‘We make a hard tournament look easy’: UConn books return trip to national title game

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Was this finally going to be the night that we could see UConn in a close game? 

It was the question going through my head with 12:41 remaining at State Farm Stadium and Alabama evening the score at 56 apiece. 

If Dan Hurley were the narrator answering my question, it would be the same response the Huskies have had in the last two years on the Big Dance floor: NO. 

The Huskies outscored the Crimson Tide 30-16 from that point on, as Stephon Castle finished with a team-high 21 points and Donovan Clingan added 18 points, five rebounds and four blocks in an 86-72 victory. UConn has now won an NCAA Tournament-record 11 straight games by at least 13 points, and in the process, booked a dream national championship showdown against Zach Edey and Purdue (9:20 p.m. ET Monday).

This Connecticut team continues to answer every question, showing on Saturday that even when Alabama shot 8-for-11 from 3-point land in the first half and Mark Sears didn’t miss a shot in the opening 20 minutes, the Huskies didn’t flinch. They led by four at the break, moving to 33-0 when they’re up at the half. 

When Sears (24 points) pulled Alabama within six with nine minutes remaining in the game, Tristen Newton drilled a trey on a night where he only shot 4-for-11 from the field. When Sears tried to make one last push for the Tide to cut it to 73-65 with four minutes left, UConn came out of the timeout and Alex Karaban hit what served as a dagger triple. 

“That shot meant everything to me. Tom Moore [assistant coach] kept telling me to hit the kill shot,” Karaban said. “We know they wouldn’t go away, but I know we’re built for this moment. Everybody in this locker room is built for this stage, and we want to prove it again.” 

With less than three minutes left and Alabama within single-digits again, Clingan sandwiched two dunks around a block to leave no doubt. 

That’s the UConn way. That’s how this program has gone from losing five of its top eight scorers from a national championship team to reloading, being 36-3 on the season and winning five NCAA Tournament games by an average of 25 points per game. It’s how Castle, a one-and-done freshman, can put the team before himself, and think about the present instead of the future, when he gets picked in this summer’s NBA Draft.

Alabama tried to find an answer for UConn by daring Castle to shoot the ball from downtown, knowing he entered the game just 1-for-8 in this tournament from 3-point range. The freshman made them pay. 

“If they give me that open look, I’ll take that 10 out of 10 times,” said Castle, who told FOX Sports that his mother Quan inspired him before the game by simply texting him to “have fun.”

“As a freshman, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else but a Final Four. If you had told me this before my season started, that I’d be sitting here heading into a national championship game as a freshman, I would have said you were dreaming. But that’s this team. Eventually, we make teams break. We’re out to bring back number six on Monday.” 

That number six is in reference to the number of national titles Connecticut would have since 1999 with a victory over the Boilermakers on Monday night. Castle was one of four UConn players with 14-plus points and five-plus rebounds on Saturday, as the Huskies became just the fifth team in NCA Tournament history to accomplish such a feat in a national semifinal game.

“I think we’ve got a lot of confidence,” said Hurley, who is 40 minutes away from taking the torch from Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators as the first program to win back-to-back national championships since 2006 and 2007. “There’s a factor with teams now that they’ve seen us play, where we get on a run, I think it’s disheartening for the other team because they’ve seen it, they’ve seen us do it a lot.” 

While the Huskies have led America in kill shots, otherwise known as 10-0 runs, they did not have one on Saturday night. But Hurley’s team did have four separate 7-0 surges in the game.

“We just played arguably the best team in the country,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “Like Danny says, they’re close to being bulletproof. When you’re that great on both sides of the ball, you out-rebound teams, the official box score had us down for zero fast-break points. That’s the first time all year that that’s happened to us.”

That seems to be a theme for the Huskies. They stopped Terrence Shannon Jr.’s run in the Elite Eight with Illinois, holding him to his worst night in weeks. They took Alabama’s fast-tempo offense and put it in the blender. It’s what they did against San Diego State as the game wore on, and how they shut down Boo Buie and Northwestern earlier in this tournament. 

So, it leads to the question of intrigue: Can they actually limit Edey? 

The two-time national player of the year is the first player since Elvin Hayes in 1967-68 to record 20 points and 10 rebounds in six straight NCAA Tournament games. The 7-foot-4 Purdue center posted 20 points, 12 rebounds and four assists in the semifinal win over NC State, becoming the first player in the history of the Big Dance to have five games of 20 points and 10 rebounds, all while shooting 60% from the field. 

“I think it’s just what college basketball needs on the men’s side,” Hurley said of the showdown. “It will be must-see TV, and we should blow the roof off the ratings for a national championship game. It’s the clash of the titans, the two best teams in the sport get together, and the winner of it will be a worthy champion.” 

But at least on Saturday, the Huskies continued to do what they’ve done best, or as Hurley told the press before he finished his postgame press conference: 

“We make a hard tournament look easy.” 

John Fanta is a national college basketball broadcaster and writer for FOX Sports. He covers the sport in a variety of capacities, from calling games on FS1 to serving as lead host on the BIG EAST Digital Network to providing commentary on The Field of 68 Media Network. Follow him on Twitter @John_Fanta.

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