’s no disrespect to any of them. It’s just how much work Zach’s put in, how determined he is to win a national championship. You can kind of see it in the look in his eyes. You see that sometimes before the games.

“He’s got the dead stare. If I’m on the other team, I don’t want to see that from him, because obviously back-to-back national player of the year — he’s going to get the job done.”

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There’s a reason only two men’s college basketball teams have repeated as national champions since the end of John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the 1970s. “It’s really, really, really hard to do,” says former Florida coach Billy Donovan, the last to achieve that feat in 2006 and 2007. The extreme degree of difficulty might also be why Dan Hurley and Connecticut are so perfectly wired for the pursuit.

“The bigness of what you’re trying to do,” Hurley says, “is intoxicating.”

His Huskies rampaged through the regular season, ripped through the Big East tournament and thrashed their first four NCAA Tournament opponents. They now sit two wins away from joining Donovan’s Gators and Mike Krzyzewski’s 1991-92 Duke as the third back-to-back champs in the modern era, in part because Hurley was never going to be happy with just the one. In fact, when he called Donovan, an old friend now coaching the NBA’s Chicago Bulls, soon after winning last year’s title, it wasn’t in search of the how-to handbook for repeating.

“I crashed emotionally,” Hurley says. “It didn’t feel as great as I thought. The pursuit felt better than the accomplishment. The pursuit is what’s addictive. Being part of a group that’s pursuing is addictive. I just didn’t like the s— as much as I thought I would, the victory lap. What you discover is you love the f—ing work more than you love staring at a banner or cutting down a net. When that stuff ends, you’re saying, ‘Where’s the mission?’”

He called Donovan because he needed to hear that he wasn’t crazy for feeling this way.

“I told him I’d gone through the same,” Donovan says. “I don’t want to say depression — that’s the wrong word — but there is this melancholy of, like, ‘What is my purpose? I wanted to get to this point, I got there, and now what?’

“I always go back to a ’60 Minutes’ interview with Tom Brady, after he won his third Super Bowl, when he was like, ‘Is this all there is?’ It’s really hard to find somebody that you can talk to, that’s been through it, that can understand what it’s like after. Because when the confetti stops falling and the parade is over, you’re left sitting there going, ‘What am I supposed to do next?’”

For men like Hurley and Donovan, whose father and father figures, respectively, were Naismith Hall of Fame coaches Bob Hurley Sr. and Rick Pitino, the next step is simple: chase another championship. Whether you actually capture it is not really the point.

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By knocking off UConn tonight, Purdue would become the sixth Big Ten program to win the NCAA Tournament championship (Maryland won in 2002 as a member of the ACC).

• Indiana won in 1940, 1953, 1976, 1981 and 1987
• Wisconsin won in 1941
• Ohio State won in 1960
• Michigan State won in 1979 and 2000
• Michigan won in 1989

NC State’s Ben Middlebrooks gave us a sneak peek of the type of defender who can at least slow Zach Edey. Middlebrooks was able to hold his ground and had some length that at least made it so Edey couldn’t easily shoot right over him. (Edey scored only one bucket with Middlebrooks on him.) Well, now Edey will have to deal with the best defender in college hoops in 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan, the one man who can probably cover Edey one-on-one and take away the open kickout 3s Purdue is accustomed to Edey generating. The other key to Purdue’s offense is Braden Smith, and his ability to create for teammates out of the pick-and-roll. Some of Edey’s easiest buckets come off Smith’s penetration. UConn’s length in the paint makes it not just tough to make shots at the rim but also to complete passes when you get into the teeth of the defense. I just don’t see Purdue being able to score enough to keep up, and not sure anyone can slow UConn’s offense for 40 minutes. Hoping for a game decided in the final minute, but it feels like eventually UConn will pull away, because that’s what always happens.

UConn 76, Purdue 67

GLENDALE, Ariz. — In the summer of 2022, Connecticut coach Dan Hurley decided he was going to adopt a new offensive system and a new way of teaching set plays. Hurley opted to go with a football approach. He came up with a glossary of terms for different alignments and actions.

He gives a made-up example: “14 jet zoom pitch twin.”

