UConn survive suspect squid, a hotel switch and theft to claim NCAA title
Nothing – not dirty hotel rooms, dodgy calamari, a bus burglary or one of college basketball’s most vaunted defenses – was going to deny Connecticut. And so a March Madness tournament that started with talk about parity ended with discussions of dynasty as UConn claimed their fifth national men’s title since 1999.
Not that the joy was unconfined. “I’m still thinking about some things,” said the Huskies’ insatiable coach, Dan Hurley, ruminating in an interview room while wearing a “Champions” baseball cap back-to-front.
“The amount of missed layups … We should have been up 18 [or] 20 at halftime. That’s just really the way my mind works.” He did, though, allow that the result was a “dream come true for all of us” – including his son, Andrew, a walkon, who was in possession as the game ended.
In his fifth year with the team, Hurley was, as usual, animated on the sideline, cajoling, gesturing, urging and berating in his glasses and blue suit jacket, like a stockbroker pointing and yelling at screens as numbers spasm green and red, the Husky of Wall Street.
Though volcanic, the 50-year-old wearer of fire-breathing dragon boxer shorts can give the impression that he should be running a wellness spa rather than a college basketball team. He wears brown bead bracelets to keep him grounded, practices yoga and meditation, drinks mushroom coffee and lights perfumed candles in his office, such as a fragrance called “confidence + freedom” which could easily have been named in honour of his players.
“Being such an intense, fiery coach, people have always focused more on the sideline antics than my total body of work over the course of my career,” growled Hurley, who led Rhode Island to two March Madness appearances. Now he is a national champion. “There’s a certain level of validation that’s going to come from this,” said Hurley, whose father, Bob, is a celebrated high school coach, and older brother, Bobby, was a star player who is now head coach of Arizona State.
“Maybe I don’t do a great job kissing the media’s ass and presenting this image that’s incredibly likable but I am who I am. I’m from Jersey City and this is how people from Jersey City act.”
This year marked the first time since seeds were first sown in 1979 that no first, second or third-ranked team reached the Final Four, and the first time that all four top-rated sides failed to reach the Elite Eight. It was only UConn’s fourth appearance in the national tournament since winning it in 2014 and the first occasion since 2016 that they progressed past the second round.
Brackets – the national mania for predicting one of the planet’s most reliably unpredictable sporting events – were even more busted than usual. Fairleigh Dickinson ousted Purdue in perhaps the biggest upset in March Madness history, a 16 seed bumping off a number 1. The University of Houston, a top seed whose campus is only five miles from Monday night’s final venue, were thumped by Miami in the Sweet 16. As for the other two top seeds: defending champion Kansas went out to eighth-rated Arkansas in the second round and Alabama lost to San Diego State in the Sweet 16.
And yet Monday’s climax, a 76-59 win for the Huskies over San Diego State, had scant shock value in the end. The outcome hewed to logic and reason. UConn’s record in national title games now stands at played five, won five, and they have more championships since 1999 than Duke, North Carolina and Kansas. Overall, only UCLA, Kentucky and North Carolina are more garlanded.
Better than their pre-tournament rating implied, UConn only slipped down the seedings to fourth because of an icy spell at the turn of the year: six losses in eight games after 14 successive wins.
Recovering from that brief tailspin arguably made them a better team, though it is hard to say how resilient they are in the face of adversity because in the past three weeks they were so dominant that they did not need to scramble or strain.
There were some strange setbacks: a Sweet 16 hotel switch in Las Vegas because rooms were left in a grim state by the previous guests. Personal belongings stolen from their bus. A key scoring threat, Jordan Hawkins, rendered queasy by some suspect squid.
But on the court they won all their games by 13 points or more, with an average victory margin of 20 points. “We keep our composure, man,” said Hawkins. “We have an unbelievable support system. We have an unbelievable team … It doesn’t matter what we go through, we are going to stick together no matter what.”
A fifth seed, San Diego State had never previously advanced beyond the Sweet 16 and made it to the final with two successive one-point victories, including a buzzer-beater to stun Florida Atlantic in last Saturday’s Final Four.
The Aztecs recovered from a 14point deficit to beat Florida Atlantic but only fleetingly threatened another surprise comeback on Monday, mounting a gutsy second-half rally that took them to within five points of their opponents and inspired their deafening fans to hoist the decibel levels even higher – until Hawkins responded with a momentum-killing three-pointer.
After a bright and even start, UConn gradually seized control. Stingy defense is a San Diego State hallmark but they struggled at the other end, enduring an 11-minute stretch without a field goal. A tight deficit expanded to a baggy 16 points. The Aztecs hung on with admirable stubbornness, fingers gripped to the precipice, refusing to let go. But UConn were superior all-round: deeper, smoother, smarter, more poised, less error-prone.
They converted 24 of 27 free throws. They had Donovan Clingan, a man who runs at opposing defenders as a combine harvester might rumble towards a wheat field. At 7ft 2in the 19-year-old is a freshman of such awesome altitude that when he dunks it is possible that the air around his fingers is several degrees cooler than the temperature at his toes. Constantly sucking and chewing a half-in, half-out mouthguard, Clingan is an eye-catching prospect for NBA scouts and New England orthodontists alike.
And Connecticut could call on the man named the Final Four’s most outstanding player, Adama Sanogo, a Maliborn 21-year-old who is 6ft 9in and contributed 17 points and 10 rebounds on Monday while fasting for Ramadan.
Ultimately, the contest felt conventional – which, given the way this tournament trended, felt weird. “We came from 14 down the last game. We cut it to five. I think there were people in the stands that thought, ‘Hey, they’re capable of doing it again’, and we were. But we ran into too good of a team, and we didn’t play at our best,” conceded the San Diego coach, Brian Dutcher.
“They’re the hottest team in college basketball,” he added. “They had their way with the entire field this tournament.”