Hot pursuit
Huskies are chasing history, another NCAA championship
From the time all his players arrived on campus this summer, Dan Hurley has been preaching to this year’s UConn men’s basketball team that it could make history.
The Huskies had a chance to do something very few teams have done in the sport’s history. Namely, win back-to-back national championships. Now, they are poised to accomplish the feat.
No one has done it since Billy Donovan’s Florida teams in 2006 and 2007. Prior to that, Mike Krzyzewski, arguably the greatest coach in men’s college basketball history, did it with Duke (and a point guard named Bobby Hurley) in 1991 and 1992. Before that? The great UCLA teams of John Wooden, who may surpass Coach K as the alltime greatest coach.
Before that? We’re practically talking peach baskets.
It’s the elitist of the elite company, just about guaranteeing Hurley a spot alongside his dad, Bob Sr., in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (though, surprisingly, Donovan has yet to be enshrined).
And UConn’s accomplishment might be considered the most impressive of all, given that those Florida, Duke and UCLA teams returned guys like Joakim Noah and Al Horford, Christian Laettner, Grant Hill and the aforementioned Bobby Hurley, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (Lew Alcindor), Bill Walton and Jamaal Wilkes, to name a few.
UConn, conversely, lost three players to the NBA (lottery pick Jordan Hawkins, second-rounder Andre
Jackson Jr. and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Adama Sanogo) and a couple of other key rotation pieces. The Huskies returned just 42.9 percent of last season’s scoring, sixth among the Big East’s 11 teams.
A repeat national title, especially in the dominant fashion the Huskies have won in the past two NCAA tournaments, would be truly historic.
But let’s not get too far ahead. There are three
other teams aiming to make history at the Final Four in Phoenix, as well. Alabama, whom the Huskies face on Saturday night, is in the Final Four for the first time in program history. Sure, national championships are old hat for the Crimson Tide football team, but hoops is a different story.
There is history, of course, between the Hurleys and Alabama coach Nate Oats. Oats was an assistant to Bobby Hurley at Buffalo before taking over the head coaching reins in 2015 after Hurley left for Arizona State. In 2019, Oats led Buffalo over Hurley’s Sun Devils in an NCAA Tournament firstround game.
Dan Hurley got some “revenge” last season at the PK85 Invitational in Portland, Ore., blitzing Oats’ Crimson Tide 82-67 en route to the tournament title. The only other history the Huskies share with Alabama is an 87-71, Sweet 16 win over the Crimson Tide on March 27, 2004 — en route to the program’s second national championship.
On the other side of the bracket sits NC State, a fascinating mix of 2011 UConn (five wins in five days to win its conference tournament) and 1983 NC State ( Jim Valvano’s “Cardiac Kids” who came out of nowhere to win a title). The ’83 Wolfpack were a No. 6 seed, this year’s bunch is an 11th seed.
And, of course, Purdue, which has looked like UConn’s chief challenger to a national title the past two seasons, really. Last year, the Boilermakers became just the second No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed (Fairleigh Dickinson). The only other was 2018 Virginia, which fell to UMBC in the first round. The Cavaliers bounced back to win it all the following season. Purdue is looking to make a similar historic run.
Repeating as champion is hard, as Coach K and Billy Donovan can attest. The list of teams that didn’t repeat is even more impressive than the ones that did. The great Georgetown team of Patrick Ewing, John Thompson & Co. looked poised to repeat in 1985, until Villanova came along, shot a ridiculous 78.6 percent from the floor, and pulled off the upset.
The great Houston teams of Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler got to consecutive championship games in 1983 and 1984, only to be thwarted by the aforementioned NC State and Georgetown teams. Jerry Tarkanian’s 1991 UNLV team seemed on the verge of a repeat before Coach K & Co. thwarted that and kicked off their own repeat run.
Rick Pitino nearly won two straight at Kentucky, beating Syracuse in 1996 but falling to Arizona in the 1997 title game. Then he bolted for the Celtics’ job, and Tubby Smith took over and won it all in 1998.
It’s not easy. It’s not supposed to be. UConn has made it look pretty easy so far, winning its last 10 NCAA Tournament games by an average of more than 27 points.
The Huskies have resembled the college basketball version of a mix between the 1985 Chicago Bears and the 2007 New England Patriots.
The ’86 Bears mauled everyone, except for a 3824 Monday Night loss to Miami, before trouncing the Patriots 46-10 in the Super Bowl. Similarly, UConn had a hiccup in a 19-point loss at Creighton on Feb. 20 (or a 15-point loss at Seton Hall two months earlier).
The ’07 Patriots cruised through the regular season at 16-0 and had the chance to be the first 19-0 team in NFL history before falling to Eli Manning, David Tyree and the Giants in the Super Bowl.
Could a similar fate befall these Huskies? After all, that Giants’ Super Bowl win over the Patriots 16 years ago came in Glendale, Arizona, inside State Farm Stadium — the same building where this year’s Final Four is being held.