UConn Huskies Continue Dominance in Unpredictable Tournament

Dan Hurley, the mastermind behind the UConn Huskies’ historic run of dominance through a tournament known for its unpredictability, said it all Saturday night after his team’s win over the Alabama Crimson Tide. The words had to ring through the minds of more than a few Purdue Boilermakers fans in the second half Monday night, as they succumbed to the same suffocating fate that the last 11 teams to play the Huskies in theto be dominated like this.

“You know what you’re getting into,” Hurley said in March. “We’re ruthless competitors. Everything that we do is competition. Preseason softball game, people are diving into second base, sliding headfirst. I think that has got to be your mentality if you’re playing at UConn because you’re getting judged by Final Fours, championships and excellence.” That all-out desire to win breeds an unselfishness that’s hard to find in 2024 college basketball.

The page was turned fairly quickly last spring. Karaban said the team took about a week and a half off after the 2023 title before getting right back to work. “We just were wasting so much energy to fight once they got it to double digits; then we would get stops, and we couldn’t get rebounds,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “That was just really hard for us to overcome.”Per KenPom’s adjusted efficiency metric, the Huskies are the second-highest-rated team to win a championship since 1997, as far back as the site’s metrics go.

Two years ago, Hurley’s standing at UConn was, if nothing else, a touch rocky. Four years in at a place where championships are expected, he hadn’t won an NCAA tournament game. Losing to the New Mexico State Aggies in a first-round upset in Buffalo was a potential pivot point in the program’s direction. What followed was a sharpening of epic proportions, a top-down look from the Huskies head coach at how to elevate his program to the next level.

Uconn Huskies Dominance Tournament Unpredictability Purdue Boilermakers Suffocating Fate Single-Elimination Games Chaos Formula National Title Sweet 16 Florida Gators Billy Donovan Consecutive Titles

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