RALEIGH—All week since arriving for this year’s men’s NCAA tournament, UConn Huskies coach Dan Hurley has been in a reflective mood away from the court, as if he were a veteran, highly paid history professor who sat his glasses down on the dais to wax poetic about the past.
After every diatribe about his team’s run the past two seasons, which saw them wind up as national champions, he would end with a warning delivered with nary a smile.
The Huskies, despite this season’s struggles in an unexpected 24–11 campaign, were still pretty good. They were, in a transient sport that often limits you to simply reigning as champions instead of truly defending your title, still capable of going on a run after escaping their opening-round game against the Oklahoma Sooners to tie for the second-longest tournament winning streak of all time.
If someone, anyone, was to knock them off their perch atop the sport, they would have to come and take it from UConn. That’s just what you have to do in basketball, much less at a site featuring four programs in the second round who have won a combined 11 national titles in the past two decades.
Someone, particularly the Florida Gators in a 77–75 victory over UConn in the first game at the Lenovo Center, took the torch away in dramatic fashion by rising to the occasion down the stretch. Combined with the Duke Blue Devils’ 89–66 dismantling of the Baylor Bears that concluded three hours later, it became obviously clear that while there will be a new champion crowned in 15 days, men’s college basketball does not appear to be in short supply of worthy teams capable of playing at the same level the Huskies had become known for.
“It met what we expected. A team that maybe wasn’t at the same level as they had been for the last two years but came into March Madness expecting to win games,” said Florida coach Todd Golden, his youthful energy hiding the stress that came with delivering the Gators their first Sweet 16 since 2017. “They had won 13 games in a row, and they played like it. We got off to a good start. It didn’t bother them that much. I thought they played really composed. They ran a really good offense. They bothered us a lot that way all the game.
“But credit to our players because when it was kind of nut-cutting time, they stepped up and made big plays. I think it was more about our guys stepping up and winning the game than UConn not pushing through. Our guys made big-time winning plays down the stretch.”
Though “nut-cutting time” seems unlikely to enter the everyday lexicon as the stand in for what’s more colloquially known as crunch time, it was in some ways apt in showcasing what Florida had to do in order to hand UConn its first tourney loss in 1,102 days.
Perhaps fittingly, at the heart of such an effort was a Gator who had been there for the start of UConn’s budding dynasty.
Guard Walter Clayton Jr. knew what it was like to be on the wrong side of Hurley’s tournament death machine while playing for the Iona Gaels, sitting on the bench tearfully crying when the Huskies won their 2023 first-round meeting, 87–63. He transferred to his home state shortly afterward to sync up with Golden, aiming to round out the corners in his game at the highest level by playing in the SEC.
The move paid off, with Clayton blossoming into a first-team All-American and, in the most tense times on Sunday when Florida’s future as the No. 1 seed in the West Region hung in the balance, leading a pair of six-point scoring spurts in the closing minutes. The guard, who scored a game-high 23 points, delivered a dagger of a three-pointer with 67 seconds left that extended the Gators’ lead to two possessions.
“My teammates trusted me in the end,” Clayton said. “[UConn] has got a championship pedigree, back-to-back champions. That’s a great team. They had that experience. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We kept our composure.”
That often isn’t all that easy to do, especially when the two teams both shot under 39% from the field in the early goings before settling down to trade emotion-swinging barbs after halftime that gave you glimpses of the madness that has mostly been lacking this March.
UConn guard Liam McNeeley finally started to find a rhythm on his way to 22 points. Solo Ball, who missed all but one of his initial eight shots from beyond the arc, swished one home to spark more momentum in the late stages. Alex Karaban, in his 110th straight start for the Huskies, chipped in with a trio of assists and some timely baskets despite finishing an off night with just 14 points.
It seemed like things were getting away from the SEC tournament champions, who were suddenly in the midst of a heavyweight, back-and-forth Big East affair after scoring at least 86 points in their past seven games.
Yet there was Clayton with answers from deep in the final four minutes. Alijah Martin, who carried the team in the first half, finished with 18 points. Big man Thomas Haugh got hands on seemingly every loose ball and knocked down 5-of-6 free throws when the final score hung in the balance.
It was a moment of realization for a team with aspirations of a championship—one that can validate the direction of travel for a program under Golden that appears to be fully back on the national stage. That it came against one set to step off it, for now, was simply a product of the bracket.
“I think this [is] just [a] historic run that these guys have been on and the guys that have worn the uniform the past couple years, if it’s going to come to an end for us, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be in a game where we lost to a lower seed. There’s some honor in this loss, I guess, in the way it went down,” said Hurley, who fought back tears as his players spoke alongside him. “[Unless] it ended in San Antonio cutting the nets down again, it was going to end in a real emotional way for us.”
