And then there were two.
After a red-hot 14-0 start to the year, a stumble through January and a dominant run through the NCAA Tournament, the UConn men’s basketball team has reached its final game of the season, playing for their fifth National Championship on Monday night against San Diego State.
The No. 4-seeded Huskies have been on a tear in the last five games, defeating all opponents by double digits and holding top-tier offensive squads like Gonzaga and Miami to season lows in points. With the No. 5-seeded Aztecs winning each of their last two games by just a point apiece, Vegas has UConn heavily favored, with DraftKings Sportsbook putting the Huskies at -365 at the time of writing. Despite the heavy confidence coming into the National Championship, Connecticut head coach Dan Hurley knows nothing is guaranteed in this tournament riddled with upsets.
“The heavy favorites haven’t fared very well in this one… We know that if we get away from our identity for a tick, we become very vulnerable,” Hurley said on Sunday.
SDSU is no stranger to pulling off upsets in this tournament, knocking off No. 1-overall seed Alabama in the Sweet 16. Boasting the No. 4 defensive efficiency (per KenPom), the Aztecs are a physical, gritty team that certainly won’t make things easy for any team, even the red-hot Huskies.
“I mean, they’re physical,” Hurley said. “They defend. They play really, really hard. The good thing for us is we do that every single day. Like we practice really, really hard. We come from a really, really hard-playing league. I think it’s just going to come down to obviously who outplays the other.”
Like Hurley mentioned, the notoriously tough Big East Conference has prepared UConn well for this next challenge. They’re expecting a classic physical, defensive affair, a gauntlet they had to run through for two months.
“Playing in the Big East Conference, which is a super tough conference, we got a lot of really physical guys, older guys that have been at it for a while,” said guard Andre Jackson. “Every opponent you see, it’s nothing new.”
While star guard Jordan Hawkins declared himself 100% healthy for Monday’s contest after missing Friday’s open practice with a non-COVID illness, the sharpshooter will face a stout 3-point defense in the Aztecs. San Diego State boasts a 28.1 3-point percentage allowed on the season, third-best in all of Division I. While dominating in that category leading up to the Final Four, Florida Atlantic bucked that trend, hitting threes at a 41% clip this past Saturday against SDSU.
The Aztecs enter this contest thanks to a buzzer-beating 2-pointer from Lamont Butler, giving San Diego State the win and their only lead of the second half. This team doesn’t shy away from pressure. They are plenty experienced, consisting of only juniors and seniors on their typical roster. Hurley even half-joked on Sunday that “they’ve got an older team than like five NBA teams.”
With the game hosted at NRG Stadium, typically used for NFL games, the elevated court and depth perception with regards to the hoop can be a challenge for shooters. NRG, formerly Reliant Stadium, is notoriously the home of UConn’s 53-41 victory over Butler in 2011, their third National Championship. While there was an adjustment period for most guys on Saturday, guys like freshman Alex Karaban don’t seem too phased by it, and instead are soaking in the moment.
“It really does feel like we’re under the lights and under the spotlight in [NRG Stadium],” Karaban said. “It’s a memory of playing in front of 75,000 people. I never thought it could happen [for me] in college basketball. Now that it’s actually happened is crazy.”
Tip-off is set for 9:20 p.m. with the game broadcast live on CBS. The culmination of the body of work the Huskies have put together has come to this – one last ride for this special team.
“One more win,” Karaban said. “We’re one win away from our ultimate goal – to be this close, everyone’s got to give 1000% effort. It’s the last 40 minutes of the season going in on Monday. It’s everyone’s dream to win a National Championship, and to be right there is something special.”
