UConn wins NCAA fifth title- The University of Connecticut Huskies have won the men’s college basketball NCAA National Championship.
The Connecticut Huskies beat the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60 Monday night in Glendale, Arizona.
The Huskies’ win on Monday night gave them back-to-back national championship wins. They become the first team to do so since Florida in 2006 and 2007.
UConn clinched its second consecutive NCAA men’s basketball championship Monday, defeating Purdue 75-60 at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
Tristen Newton paced UConn with 20 points, while Stephon Castle added 15 points. After a back-and-forth first half, the Huskies gained their first double-digit lead near the midpoint of the second half before they pulled away.
“You can’t even wrap your mind around it, because you just know how hard this tournament is,” Huskies coach Dan Hurley said after the win. “What a special group of people.”
Purdue’s 7-foot-4 centre, Zach Edey, had a game-high 37 points and 10 rebounds in defeat.
UConn became just the eighth team in NCAA men’s basketball history to win back-to-back national championships following its victory last season against San Diego State. The most recent team to accomplish such a feat was Florida in 2007.
This is UConn’s sixth national championship. The only other programs to win six or more NCAA men’s titles are UCLA (11), Kentucky (8) and North Carolina (6).
Purdue has been to the Final Four three times, reaching the championship game once, but has never won the NCAA Tournament.
“We’re kind of getting used to this up here, the confetti, the trophy,” Hurley said postgame. “Number six, baby!”
UConn wins NCAA fifth title-Back-to-back
UConn has been the dominant force in men’s college basketball in the last 25 years, winning six titles since 1999, nearly a quarter of the championships contested. Its tournament prowess was on show this this year, outclassing team after team as it bulldozed tits way to the final.
UConn’s Final Four 86-72 win over Alabama Crimson Tide on Saturday was its 11th straight NCAA tournament game by double-digits, even after much of the game had been closely fought.
UConn boasted the nation’s best scoring margin as a result of the most efficient offense in the country and a top-five defense.
Its dominance on both sides of the ball was on full display in the Elite Eight against Illinois. With the score tied at 23 in the final minutes of the first quarter, the Huskies went on a relentless 30-0 run to completely shutout Illinois for almost nine minutes en route to a 77-52 victory.
A chance at history
The Midwest Region champion, Purdue, was trying to banish prior demons in a quest for its first national championship title.
The Boilermakers last appeared in the NCAA championship game in 1969, where they were runners-up.
They had a point to prove this year after crashing out last season in the tournament’s second-ever 16-over-1 upset defeat.
That disappointment continued 44 years of continuous heartbreak for Purdue, who have consistently fallen short of expectations, succumbing to bad luck and shock defeats.
“We didn’t run from it. We talked about how we felt about losing, we talked about how we were going to grow from it,” Purdue forward Mason Gillis said after the Final Four game, per the NCAA.
“We didn’t just talk about it, we walked the walk. I don’t want to say we wouldn’t be in this situation if we didn’t lose to them, but it definitely fueled us; sitting in that loss, seeing it on social media 24/7, seeing it on TV.”
The Boilermakers flipped the narrative this year, blowing out Grambling State and Utah State in the opening two rounds before defeating No. 5 Gonzaga 80-68 in the Sweet 16.
Then they narrowly took the win against No. 2 Tennessee in the Elite Eight and downed No. 11 NC State in the Final Four to earn a shot at the first national championship in program history.
But once again the Big Ten champs came up short in the final game of the season.
