Who shined brightest in UConn’s 75-60 win over Purdue in the men’s NCAA championship game? Who fell short? Let’s dive into Winners and Losers.
Winner: Team Basketball
No team has ever dominated the men’s tournament like Connecticut just did. The closest call of the Huskies’ run was their 14-point win over Alabama in the Final Four. The 75-60 victory over Purdue in Monday’s national title game was their seventh win of at least 15 points since the start of conference tournament play. This team didn’t just run the table. It burned the table to the freaking ground. Connecticut finished the six-game NCAA tournament gauntlet with a plus-140 point differential, breaking the previous men’s record of plus-129, set by Kentucky in 1996, by a comfortable margin.
What a team this was. It finished the season ranked first in offensive efficiency according to KenPom. All five starters averaged double-figure points. They almost shared the shots equally.
UConn’s Starting Five Shares the Ball
Connecticut tallied an assist on 63.6 percent of its made baskets, the fifth-highest rate in the country, per KenPom. It finished eighth in that same metric a season ago. But before 2023, it had been over a decade since one of coach Dan Hurley’s teams finished in the top 100 in assist rate. The free-flowing offense UConn has been known for over their title reign was not previously a hallmark of Hurley’s coaching philosophy. His teams had been hard-nosed, physical units that won with defense and a complementary offense. But a shift in Hurley’s offensive philosophy—and how he calls plays—changed everything. Hurley told The Athletic’s C.J. Moore that he now structures his calls like a football team would, focusing on the initial alignment and the various actions the play entails, which gives his players options and counter options if a defense is able to take away the initial action.
Moore writes:
He gives a made-up example: “14 jet zoom pitch twin.”
The 14 is for the alignment—a one-four low—and then the Huskies stack actions on top of each other. In this case, a jet, then a zoom, then a pitch, then a twin.
“It’s like learning a language,” Hurley says.
Connecticut isn’t afraid to work deep into the shot clock, as Purdue saw on Monday night. They can speed things up when they have to, but in the half court, these Huskies hunt the best possible shot. Take this possession that ended with a wide-open 3 for Stephon Castle. UConn runs an assortment of actions, including stagger screens, dribble handoffs, and finally a pick-and-roll that unlocks the Purdue defense with a few ticks left on the shot clock.
Those are the kinds of possessions basketball coaches dream of, and UConn had a dozen (or two dozen) of them per game. The Huskies would push the ball in transition off of a miss or turnover, but they took their time when they got into their half-court offense, finishing the season ranked 330th in adjusted tempo and 305th in average possession length, per KenPom. That’s typically a bad sign for an offense. Teams that play that slowly on the offensive end don’t typically do it on purpose; they just struggle to get off shots and work against the shot clock. Look at the teams that run their offense at a similar pace. They all rank outside the top 100 in adjusted offensive efficiency, and then there’s UConn’s “1” sticking out.
The numbers suggest UConn is a slow-moving team, but when the ball is in the Huskies’ possession, it actually moves around quickly. They put on a clinic in beating pressure without putting the ball on the court when Purdue pressed late in the game. The press break below ended with a miss, but look at how quickly and efficiently the Huskies passed around the Boilermakers defense.
This UConn team had the personnel to take on any identity. It could play big or small, run or slow things down. It had 3-point shooting, dominant post-up threats, and guards who could score in the paint. But no matter how Hurley asked his guys to play, they always shared the ball. Everybody ate on this team.
Loser: Old Takes Exposed
“People better get us now. That’s all. You better get us now. Because it’s coming.”
Dan Hurley made that claim after UConn’s close road loss at Villanova in January 2020. At the time, it was easy to laugh off. Hurley was in his second season in charge. The Huskies were sitting at 10-7, and they had just lost their fourth game in five tries. They were 19-12 before the postseason tournaments were canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic that season, and they’d lose in the first round in each of the next two years. Then Hurley’s team reeled off 14 straight wins to start the 2023 season, including a 3-0 start to Big East play, but lost six of its next eight to fall to 5-6 in-conference. “You better get us now” hadn’t aged well.
