UConn dominates Marquette to win Big East tourney title
Donovan Clingan scored 22 points and Jaylin Stewart gave No. 2 UConn an unexpected boost with three second-half 3-pointers during a decisive run as the top-seeded Huskies beat No. 10 Marquette 73-57 on Saturday night to win the Big East Tournament for the first time since rejoining the league four years ago.
The Huskies’ eighth Big East Tournament title matched Georgetown for the most in conference history and was their first since 2011, when Kemba Walker led UConn to five wins in five days — and then a national title.
Stewart, a freshman who was averaging 2.4 points off the bench, scored nine in about a four-minute span as UConn (313) pulled away from a game Marquette team playing without injured star Tyler Kolek (oblique) for a sixth straight game.
Kam Jones led the thirdseeded Golden Eagles (25-9), the defending tournament champions, with 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists.
For UConn coach Dan Hurley, a New Jersey native and former Seton Hall guard, bringing that trophy back to Storrs was a big deal.
UConn improved to 8-3 in Big East finals.
As usual, UConn fans packed Madison Square Garden and for the second straight night Marquette faced a road-game environment. The Golden Eagles overcame a raucous Providence crowd in a rugged semifinal Friday.
Keshon Gilbert wrapped up a spectacular Big 12 Tournament for Iowa State with 16 points, and the Cyclones (27-7) blitzed Houston (30-4) to begin the second half, allowing them to roll to a win and their sixth championship in six appearances in the title game.
Milan Momcilovic had 18 points and Hason Ward scored 13 for the Cyclones, who have beaten five different programs to raise the trophy, including Oklahoma, which at the time was led by current Cougars coach Kelvin Sampson.
He probably felt even worse than he did in 2000. Iowa State turned a 30-23 lead at halftime into the kind of blowout Sampson has rarely experienced with an 18-3 run to start the second half. That gave the thousands of Cyclones fans that paint Kansas City red and yellow every March plenty of reasons to stand on their feet and roar their approval.
Max Klesmit made a runner in the lane with 4.8 seconds to play in overtime and Wisconsin (22-12) beat Big Ten Tournament top-seed Purdue (29-4) for a spot in the conference championship game.
Klesmit’s clutch shot followed his teammate Chucky Hepburn’s in regulation, when Hepburn made a layup as time expired to force overtime.
Hepburn finished with 22 points. AJ Storr had 20 points and Klesmit had 12 points, five assists and five rebounds for
fifth-seeded Wisconsin.
Terrence Shannon Jr. scored a career-high 40 points for a Big Ten Tournament record to lead a second-half surge by Illinois (25-8) in a victory over Nebraska (23-10) in the semifinals.
Dylan Cardwell scored his only points on consecutive dunks in the final minutes as Auburn (26-7) held off ninth-seeded Mississippi State 21-13) to reach the SEC Tournament championship game.
Kino Lilly Jr. scored 27 points and Brown (13-17) beat topseeded Princeton (24-4) in the Ivy League Tournament. It’s the first time in the Ivy tournament, which was initiated in 2017, that a four-seed defeated a one-seed.
Women
Janelle Brown scored all 15 of her points in the second half to rally Fairfield (31-1), and her teammates finished the task in overtime to beat Niagara (2113)in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference championship game for the Stags’ 29th straight victory and an NCAA Tournament berth.