GLENDALE, Ariz. — Hassan Diarra put his hand to his mouth to check for blood. Alabama’s Rylan Griffen had caught him with an elbow as he drove to the basket in the final moments of a game that had already been decided. Diarra was now on the field, hoping that no teeth would loosen. The blow to the head might not have been so bad if Diarra hadn’t defended that insignificant possession as if his entire life depended on it. But he was.
The Connecticut bench erupted in joy when Diarra stood up, finding a red stain on his hand. Dan Hurley, his coach, walked onto the floor smiling proudly. He placed his palms on either side of Diarra’s still shaking head and shouted in her face. He asked Diarra if he was okay.
“But, sarcastically,” Diarra clarified later. “He knew I was okay.”
Diarra walked to the end of the bench, leaned down and placed his face on a large white towel. There were now red spots on his jersey. He didn’t look at the field when the horn sounded and his fellow Huskies gave high-fives, and casually crossed the handshake line as if it were a perfectly normal feat to win a national semifinal in the NCAA tournament and secure a spot in the tournament. national championship game.
As if it were perfectly rational that the team that was supposed to be the next team the team is two days away from possibly winning UConn’s second straight title and sixth since 1999. A mega-game with Purdue awaits. The Huskies are already favored by 6.5 points.
I still don’t realize how mind-blowing this all is. Nearly two years ago, at the start of the 2022 offseason, Hurley spoke with top returnees Adama Sanogo, Andre Jackson Jr. and Jordan Hawkins. He told them that next season’s team was in their hands. It was a pact of sorts between the coach and the players, and they would end up having one of the greatest runs in a program built on great runs. Their 2023 national title tied UConn with Duke and Indiana in the annals. A sixth would stand alongside North Carolina. Only Kentucky’s eight and UCLA’s 11 remain at bay.
Then Sanogo, Jackson and Hawkins left, along with sharpshooter Joey Calcaterra and Nahiem Alleyne, a tough guard averaging nearly 20 minutes per game.
UConn, in theory, would have a hard time replacing them, even with a returning core consisting of 2022-23 starters Tristen Newton and Alex Karaban, and budding big stud Donovan Clingan. There would surely be a natural regression. The great teams in college basketball history that have won repeated national championships have usually returned intact.
But this is Connecticut. And Connecticut, for some reason, only operates boldly. So it’s the first Monday in April again and the Huskies are not only back, they’re somehow better.
Alabama has played as well as anyone against the Huskies lately. She still lost 86-72. Last weekend’s virtuoso Elite Eight win over Illinois ended with five UConn players in double figures, about as beautifully balanced basketball imaginable on the game’s biggest stage. On Saturday, the Huskies did it again: the five starters scored between 12 and 21 points. Stephon Castle, traditionally the team’s fifth-leading scorer, was the top dog.
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But it is at the other end, one could say, that the game was won. The Huskies weren’t focused on limiting Bama’s made 3s, but rather on limiting the Tide’s attempts. You can’t make them if you don’t shoot them. Nate Oats’ team, entering Saturday, ranked fourth nationally in 3-point attempts per game and second with 11.2 made. Trying to curb these attempts is no easy feat. Blink and Bama have a shot. UConn wanted every defensive possession wired — identifying shooters, changing screens, going over screens.
Alabama finished 11-3 on Saturday, but missed seven attempts over its normal volume of attempts, an increase of 23. UConn’s defenders spent the 40 minutes desperately closing down the perimeter, making getting Bama’s shooters off the line and relying on Clingan and 6-foot-10 Samson Johnson to protect the paint. The two ended up combining for six blocked shots, and Bama made 15 of 35 on 2-point attempts. Well executed and winning basketball. Again.
What UConn is doing cannot be appreciated or praised enough. It can’t even be fully understood, but there are, as assistant coach Luke Murray said, “those snapshots of a season, where you don’t know what’s going to happen later, that ended up being by showing you where a team actually comes from.”
Early in the fall, the Huskies left campus for a closed-door scrimmage against a Virginia team that would not be ranked in the preseason top 25. The first 20 minutes of the exhibition went as expected for the defending national champions. They dominated Tony Bennett’s team, took a double-digit lead, then took a 10-minute break for a near-half.
The Huskies felt pretty good about themselves, like a team that knows what it’s like to ride on a float. Regardless, things changed during the next 20-minute session. Virginia beat UConn (a spectacle that, after the Cavs’ performance in the First Four this year, seems almost comically unimaginable) by outscoring the defending champions by 16 points, according to those in attendance.
“I think we knew we had a starting five that was going to be as good as anyone had in this sport,” Hurley said recently. “Then we got dragged into that second half. This was a real eye-opener and a wake-up call. We had a pretty good first half, then the second half we got crushed.
A lot of coaches might like that – a big dose of humility for a team that feels good about itself.
Hurley?
He definitely didn’t like it.
“I was seething,” he said. “You don’t know how the group is going to react. I mean, you don’t want to lose that bad. You don’t know if your team is good.
Newton was as battered as anyone on the field. Twenty bad minutes set the stage for what would somehow become a season with him named the 2024 Bob Cousy Award winner as the nation’s top point guard. He remembers that that’s when he and his teammates realized “we were a new team.”
This team, among all teams, set program records in wins (36), points (3,181) and assists (730), and won 18 Big East games by an average of 18, 2 points. A year after winning six NCAA Tournament games by double figures, with an average margin of victory of 18.3 points, this group has won five by double figures, by an average of 24.4 points per at-bat.
There often seems to be something wild at work here. A successful shot turns into a save. Then another successful shot. And another stop. And the walls start to sweat. And another blow falls. Maybe a Karaban 3 from the top of the key. Or Castle cutting in from the corner for a dunk. Or a Clingan gadget. Then another stop. You should see the UConn sideline. They foam at the mouth. Hurley, Kimani Young and Murray stop tapping their feet on the sidelines and yell for more. It’s old-school at UConn, so Hurley & Co. aren’t there in tracksuits and sneakers. Dress shoes on hardwood shake the ground.
Alabama hung around — admirably — for most of Saturday night, answering UConn’s runs again and again. Nothing to cower from. The game was tied with 12 minutes remaining. It was a six-point game with eight minutes remaining. Then it wasn’t. Ten turned into 15. The tide broke.
They all have.
Because that’s the problem for the 2023-24 Huskies. As Murray says, if there’s one defining factor in this version of UConn, it’s that “maniacal feeling of winning games.” They thrive on hurting you.
They like the taste of blood.
(Top photo of UConn players celebrating in the second half: Ross D. Franklin / AP)