When the UConn men’s basketball team plays San Diego
State on Thursday night in Boston, it will be a rematch of
last year’s national championship game, which the Huskies won for the school’s
fifth championship.
UConn didn’t just prevail in the 2023 NCAA Tournament; the fourth-seeded Huskies dominated. They became the fifth team in the tournament’s history to win all six games by 10 points or more.
San Diego State was victim No. 6, losing 76-59 in
Houston. And now, the Aztecs have a prime opportunity to gain some retribution.
There’s only one significant problem:
UConn is even better in 2024. Much better.
It’s hard to believe the Huskies could lose three
star players to the NBA — Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson Jr. and Adama Sanogo,
who was the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player — and yet return to the
tournament as an improved team.
The Big East champions and the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament attack teams with such skill, balance, depth and precision that they look capable of
competing at the next level.
San Diego State head coach Brian Dutcher has even
referred to the tournament as “The UConn Invitational.”
With only two returning starters from last year’s team, head coach Dan Hurley has done a masterful job reconstructing the Huskies into an even stronger unit through effective recruiting and deft use of the
transfer portal.
The two most noteworthy additions were freshman guard Stephon Castle, the nation’s No.12-rated recruit, and sharpshooting guard Cam Spencer, a transfer from Rutgers. Castle, who could be a lottery pick in the next NBA draft, emerged as the Big East Freshman of the Year, and Spencer was selected as a first-team Big East performer who’s also the second highest-rated offensive player in the country.
Among the holdovers from 2023, combo guard
Tristen Newton returned for one more season and elevated every
aspect of his game to become UConn’s clear leader. He earned Big East Player of
the Year honors and was named a first-team AP All-American, the first UConn
player with that distinction since Shabazz Napier in 2014.
Another returning starter, forward Alex Karaban,
had a quietly effective season as perhaps UConn’s most unsung player. And then
there’s Donovan Clingan, the 7-foot-2 sophomore center and local favorite from
Bristol, Conn., who came off the bench a year ago but has replaced Sanogo in
the starting lineup.
Clingan, a projected top-5 draft pick if he
decides to leave, has been the most inimitable force in the tournament. His
14-point, 14-rebound, eight-block performance against Northwestern notified UConn’s future opponents that anyone who challenges Clingan in the
paint, either defensively or offensively, could get overpowered or see their
shot rejected into the third row.
The NCAA Tournament is UConn’s to lose. But the
beauty of March Madness is that an upset can happen on any given night, no matter how superior one team might seem over another.
There’s no doubt San Diego State has plenty of
incentive to beat UConn, which has now won eight straight tournaments by
double-figure margins. Maybe the Huskies’ shooting will go cold, and
Clingan and Newton might get into foul trouble early, giving the Aztecs a
chance to fulfill their mission.
But the way defending champion UConn is playing,
San Diego State has a much better shot at a moral victory — losing by fewer
than 10 points — than an actual berth in the Elite Eight.