Trust in each other propels UConn to title game
Huskies take Alabama’s best shot; still pull away from Tide
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Connecticut, the Secretariat of the past two NCAA men’s basketball tournaments, couldn’t subject Alabama to one of those familiar Connecticut stretch runs that conjure a jockey looking back over his shoulder to see if maybe he can spot any rival way back down yonder. Instead, the 86-72 national semifinal win Saturday evening arrived through a steady method of poise and quality. Where the customary big, fast waves didn’t come, medium-sized, slower waves more than sufficed.
This team can make all manner of waves, it turns out, and so the whole look of this latest double-digit win got people asking again: What is it about this sprouting dynasty, so unusual in its mastery? Surely Connecticut Coach Dan Hurley got close to it when he described “a meticulous approach to performance” that helps the Huskies “keep ourselves as bulletproof as possible in this tournament, which we make a hard tournament look easy,” whereupon he added, “It’s crazy.” Maybe Alabama Coach Nate Oats described the whole visceral feel of it when he said, “Seems like there was always bodies in front of us.”
How has Connecticut been able to enter this madcap event two years running and win 11 games by 24, 15, 23, 28, 13, 17, 39, 17, 30, 25 and 14, even while replacing three vital starters amid that sequence? How does it (at 36-3) earn the clear favorite’s role, even against a towering Purdue (344) Monday night in a daydream final, to become the first repeat men’s national champion since Billy Donovan’s Florida in 200607, after already becoming the first defending champion since then to reach a Final Four and to become a national finalist?
How does it win with airy early scores such as 46-10 over Stetson and 36-14 over Northwestern, with midgame runs of 38-14 against San Diego State and the famed 30-0 against Illinois, but also the less-whooshing effect against Alabama? How could it watch up close as Alabama went a lush 8 for 11 from downtown in the first half yet still walk to halftime leading 44-40? How could it see a 48-40 lead shrink to 4847 and a 55-47 lead shrivel to a 56-56 tie with 12:41 left, then go ahead and take the next 134 seconds to forge a 64-56 lead and an Alabama timeout?
Isn’t there peril in playing four tournament rounds without grappling with any close contention, then opposing a splashy No. 4 seed in the Alabama program’s first Final Four with an offense hard to guard, a three-point-percentage national ranking of No. 24, a healthy 48 for 116 (41.4) in this tournament, and a moxie that won’t permit a tsunami?
The answer to that: Not really. The Connecticut formula stems from the nuts and bolts and blocks, in the otherworldly 100 assists against 40 turnovers in this tournament, in the small clues such as Hurley saying, “If you look at the way we take care of the ball, it’s rare. It’s rare.”
It’s in, of course, the number of people for which defenders must account, a starting five that wound up like this Saturday night: 21 points and five rebounds for Stephon Castle, the freshman guard from Georgia; 18 points and five rebounds for Donovan Clingan, the 7-foot-2 tower who’ll bang up against Purdue’s 7-foot-4 Zach Edey; 14 points and eight rebounds each for second-year power forward Alex Karaban and the senior transfer from Rutgers, Cam Spencer; and then the all-American, Tristen Newton, with his 12 points and nine mighty assists.
“We have so much trust in one another,” Karaban said. That’s clear.
“I believe in the depth of our team,” said Castle, who sat awhile with four fouls.
That’s rational. “Obviously, we’re so unselfish,” Karaban said.
The numbers agree.
“I wasn’t worried at all for me sitting out,” Castle said.
Where he’s a fresh infusion, a year off high school in Covington, Ga., and his five-star 20.1 points, 9.5 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 3.0 steals and 2.0 blocks at that level, he’s right in the mix as what Clingan calls “the most unselfish player on this team.”
“He’s such a pleaser,” Hurley said.
It all adds up to a basketball symphony that adds up to a heaviness. Said Hurley: “I think the feeling just with the group is it’s body blows, it’s body blows, it’s continue to guard, continue to rebound, execute our offense. Eventually there will be a breaking point opportunity that will present itself, especially in this tournament.” And so: “Our identity is to be pretty relentless.” And so: “We might not break you for 18 minutes 25 minutes, but at some point if what we’re doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”
And then, in sum: “The offense is super-efficient. We’re top four in defense. We rebound the heck out of the ball (37-29 against Alabama). We can bunch up stops and then we score a lot.” Also: “I think we got a lot of confidence.” And then, by now: “There’s a factor with teams now that they’ve seen us play, where we get on a run, I think it’s disheartening for the other team because they’ve seen it, they’ve seen us do it a lot.”
Disheartenment did come eventually Saturday, if with less surge and more system. Connecticut saw an opponent with a great player, second-team all-American guard Mark Sears, with his 24 points, five rebounds and three assists, and a fearless inside banger Grant Nelson, with his 19 points and 15 rebounds as what Hurley called “an NBA player, modern, mismatch, positionless guy.” And they took Alabama from that early 8 for 11 from distance at halftime to 3 for 12 in the second half because, Sears said, “They did a better job of running us off the threepoint line.” The Crimson Tide ended with 23 three-point tries, which Oats saw as insufficient as he said, “They did a better job forcing us to take more non-rim twos than we probably have all year.” The box showed Alabama with zero transition points, although Oats disputed that slightly by noting some leeway in the definition of transition points.
They’re “solid all around,” Nelson called it, “and they have a really good rim-protector [in Clingan],” and so, “It’s tough to get things going, and I just give them a lot of credit.”
“I think,” Karaban said, “we just stay true to our identity,” and by now it’s one of few identities in an 85-event history to soar like this.