By Aidan Joly
On Monday night, the UConn Huskies became the first team since 2006 and 2007 Florida to win back-to-back national championships, beating Purdue 75-60 in the title game.
It was another unprecedented blast through the tournament. The Huskies were never challenged in any of their six tournament games, winning each of them by at least 14 points and winning by an average of 23.3 points, which was even larger than the 2023 run, where the Huskies won by an average of 20.0 points.
It took down last year’s runner-up in San Diego State in the Sweet 16, pounded Big Ten champ Illinois in the Elite Eight, took down red-hot Alabama in the national semifinal before taking down a Purdue team that had college basketball’s first two-time national player of the year in four decades.
UConn finished the season 37-3, its three losses coming to Kansas on Dec. 1 when the Jayhawks shot 64% from three (UConn was also without Stephon Castle in this game), to Seton Hall on Dec. 20 when Donovan Clingan was limited to just 14 minutes due to injury, and then finally to Creighton on Feb. 20 when the Bluejays made 14 three-pointers. Simply, UConn was an unstoppable force for the entire season and never really struggled.
Monday night’s title game was like many other UConn games we saw this season. Purdue had made it competitive for much of the first half before UConn slowly pulled away as the break approached, then the Huskies turned it on at the start of the second half and it ended up being a blowout as UConn cruised for most of the second half.
What’s even crazier about this UConn run was that the Huskies were supposed to take a step back this year. It lost three starters in Jordan Hawkins, Adama Sanogo and Andre Jackson from last year’s team. Key role players like Joey Calcaterra and Naheim Alleyne also needed to be replaced.
Instead, Tristen Newton became an All-American after not having a big role last season. Clingan and Castle became stars who will likely both be NBA lottery picks. Cam Spencer ended up being an amazing fit after transferring in from Rutgers last summer.
This is different from Florida’s back-t0-back titles nearly two decades ago. The 2007 Florida team returned almost its entire core, including Al Horford, Corey Brewer and Joakim Noah. UConn lost several key pieces.
It’s a massive testament to the system that Dan Hurley has built in Storrs: elite offense, being one of the best offensive teams we have seen in decades, maybe ever, elite defense, and being one of the best rebounding teams in the nation. The system works, and the system is elite. UConn has not lost an NCAA tournament game since being upset in the first round by New Mexico State in 2022. 12 straight tournament wins later and Hurley has delivered UConn its fifth and sixth national titles.
The teams that come to mind, in recent memory, include the Duke team from 2001, Kentucky teams from both 2012 and 2015 (the 2015 Wildcats didn’t win the national championship but went 38-1) and the Gonzaga team from 2021, which also did not win the national championship but finished 31-1.
Still, none of those teams finished with better KenPom offense numbers than this year’s UConn team did.
It finished 5.26 points in KenPom adjusted efficiency margin better than the second place team in Houston, the second-largest margin in the KenPom era (1996-97). The only larger difference was 1998-99 Duke, which finished an absurd 11.35 points ahead of second-place Michigan State. Still, those Blue Devils did not win the national title – it coincidentally lost to UConn in that year’s title game.
It is not supposed to be easy to win in the NCAA tournament. Its single elimination format breeds and encourages chaos and unpredictability, but Hurley and the Huskies of the past two years have managed to master it.
This title pushes into even more solidifying UConn being in the elite tier of the sport’s bluebloods. The 1999 team was a heavy underdog in the title game and the 2011 and 2014 championships were a result of Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier going on crazy runs and willing the Huskies to titles. Even in 2023, UConn only faced one top-four seed the entire tournament.
This team dominated against the best of the best in the sport. The Huskies made it look easy.
AJ Hoops 