The 8th-seeded UConn men’s basketball team (24-10, 14-6 Big East) has faced incredibly tough competition throughout the season. However, no test is as massive as the one they will face at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C., taking on the top-seeded Florida Gators (31-4, 14-4 SEC) on Sunday afternoon.
The Huskies are coming off a gutty first-round win over 9th-seeded Oklahoma on Friday night. Despite committing a whopping 25 fouls, the most in a game this season for the team, they held the Sooners to 32.1% shooting and 17.6% from downtown. That made Connecticut’s defensive efficiency skyrocket from 94th in the country to 79th.
Florida had no problem getting past 16th-seeded Norfolk State. Walter Clayton Jr., a consensus first-team All-American, was phenomenal in the rout. The former Iona Gael had 23 points on 6-11 shooting including four 3-pointers.
“He’s playing at an All-American level,” Hassan Diarra said. “He can really shoot the ball, shoot the ball off the bounce. We just have to follow our game plan and make it tough for him.”
It is a matchup between the last two programs to win back-to-back national titles, with UConn completing the feat the last two seasons and Florida achieving immortality during the 2006 and 2007 NCAA Tournament runs.
“Obviously, it’s unique to go against back-to-back national champions,” Florida forward Mitch Hondlogten said. “I know we were back-to-back national champions in ’06-‘ 07.”
Another key player to look out for is big man Alex Condon. He averages 11.3 points and 7.8 rebounds per game on 50% shooting. He’s a threat but will face threats in Samson Johnson and Tarris Reed Jr., a center tandem that provides two drastically different play styles.
“We’ve got to do everything we can on a short prep to prepare our guys,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said. “Samson and Tarris are both great players, but they’re way different.”
Florida boasts the nation’s most efficient offense and a top-10 defense in terms of efficiency. The way UConn starts this game is incredibly important, especially when the Gators have shown an ability to jump out to a double-digit lead early. UConn head coach Dan Hurley said that this year’s Florida team reminds him of his team the past few seasons.
“For us, we’re obviously going to have to be in a possession battle,” Hurley said. “We can’t really afford to try to play an SEC type of game against them where we’re coming down and shooting within the first five seconds of the shot clock then we’re loose on defense and they shoot early in the clock. We’ve got to try to play a different type of game than that.”
Connecticut holds a 5-1 advantage in the all-time series against the Gators. That includes a 1-1 record in the NCAA Tournament. Florida got past the Huskies in the Sweet Sixteen round of the 1994 tourney, while UConn got revenge 20 years later in the 2014 Final Four.
For the first time since losing to top-seeded Kansas in the second round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament, UConn is an underdog in an NCAA Tournament game. As of Saturday, the Huskies are a 9.5-point underdog.
Connecticut takes on Florida with a trip to San Francisco, Ca. on the line on Sunday at 12:10 p.m. on CBS.