BOSTON — Dan Hurley strolled across midcourt with 3:33 left in the sport, and the ultimate timeout of one other March demolition gave him a moment to absorb the scene.
He faced the gang in front of his bench and stretched his arms wide, drawing a roar from the Husky fans filling TD Garden. “Our s—!” he shouted.
As time went on, he gained 29 points and will at the least breathe a sigh of relief.
“I finally felt like we had it,” Hurley said with a smile.
By now, UConn is accustomed to celebrating the ultimate buzzer. For the second 12 months in a row, the Huskies return to the Final Four. For the second 12 months in a row, they did it in dominant fashion, defeating third-seeded Illinois 77-52 on Saturday within the Elite Eight in a game that did not even seem that close.
A good 20-minute game was a demolition because the Huskies used a 30-0 run, including 25 straight points early within the second half, to turn the tie right into a 53-23.
UConn’s 6-foot-7 center Donovan Clingan was at the middle of the sport, disrupting Illinois’ defense and swinging the ring offensively. Clingan finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds, five blocks and three steals in only 22 minutes, but his impact went beyond scoring. There were converted shots and successful rebounds.
While he was on the ground, Illinois – the second most effective offense within the country – couldn’t rating.
On Saturday, UConn outscored Illinois 34-4 in Clingan’s first 17 minutes on the court. Yes, 4.
Clingan was also within the thick of the motion that decided the match. After splitting a pair of free throws to put the Huskies up 33-23, Clingan connected with Illinois’ Quincy Guerrier on the rim, thwarting his attempted dunk.
At the opposite end of the ground, he took a pass from Stephon Castle and accomplished a two-handed shot himself, meeting up along with his teammates in front of the UConn bench to chest-bump as Illinois called a timeout.
DONOVAN CLINGAN IS ON FIRE 🔥#MarchMadness @UConnMBB pic.twitter.com/dPcKzvvrUn
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 30, 2024
“It was like ‘wow,'” guard Hassan Diarra said.
UConn, which defeated fifth-seeded San Diego State by 30 points on Thursday, advanced to the Final Four with 4 wins by a mean margin of 27.8 points. All 10 of the Huskies’ NCAA Tournament wins over the past two seasons have been by double digits.
Illinois, with its strong offense, was thought to be considered one of the few teams that would challenge the UConn machine. And it looked like he caught a husky on his time off. Connecticut tied a season low in making three three-pointers and combined for 1 of 12 shots on goal from guards Tristen Newton and Stephon Castle.
But the Huskies held Illini leading scorer Terrence Shannon Jr. to eight points on 2 of 12 shots, and kept the Illini off the scoreboard for the primary 4 minutes of the primary half and the primary 7:19 of the second.
“When your defense is elite like ours and your offense is elite like ours and the rebounding margins show that we are an elite rebounding team and we generally play harder than our opponent and we share the ball and we have depth of different people,” he said Hurley. “Our first-team All-American point guard (Newton) didn’t make a field goal today and we went 3-of-17 from 3 to finish the run 30-0. So depth.
“We don’t have any particular disadvantages, which makes you as bulletproof as possible in this tournament to survive bad shooting or a bad performance from a star like Tristan.”
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