Houston, TX – The Road Ends Here.
The men’s college basketball season will be ending Monday night with the National Championship game set to take place in Houston Texans NRG Stadium featuring 4 seeded UConn Huskies and 5 seeded San Diego St. Aztecs. The Huskies got here by a very convincing win over Miami in their Final Four game while the Aztecs needed a buzzer beater by Lamont Butler to get past Florida Atlantic.
The championship game will be tough for either team. UConn is a very well balanced team that is led by big man Adama Sanogo and guard Jordan Hawkins. They can play any style of basketball they want and make anyone play the style they want them to play but it won’t be easy. SDSU is currently on a 2020 revenge tour because they thought they were a legit threat to win the National Championship if it wasn’t for Covid and have one of the nation’s best defenses to back them up this season.
It will come down to SDSU being able to hit tough shots and if UConn will be able to slow down the Aztecs in transition.
The start of the game looked like it was going to be very competitive with SDSU controlling the pace but that quickly changed because after going up 10-8 UConn ramped up their defense and made things very tough for the SDSU. The Aztecs couldn’t get any kind of good looks and went on an 11 minute drought without a made FG. That allowed the Huskies to get out to a quick double digit lead that they took into the half.
The second half wasn’t that big of a difference. SDSU needed to come out with a different kind of energy to start the half and they did not. Their offense was slightly better but they still couldn’t really generate good looks or get enough consecutive stops to really get back in the game. It was all UConn in the second half who didn’t let the lead get below double digits.
Until 7:41 left in the game. SDSU’s energy and effort showed up for the first time in the game. They got the Huskies lead down to as little as 4 but the Husky shot making and defense was just too much to really overcome.
A combination of bad shots and UConn being in the double bonus with 6:45 left in the game was just too much for SDSU and it was UConn who were victorious with a score of 76-59 to claim the school’s 5th National Championship.
The Huskies were led by big man Adama Sanogo who had 17 points and 10 rebounds and was also named the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. Guard Tristen Newton added 19 points and 10 rebounds while Jordan Hawkins added 16 points and 4 assists.
It is the first for Head Coach Dan Hurley who has completely Brough back a UConn program that is filled with a lot of history. UConn has won 5 National Championships since 1999 which is more than any other Blue Blood program in that span so it might be time for them to be added to the club.