“I’ve enjoyed going to war with these guys every single night,” said Samson Johnson, the big man who has been there from the beginning and played in every single game the past two seasons. “Obviously having the most wins in the history of UConn is a great accomplishment, but I feel like, if we had one more win tonight, it would have been even better.
“I didn’t want to go home today.”
Neither, it appeared, did Duke, playing in a matinee 20 minutes from its campus in front of the bulk of its fans at a supposed neutral site, leaving no doubt the Blue Devils are tournament favorites.
The Blue Devils shot an impressive 64.4% from the field against the Bears and barely broke a sweat in building a double-digit lead over the final five minutes of the first half they never relinquished. That included a 12–0 run right before halftime that was mostly done with star freshman Cooper Flagg on the bench with two fouls.
“The preparation for this game started with great respect for Scott Drew, his program, how good of a coach he is, his coaching staff, and their players. They have really good talent,” coach Jon Scheyer said. “To win by this margin, I think, speaks to the level of killer instinct that our guys have, the competitiveness and the connectivity.”
Flagg, who finished with 18 points in just 29 minutes and looks more than fine after recovering from last week’s ankle injury in the ACC tournament, checked out with the rest of the starters with 2:35 left to underscore such dominance.
For whatever thoughts or doubts there might have been externally about this group as the lone banner-carrier in the Big Dance for a weak ACC, they were more than answered this weekend.
“Duke is a well-executed team, well-coached team. They play hard. They made shots. We had a ton of mistakes, and they separated,” Baylor guard VJ Edgecombe said. “Basketball is a game of runs, and they went on a run. They went on a pretty big run, and that’s what caused it.”
“The analytics show they didn’t have any weakness,” Drew said. “They’re blessed because they have size and length and skill. They have really good players. Coach Scheyer’s done a great job of putting together a roster that blends, plays well together.”
Edgecombe and Drew probably undersold their praise. It was all Duke, all the time, against Baylor, which was picked in the preseason polls one spot behind the Blue Devils.
Every time the Bears seemed to crack open the door and look like they were about to make a run, it was slammed back in their faces by a team that has only gotten stronger as the season has worn on.
“I think it’s going even better than we could have imagined in terms of the personalities. We really tried to identify guys in the transfer portal that understood it wasn’t going to be about them scoring all the points or shooting all the shots, but it was about the fit. And with the fit, they could be really successful as well,” Scheyer said. “It’s about the fit and being part of a winning team.”
Much of that has come from the veteran leadership guard Tyrese Proctor has shown, especially since Flagg suffered a high ankle sprain. The Australian got off to a shaky start at the ACC tourney—missing his first 10 shots from beyond the arc—but has been a red hot ever since to the point where Drew called him Steph Curry postgame.
Few who saw Proctor connecting on 7-of-8 three-point attempts on the way to a game-high 25 points would probably disagree, with his smooth shooting motion allowing him to become the first Duke player since Scheyer to hit more than five three-pointers in back-to-back NCAA tourney games.
“I’m just really proud of our group and proud of the way we came out and responded in the second half,” Proctor said. “Once we started getting loose balls and rebounds, we could push in transition and play our offense.”
That’s the scary thing about Duke: They are not just relentless, but they are a rare group that has shown themselves to be more than capable of figuring out solutions in real time. It’s not just Flagg, the presumptive No. 1 NBA draft pick this summer, needing to bail the team out; it’s a collective effort on both ends that has become suffocating to opponents who are often left trying to survive at a time of year where that’s all there is left to do.
Nothing was more emblematic of that dominance than the final player on the Blue Devils’ bench. Walk-on Spencer Hubbard, 5' 8" on a good day, was the fan favorite this weekend, checking into the game with 1:04 left to raucous applause against Baylor (as well as Friday against the Mount St. Mary’s Mountaineers).
It would be one thing if Duke, which has lost just once since Thanksgiving and doesn’t show any signs of stopping following the most convincing opening weekend of any team this tournament, was able to win going away. The fact the Blue Devils had the opportunity to throw Hubbard into action twice during their first two games might send an even greater message than any scoreboard could.
The Blue Devils are for real, the kind of team capable of going on a run and look very much ready to cement an all-time historic season by cutting down the nets in two weeks.
But the Gators are not too far behind after showing off their own championship mettle by driving a stake into the heart of the, for 15 days more, reigning champions.
“Listen, you credit the teams,” Hurley said. “A lot of emotion, man. We’re a passionate program. The players play with it. I coach with it. You’re always f---ing drained when it’s over.”
It’s certainly done and dusted for UConn, the final chapter of a storybook two-year run. The only question left now is who is ready to author a new one in 2025.
Based on what transpired this week in North Carolina’s capital, we may have gotten a nice preview of the two teams best positioned to do so.
More March Madness on Sports Illustrated
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Duke and Florida Give Best Look at What Championship Fight Will Require.
