UConn Proud Of Big East’s Basketball Pedigree Even As Football Money Upends College Sports

BOSTON: Alabama and the remainder of the soccer followers within the Southeastern Conference are about to seek out out what Big East basketball is all about.

The Crimson Tide, who’ve gained 18 NCAA soccer championships however have by no means been to a males’s basketball Final Four, will meet top-seeded UConn within the nationwide semifinals on April 6. The Huskies have an opportunity to win back-to-back NCAA titles — which might make it six in 13 years for the Big East, the league that takes delight in its basketball pedigree whilst soccer cash upended the remainder of school sports activities.

“The Big East is a monster,” UConn coach Dan Hurley mentioned after the Huskies steamrolled Illinois 77-52 on Saturday evening — a March Madness -record tenth straight double-digit victory for the Huskies.

“Iron sharpens iron,” Hurley mentioned. “The league prepares us for these nonconference games. … You’re going against beasts and monsters every night in the Big East, and the Big East prepared us for teams like Illinois.”

UConn has crushed three Big Ten groups this season, topping Indiana within the common season and Northwestern within the second spherical of the NCAA Tournament. The Huskies didn’t play an SEC workforce this yr however went 3-0 in opposition to them final season, together with an 82-67 victory over Alabama on Nov. 22, 2022.

“We’re going to be tough to beat,” mentioned Hurley, whose workforce scored 30 straight factors in opposition to Illinois to interrupt open a sport that was tied 23-all within the last two minutes of the primary half. “It was a special level of basketball that we were playing.”

Donovan Clingan had 22 factors, 10 rebounds and 5 blocked photographs for UConn, which cruised to its fifth nationwide title final yr and appears inexorably headed for a sixth.

Their NCAA Tournament wins this yr have come by 39, 17, 30 and 25 factors.

Actor Bill Murray, whose son, Luke, is a Huskies assistant coach, watched the sport from a courtside seat and took video of the postgame celebration, the place his grandchildren had been showered with confetti. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David was additionally a part of a closely partisan crowd the Huskies (35-3) referred to as “ Storrs North ” for the East Region video games that had been performed about 90 miles from campus.

UConn, which gained the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden and superior to the Sweet 16 in Brooklyn, will now get on an airplane for the primary time in virtually a month and head to the Final Four exterior of Phoenix. Alabama superior with an 89-82 victory over Clemson later Saturday evening.

The Huskies, who set a college file for victories in a season, are the primary defending champs to make it again to the nationwide semifinals since Florida gained back-to-back titles in 2006 and ’07.

That’s nonetheless a risk for UConn, too.

“It’s not about really trying to win No. 6 or go back to back,” Hurley mentioned. “It’s this time of year, you love your team and you can’t imagine what it would be like to not get up the next day and still coach your team. It’s what you learn when you win the way we’ve won: It really is about the work, the journey, the process.”

The Fighting Illini (29-9) managed simply 4 factors within the first half when Clingan was within the sport, with the 7-foot-2 Connecticut native recording 9 factors, six rebounds and three blocks earlier than the break. Overall, they had been 0 for 19 on photographs challenged by Clingan.

“We were getting the same shots we’ve always gotten, and Clingan erased a few of them,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood mentioned. “He’s good. I mean, doesn’t everybody have him projected in the (NBA) lottery or close to it? He does a great job of protecting the rim.”

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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and protection: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

(This story has not been edited by News18 workers and is printed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)