The 14 is for the alignment — a one-four low — and then the Huskies stack actions on top of each other. In this case, a jet, then a zoom, then a pitch, then a twin.

“It’s like learning a language,” Hurley says.

The new offense, heavy on off-ball screening and movement, won the Huskies a national title in 2023. Then last summer, Hurley essentially ripped up the UConn dictionary and came up with a new glossary of terms.

“We do that because of paranoia,” says assistant coach Luke Murray, who acts as the program’s offensive coordinator.

It’s probably not necessary, because UConn’s choreographed sets leave opponents’ heads spinning already. Defending UConn is like trying to multitask inside a classroom full of screaming children.

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The national championship will head to San Antonio — and the Alamodome — in 2025. San Antonio will host for the fifth time and first since 2018.

Final Four locations for the next six years:

• 2025: San Antonio (Alamodome)
• 2026: Indianapolis (Lucas Oil Stadium)
• 2027: Detroit (Ford Field)
• 2028: Las Vegas (Allegiant Stadium)
• 2029: Indianapolis (Lucas Oil Stadium)
• 2030: Arlington, Texas (AT&T Stadium)

In thinking about how Purdue can pull this off, I’m stuck with the image of Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Lance Jones trying to operate offensively against the mare’s nest of Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer and Stephon Castle — their size, their speed, their manic toughness. It might be the slightest edge, but it’s an edge, and I can’t find one in favor of the Boilers to offset the gap. UConn wins a close one. Donovan Clingan is MOP.

UConn 85, Purdue 80

Zach Edey made peace with the gawking years ago, before he’d even started to play basketball.

“I was 6-10 in eighth grade, so probably then, when I really started getting the stares,” Edey said. “I got banned from trick-or-treating when I was in fourth grade. People got mad at me because I was too big. Well, not banned, but I would get the stink eyes. I was like 6 foot going door to door. People would be like, ‘What are you doing? You’re too old for this.’”

If you want to get Purdue coach Matt Painter angry, suggest that Edey is just tall. You don’t win consensus national player of the year two straight seasons on size alone.

“Zach Edey is very smart, very skilled, and I don’t think people give him the credit for the basketball player he is,” said Alabama assistant Ryan Pannone, whose team lost 92-86 to the Boilermakers in December and would like another crack at Edey in Monday night’s championship game. “People just see a tall person, but he’s so much more than that.”

He’s also freakishly strong. Purdue strength coach Jason Kabo said Edey, after considerable work these last two years in the weight room, has deadlifted 550 pounds — in a modified lift that accounts for how far such a giant has to bend down. Speaking of, Kabo and Edey have worked extensively on improving his speed and mobility, and even how to hit the brakes on an 18-wheeler like him, because the laws of physics dictate that a massive object in motion is hard to stop. Hard to officiate, too. Painter understands why opposing coaches, players and fan bases get so worked up about Edey, who leads the nation in points, rebounds, field goals, free throws and free-throw attempts.

“His physical presence causes a lot of problems,” Painter said. “That’s why you see a lot of pushback with it, because there’s very few people that have that type of physical presence. I think that’s the ultimate compliment. There was a good guard at Indiana named Yogi Ferrell, and I always used to complain he was carrying the basketball. At the end of the day, I just deep down didn’t think we could guard him. That’s all it was. I always complained about him. I just finally caught myself one day and said, ‘I need to shut up. I’m losing a lot of respect with these officials because he’s not doing anything differently than anybody else, except that he’s just better than everybody else.’ I think Zach gets a lot of that.”

STORRS, Conn. — When Cam Spencer visited Connecticut last spring, he got the usual treatment. Photoshoot. Pitches on branding and NIL. The fluff, UConn coach Dan Hurley calls it.

Spencer goes out of his way to avoid what others seek. He’s not on social media. His interests are minimal. And Hurley could see Spencer and his family losing interest.

Then they started talking hoops. Style of play. How Spencer fit in UConn’s system.

“The group perked up,” Hurley says.

Hurley tells the story like a man who found his soulmate. Spencer is as close to his clone as anyone he’s ever coached. Spencer is the old man yelling to get off his lawn, and Hurley is across the street on his porch echoing obscenities. Hurley compares their anger meter to the strongman carnival game. “You hit it, and it goes all the way up,” he says. “It is in a way looking in the mirror.”

