Houston, TX – The end of the men’s college basketball season is almost here and the beginning of the end started Saturday night in Houston for the 2023 Final Four semifinal games.
There weren’t any “sexy” teams this season. No blue bloods and this is the first time in the history of the NCAA tournament history, the Final Four won’t have a top 3 seed present and there are even 3 teams that are making their first Final Four appearance in school history. There aren’t even any “sexy” players with only one guy in the Final Four being a projected first round pick in the upcoming NBA Draft.
None of that matters thought because all four teams are worthy of being National Champion.
Game 1 ended with a buzzer beater so game 2 between the Miami Hurricanes and the UConn Huskies was going to have to match the excitement to end the night.
This game featured a very balanced team on both ends of the floor in UConn and a very good offensive team with possibly the best starting 5 left in Miami. Both teams with plenty of experience and pretty much the same amount of depth so both teams knew it was going to be a tough outing.
And that is was.
UConn jumped out to an early 9p lead by getting hot from 3 early on plus rattling Miami on the defensive end. Miami then woke up and got rid of the nerves and ramped up their defense to quickly come back to really make things competitive in the first half. They used some very tough shot making and offensive rebounds to really make UConn work.
That all changed when UConn decided to put on an absolute defensive clinic for the second part of the first half. They switched pretty much everything, stayed in passing lanes, and played really good physical point of attack defense. To make things worse for the Hurricanes, the Huskies had great player movement and got nothing but great looks on the offensive end and didn’t settle.
Miami would need to come out of halftime with some major adjustments.
Those adjustments didn’t come to start the half as UConn came out and pushed their lead to 19 but Miami quickly adjusted after that and figured out the UConn defense to get better looks and increased their ball pressure to speed the Huskies up and cause turnovers, bad passes, and rushed shots. That didn’t last too long because Miami reverted back to the same things that were issues for them in the first half.
UConn kept their lead over double digits for pretty much the whole half and Miami couldn’t do anything to really slow them down and that led to their 72-59 victory. The very well balanced Huskies are headed to their 1st National Championship game since 2014 when they won it all. They will look to win the school’s 5th National Championship.
They were led by Adama Sanogo 21 points and 10 rebounds with Jordan Hawkins adding 13 points and 3 rebounds.
The Huskies will take on the Aztecs of San Diego St. Monday night for a chance to win the 2022-23 Men’s National Championship.
