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It’s the Huskies vs. the Aztecs with everything on the line in a game that has the potential to be special.
An irregular college basketball season will come to an irregular conclusion Monday night, with a No. 4 seed battling a No. 5 seed for the sport’s national championship.
Here are four reasons why the matchup between Connecticut and San Diego State is something everyone should be excited about.
1. UConn looking to cap one of the most dominant runs in NCAA tournament history
While San Diego State is the first team in NCAA tournament history to win an Elite Eight game and a Final Four game by just 1-point (and just the third team in tournament history to win back-to-back games by a single point, period), Connecticut hasn’t needed any final minute magic to advance to the season’s final Monday.
The Huskies have steamrolled their way through the first five rounds of the tournament, winning each game by at least 13 points and by an average of 20.6 ppg. Danny Hurley’s team is just the fifth in March Madness history to win its first five games by 13 or more points. Four of the other five teams to accomplish the feat — Michigan State in 2000, Duke in 2001, North Carolina in 2009 and Villanova in 2018 — went on to win the national championship.
All four of those dominant champions were No. 1 seeds and pre-tournament favorites. While UConn did receive more pre-tournament hype than most typical No. 4 seeds, they’re still looking to become just the second team ever from the 4-line to cut down the nets.
While Adama Sanogo and Jordan Hawkins have both had terrific offensive tournaments, it’s what UConn has been able to do on the defensive side of the ball that has fueled its dominance. On their run to Monday night, the Huskies faced two of the best offensive teams in the country in Gonzaga and Miami. They held them both to season lows in scoring at 54 and 59 points, respectively. Connecticut is also the first team since Ohio State in 1961 to hold each of its opponents to under 35.0 percent shooting in the three rounds leading up to the national title game.
UCOnn has won its first five games by a combined 103 points, which means it’ll need to beat San Diego State by 27 to break the 1995-96 Kentucky Wildcats’ record of total margin of victory in an NCAA tournament history. While a national title result that lopsided seems unlikely, one more convincing victory will undoubtedly cement the Huskies as one of the most dominant champions in college basketball history.
2. San Diego State’s own quest for history
We don’t need to dive into the annual debate over what does and does not qualify a program for the title of “mid-major” (a fun topic for July!). But if we can all agree that the ACC, Big East, SEC, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac-12 are the six leagues that appropriately fall under the umbrella of “power conference” in college basketball, then we can agree that San Diego State has a chance on Monday night to be the sport’s first non-power conference national champion since UNLV cut down the nets in 1990.
Of course that isn’t the only piece of history that’s on the line for the Aztecs here.
With a win over UConn, San Diego State can become …
—The First Mountain West team to ever win the national championship.
—The first No. 5 seed to ever win the national championship.
—The first West Coast team to win the national championship since Arizona in 1997.
—A program with 12 total NCAA tournament victories on its resume. Meaning half of its all-time March Madness wins would have come on this run.
—The fifth school from the state of California to win the NCAA tournament, but the first since UCLA in 1995.
—The first national champion that wasn’t ranked in the final AP top 10 before the tournament since UConn in 2014.
It’s been one of the wildest seasons in the history of college basketball. One of the wildest national champions in the history of the sport would feel like an appropriate conclusion.
3. The battle inside
Adama Sanogo has been a force inside for Connecticut all tournament long, becoming the first Husky ever to score at least 100 points and grab at least 40 rebounds in a single NCAA tournament. Through five games in the Big Dance, Sanogo is averaging 20.2 points, 9.8 boards, 1.2 assists, and 1.4 blocks.
When Sanogo is forced to the bench, he’s replaced by massive 7’2 freshman Donovan Clingan, who has totaled 27 rebounds in the tournament despite never playing more than 13 minutes in a game. Clingan and Sanogo are the two biggest reasons why UConn has made 69 percent of its shots at the rim in the tournament thus far.
The Husky bigs will be facing their tallest test of the postseason against SDSU on Monday night.
San Diego State’s Nathan Mensah is one of the sport’s elite rim protectors. He’s blocked at least one shot in 13 consecutive games and has swatted 13 of them in five tournament games so far. Jaedon LeDee, who came off the bench and had some huge moments down the stretch on Saturday night against Florida Atlantic, is also a serviceable force inside.
On their trip to the national title game, the Aztecs have allowed their five opponents to shoot just 48.1 percent at the rim.
Something’s going to have to give on Monday night.
4. The long list of potential heroes
The big men are stellar on both sides, but it’s guards who steal the show more times than not in the season’s final game. If that does end up being the case on Monday, then the list of potential heroes with juicy storylines is a lengthy one.
Jordan Hawkins — The Connecticut sharpshooter who was limited all week by food poisoning before giving a gutsy effort against Miami on Saturday.
Matt Bradley — The only San Diego State player averaging double figures in scoring who had a miserable first two weeks of the tournament before breaking out a bit on Final Four Saturday. He also had a performance so bad in SDSU’s tournament loss to Creighton last season that he said he had to step away from basketball entirely for two months afterwards.
Tristen Newton — The Husky floor general who has been criticized all season for not being a “traditional point guard” despite averaging nearly five assists per game and handing out eight of them in the national semifinals.
Lamont Butler — He made two enormous mistakes in the final 13 seconds of a gut-punch loss to Arkansas in the Maui Invitational back in November. Four months later he knocked down one of the most memorable game-winners in NCAA tournament history.
Andre Jackson Jr. — UConn’s 6’6 “point forward” has been criticized at times for his offensive limitations, but he’s also been within shouting distance of a triple-double multiple times already in this tournament.
Darrion Trammell — The man who has been San Diego State’s most consistent offensive contributor throughout the tournament is also guy whose college basketball career began at City College of San Francisco. He then spent two seasons at Seattle University before arriving at SDSU.
Whoever Monday night’s hero winds up being, they’re going to have an attractive backstory for sports writers across the country to dive into.
