GLENDALE, Ariz. — There is Connecticut.
Then there is a massive gap.
And then there is everyone else.
The Huskies have no peers. We saw it for weeks; it only needed to be made official on Monday night when they scheduled a 40-minute basketball game for the final victim, Purdue, to join the rest who have been hounded into obliteration by the Huskies. The best team in college basketball — and the best program in college basketball — won the national championship 75-60 for the second year in a row in its signature bulldozing fashion.
“What could you say? We won. By a lot again,” an unvarnished Dan Hurley said.
Winning by a lot is all UConn knows how to do. Hurley and the best staff in college basketball trained their Huskies to smell blood and vanquish every team, every time, in every postseason game. In doing so, this 2023-24 UConn group solidified its reputation and everlasting legacy as one of the best teams college basketball has seen in the past four decades. At least.
“We wanted to give everything so we could win absolutely everything,” Hurley said.
So much for the second best team in the sport giving the best team in the sport 40 minutes, or even 30 minutes, of competitive action. Purdue was just like the other five casualties on the wrong end of UConn in this NCAA Tournament — and the other six teams in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
Utter carnage.
Connecticut is the eighth school to ever win joining Oklahoma State (1945-46), Kentucky (1948-49), San Francisco (1955-56), Cincinnati (1961-62), UCLA (1964-65, 1967-73), Duke (1991-92) and Florida (2006-07).
The basketball world pleaded to see UConn get itself caught up in a close game, but the Huskies outright refused — for the 12th consecutive NCAA Tournament matchup — to provide any drama. This outrageous cast trailed in the 2024 tournament for a total of 6 minutes and 22 seconds — and never trailed in the second half during the 2024 NCAA Tournament
It’s a sixth championship for UConn, all of them coming since 1999, now tying the program for third-most in history right alongside fellow blue blood North Carolina. (UCLA has 11, Kentucky has eight.)
How absurd these Huskies are, even more ridiculous than their predecessors, who were also their own kind of absurd in how they strutted to a 2023 championship behind a record-breaking run of six wins by 13 or more points.
This team joined that team — but also one-upped their canine counterparts by putting on a three-week show that firmed up one of the most impressive title sweeps this sport has seen.
Ever.
“I think it’s up there in terms of the greatest two-year runs that a program maybe has ever had,” Hurley said.
Thirty-seven wins to just three losses.
A point differential of +140 over six games, the most in the history of the tournament, besting the legendary 1995-96 Kentucky team that outclassed the sport that year the way UConn outpaced its sport in 2024. The 74,423 souls inside State Farm Stadium bore witness to uncommon greatness. UConn became the fourth No. 1 overall seed to win a national title (the No. 1 overall seed began 20 years ago), the first since Louisville in 2013.
A 12th straight NCAA Tournament victory by double digits/13-plus points. It’s a record likely to never be broken. They simply REFUSED to ever find a competitive game. It’s an all-time team. Its dominance can’t be taken for granted. What the Huskies did this year isn’t supposed to happen.
The only other team to win consecutive title games by 15-plus points was UCLA from 1967-69. Those wins featured Lew Alcindor, who is considered the greatest college player ever: .
Speaking of legends, Hurley puts his name alongside names like Wooden and Iba and Rupp and Krzyzewski as back-to-back champions. They are all Hall-of-Famers. One day, Hurley will join them. This win assures it will happen.
Last year was about UConn cementing its case as a blue blood. It was so convincing, you never heard it brought up this season or this tournament. It was accepted as fact.
This title elevates the program’s legacy to one of a dynasty. There will never be another UCLA under Wooden; those days are tucked in amber for eternity.
“I just think it’s the best two-year run I think in a very, very long time just because of everything we lost from last year’s team,” Hurley said. “To lose that much and, again, to do what we did again, it’s got to be as impressive a two-year run as a program’s had since prior to whoever did it before Duke. To me it is more impressive than what Florida and Duke did because they brought back their entire teams. We lost some major players.”
A dynasty in modern college basketball starts — and likely ends — with two in a row.
And we might not see something like this again for decades. It’s hard enough to win two in a row. Consider that we’re in the transfer portal era for good, with roster retention never going back to what it was for decades. The Huskies have done more than just accomplish the rare feat of going back-to-back. It will only get harder to win national titles moving forward. It will be near-impossible to win two straight.
This might be the last time we see something like this for decades. It took 17 years to get another back-to-back champion. Before Florida did it, it was a 15-year gap from Duke. Prior to that, the span between UCLA in 1973 until Duke was 19 years.
Then again …
“We’re going to be focusing on trying to put together a three-year run, not just a two-year run,” Hurley said.
Of course he did.
To think that Hurley and company achieved this after losing five of its top eight scorers. It’s insane. Truly insane. You’re not supposed to be able to do this. UConn built back stronger, better, more menacing and with a lethal tendency to rip off runs that buried teams.
Purdue was its latest, and last, victim. The Boilermakers attempted just seven 3-point attempts, a stunner. It’s the fewest in a title game since UCLA in 1995. Purdue had taken eight-plus 3-pointers in 330 straight games, dating back to 2015.
UConn was UConning.
It was so good, it made an all-time performance by a two-time national player of the year fall well short of having a faint hope of winning. Zach Edey, one of the best players in college basketball in the past 40 years, also managed to put up arguably the best game (37 points, 10 rebounds) in a losing title game effort ever, joined Bill Walton and Alcindor as the only players to ever have 30-and-10 in a title game.
“It took him 25 shots to get 37 points. That was the game plan, just limit the guards,” Final Four Most Outstanding Player Tristen Newton said.
Newton now carries the rare distinction of leading a team in scoring in two national title games, one of just seven players to ever do it. Don’t say UConn doesn’t have a star. Newton was a First Team All-American and solidified a singular legacy at a program who is upping its historic credentials by the season, by the tournament, by the game.
It’s been win-by-committee all season long, the best model of balance. UConn’s starters all averaged double figures this regular season and in this tournament. Its 12 straight tournament victories by 13-plus points is twice as long as the next-closest streak in history.
This team — the best team in UConn history — will also be remembered as one of the best teams of the expansion tournament era (dating back to 1985), if not longer. When the games mattered most, they were never truly threatened. They turned blowouts into a thing of beauty.
A juggernaut among giants. The wins might have been boring, but the beatdowns were legendary in totality. Methodical. Relentless.
“I mean, shit, we’re going to try to replicate it again,” Hurley said. “We’re going to maintain a championship culture. We’re bringing in some very talented high school freshmen. Our returning players, through player development, will take a big jump. We’ll strategically add through the portal. I don’t think that we’re going anywhere.”
A team so dominant, their legacy will live forever and stand tall among some of the best teams college basketball has had to offer. After Hurley cut the last twine of the net, pulled it off the rim, draped it around his neck and made his way from one end of the court to the other, he spoke aloud.
“Just trying to process through it all,” Hurley told me.
Then his mind immediately went to what was next. As in: next season.
“Where’s the East Regional next year?” Hurley asked a UConn staffer.
“Providence first.”
“Then what?”
“Newark.”
“Ah, Jersey!”
He already was mapping out next season. Hurley’s brain doesn’t rest. The quest doesn’t quit. After a beat, as he walked down the court, he couldn’t help but ask one more question.
“Where’s the Final Four?”
