INDIANAPOLIS — The game started with UConn coach Dan Hurley being showered with boos by the overwhelmingly pro-Illinois crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium.
It ended with Hurley waving his arms triumphantly at the much smaller contingent of UConn fans in the building, before giving freshman guard Braylon Mullins a celebratory head hug.
They did it again.
With a 71-62 victory over the Illini on Saturday night, the Huskies punched their ticket to the national championship game for the third time in the past four years. UConn has won a staggering 19 games in a row in the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament or later, a streak dating back to 2011. The program owns a 13-1 record on the Final Four stage, which is by far the best mark in March Madness history. It will play Michigan on Monday with a chance to claim its seventh NCAA title.
Love him or hate him, Hurley is now 20-5 over his eight all-time trips to the Big Dance. His .800 winning percentage is the best among active coaches. “I’m just obviously thrilled,” Hurley said afterward. “There’s no better feeling than being on that bus ride to the stadium on Monday night, just being one of the last two teams standing.”
Hurley was clear in his opening Final Four press conference on Thursday that the Huskies didn’t come to Indianapolis just to leave with the complimentary watches given to players and staff. They came for rings. And on Saturday, they played like it.
UConn got the job done primarily with defense, holding the nation’s No. 1-ranked offense (per KenPom) to just 34 percent shooting from the field and 23 percent from three. Illinois recorded fewer than 65 points for just the second time this season. The other? A 74-61 loss to the Huskies on Nov. 28 at Madison Square Garden.
The Illini also committed eight turnovers and registered only four assists.
Part of their offensives struggles could be attributed simply to poor shooting. Illinois couldn’t get a three to drop and saw several point-blank layups roll off the rim or bounce in and out, which caused it to fall into a deep hole. But UConn was also relentless with its pressure and physicality, forcing the Illini to work for everything.
“The life-and-death nature of this tournament has created the urgency (defensively),” said Hurley. “And I thought the best thing that we did was get into them in the fullcourt and get into them a little bit more in the halfcourt and move some of those two-man actions a little bit further away and put them under a little bit more duress.”
The plan was to wear down 6-foot-6 freshman guard Keaton Wagler, Illinois’ sensational floor general and offensive engine, and it worked. Wagler finished with 20 points, but he scored just six in the final 18:46 of the game. At one point midway through the second half, Wagler was inbounding the ball in front of the UConn bench and senior guard Alec Millender straight up asked him, “You tired?”
“He looked at me and said, ‘Yes,’” Millender told Hoops HQ with a smile. “You could tell.”
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UConn got off to a fast start, which was essential in such a hostile environment. With Champaign just a two-hour drive from Indianapolis, Lucas Oil Stadium felt a lot more like the home of the Illini than a neutral site. Through the first seven minutes, the Huskies picked apart Illinois’ defense, a unit that held opponents to just 59.8 points per game on 38.1 percent shooting from the field and 29.0 percent from three on the program’s road to the Final Four.
Senior center Tarris Reed Jr., the East Region Most Outstanding Player, established a presence in the paint immediately, and the Huskies nailed three of their first seven threes — two from hometown kid Braylon Mullins and one from 6-foot-7 junior forward Jayden Ross. They were able to execute their sets comfortably, generating wide open looks from the perimeter. By the 13:20 mark, UConn was up 18-9 and the Illini crowd had effectively been quieted.
“Their offense is really, really hard to fu**ing guard,” Illinois senior guard Kylan Boswell said. “How much they move, how fast they move the ball. It’s hard to try to contain them the best you can. And Tarris, as their big, is a dominant force.”
At halftime, senior forward Alex Karaban, junior guard Solo Ball and junior guard Silas Demary Jr. were a combined 3 of 13 from the field for eight total points… and UConn was leading 37-29. Illinois had connected on just three of its first 14 attempts from behind the arc and failed to get big men Tomislav Ivisic and David Mirkovic going inside.
But it wouldn’t be a UConn game without a little drama. After the Huskies stormed out to a 57-43 advantage with less than 10 minutes remaining, the Illini rattled off 10 straight points. UConn has grown accustomed to such massive swings amid its tournament run: It squandered a 19-point lead against Michigan State in the Sweet Sixteen and erased a 19-point deficit against Duke in the Elite Eight, winning both games with clutch plays down the stretch.
“We’re a tough program. We’re a group of fighters,” Hurley said. “We’ve got incredible will.”
Clinging to a 63-59 lead in the final minute, Karaban misfired from deep but Demary corralled the offensive rebound, one of his nine boards on the night. The ball eventually found Mullins, who buried a dagger three for his first points of the second half. “You’ve always got to shoot with confidence,” Mullins said. “That was the biggest shot I hit tonight.”
Thirty minutes later, there were loud yells coming from the UConn locker room. The celebration was rowdy, but also brief. Hurley told his team that he wanted to set a record for the fastest postgame media circuit in NCAA Tournament history so that they could get out of the stadium and start looking ahead to Monday.
After all, they didn’t come here for some watches and a national semifinal win. They came for rings.
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