They’re unapologetically confident, and equally as obsessive. And once Hurley learned more about Spencer, it became clear that their upbringings were similar. “The accountability, the responsibility, the work ethic, the total desperation to be successful to win, to compete,” Hurley says. “The family, it emanates from them.”

Both Spencer and Hurley were the younger brother chasing their very successful older brother. We all know about Bobby Hurley, two-time national champion at Duke and Final Four MOP. Patrick Spencer, four years older than Cam, was the best college lacrosse player in the country at Loyola Maryland — he won the Tewaaraton Award, lacrosse’s version of the Heisman Trophy — and then went to play basketball for a year at Northwestern. Now he’s in the NBA, recently signing a two-way contract with the Golden State Warriors. “He was always kicking my a–,” Cam says.

Cam had one scholarship offer out of high school, to Loyola. His long-shot past doesn’t necessarily drive him, but he wears it like a badge of honor. No one fights for success like he does. Earlier this season, he told an opposing player, “You don’t want this as much as me.”

In Hurley, Spencer found someone who craves to demoralize his opponent while chasing perfection. “Just the intensity level,” Spencer says. “Every little thing matters, because it does.”

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David Barrett finds inspiration in everything around him. Something might come to mind while the singer-songwriter sits at home. Maybe while he’s at a wedding or celebrating a special occasion.

Or maybe when he’s talking to a waitress in a near-empty tavern.

In 1986, Barrett was at the Varsity Inn in East Lansing, Mich., having a beer and watching Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics on television. As he sat, he chatted with Jan Shoemaker, a waitress he found attractive. Because he was somewhat nervous, the conversation turned to basketball and the beauty he found in the sport. Barrett once was a self-professed “ball hog” who was recruited to play at Albion College before he found success in soccer.

He didn’t get Shoemaker’s phone number, but that conversation still led to something special. That night, Barrett took time out to scribble words on a napkin. Those words became the title of a song he wrote.

The song: “One Shining Moment.”

“I call it my little miracle because it’s miraculous the way it fell,” Barrett said.

The ball is tipped. And there you are. You’re running for your life. You’re a shooting star.

For Barrett, basketball isn’t just a game, it’s something to behold. That night, he watched Bird shine. At the same time, he tried explaining “the poetry of basketball” to Shoemaker.

Instead, Shoemaker left.

“When she got up to leave,” Barrett said, “I leaned to my right, got a napkin and wrote down the title for the song — because I thought that’s exactly where Mr. Bird is right now. I played a lot of basketball growing up, so every once in a while, you know what it is when you get in the zone. So I thought there’s a song, and that’s how it got started.”

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Purdue has won three of four all-time meetings with Connecticut — but all three of those wins came between 1986 and 1992.

This is the first meeting between the teams since the 2009 NCAA Tournament. The Huskies, a No. 1 seed, prevailed over the fifth-seeded Boilermakers 72-60 that day behind 17 points from Craig Austrie and 15 apiece from Hasheem Thabeet and A.J. Price.

NCAA president Charlie Baker last month asked for a ban on prop bets involving college athletes, saying the national body wanted to protect both athletes and the integrity of the game.

But prop (or proposition) bets — which typically are on an individual’s performance, such as how many 3s one player makes — are really only the tip of the iceberg.

As more and more states legalize sports betting (38 plus the District of Columbia), the walls that long separated college athletics from gambling continue to tumble down. The NCAA now hosts events in Las Vegas (the 2028 Final Four will be held there) and just last week housed two teams in casinos in Detroit. Athletes and departmental staff members still cannot bet on any sport in which the NCAA sponsors a championship, but plenty of people are betting on them.

It’s upped the scrutiny on teams — Temple last month was investigated for betting irregularities involving its team — and the vitriol directed at players. That vitriol, of course, can be directly delivered thanks to social media. The NCAA has tried to hit that head-on, partnering with a group called Signify, to monitor and, when necessary, even shut down, online threats.

But conversations with basketball players, from starters to scrubs, throughout this NCAA Tournament reveal that plenty are getting through. “Oh, yeah, it happens all the time,’’ Purdue center Zach Edey said. “Like after every game, probably.’’

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