Oh how things have changed. Over the last 13 months, the Huskies have lost four games. They have won 12 consecutive NCAA tournament games by at least 13 points, and won 15 straight elimination games. Hurley wasn’t wrong; he was just a little early.
And on Monday night, Hurley etched his name in college basketball history by joining Billy Donovan, Mike Krzyzewski, and John Wooden as the only men’s coaches since 1970 to win back-to-back titles. And unlike those guys, Hurley didn’t do it with the same core. UConn had to replace three starters and two key bench players from last year’s title-winning team. This is quite simply one of the best two-year stretches we’ve ever seen from a college basketball coach.
Monday night was a showcase of sorts for the coach who once referred to himself as a “meme machine.” He was coaching his ass off all game, working the officials, screaming instructions at his players, exchanging words with Purdue’s Zach Edey, and he even picked up an interference violation when he made contact with Cam Spencer in the middle of a play. If you hadn’t watched UConn all year, this is how he always is.
Near the end of the game, Hurley enjoyed a special moment with his son, Andrew Hurley, a senior on the team who rarely plays outside of garbage time. As Andrew dribbled out the shot clock, his father stood only a couple of feet away, and the two shared a moment. It wasn’t a hug or an exchange of sweet words, but rather Hurley instructed his son to slam the ball on the court in celebration as the clock expired.
Another one for the meme machine.
Winner: Zach Edey’s Draft Stock
It’s not often that Edey gets to play one-on-one, and we saw why on Monday night. The 7-foot-4 senior scored 37 points on 25 shots, including a dominant early stretch of the game in which he scored 16 points and hit seven of his nine shots. Most of those buckets came against Donovan Clingan, a fellow 7-footer and projected lottery pick in the upcoming NBA draft. Clingan might be the only player at the college level capable of hanging with Edey on his own in the post, but it didn’t look like it early on. After UConn’s big man stonewalled Edey on his first post-up, Purdue’s All-American found a rhythm, hitting a couple of tough hook shots before opening up his game in ways we haven’t really seen from him during his college career. The highlight was a sweet up-and-under move to counter Clingan overplaying his trademark left-shoulder hook.
Edey also slammed home a lob over Clingan after rolling off a ball screen:
This was a proof-of-concept game for Edey, who currently projects as a late first-round pick in most 2024 NBA mock drafts. It’s difficult to envision what Edey’s game will look like at the next level because we haven’t seen him go up against much competition that has both his size and ability at the collegiate level. The fact that the 21-year-old Canadian was able to score at an efficient clip (and get to the line) against an NBA-caliber prospect bodes well for his pro prospects—at least on the offensive end. It did not, however, bode well for Purdue overall on Monday night.
Loser: Zach Edey’s Supporting Cast
Clingan lost his battle with Edey in the box score—getting outscored 37 to 11 and out-rebounded 10 to five—but he won the war. Despite spending very little time on the perimeter while on defense, Clingan was arguably the Huskies’ best 3-point defender because he survived his one-on-one matchups with Edey in the low post. In doing that, Clingan freed up his teammates to stay on the perimeter and cut off Purdue’s supply of open 3-pointers. The Boilermakers scored 761 points off of spot-up attempts (both 2s and 3s) this season. On Monday, they managed just two, per Synergy. Throughout the season Purdue made 48 3-pointers on passes out of a post-up this season. In the title game, they didn’t make a single one.
Purdue, which finished second in the country in 3-point shooting accuracy this season, made a single 3 in the game, and it came on an improvised ball screen at the end of the shot clock.
After the game, coach Matt Painter said UConn’s “game plan of just taking away our 3s” was the biggest factor in the loss. “We had to have a balance,” Painter said. “We didn’t turn the ball over very much. We only had nine turnovers. More than anything, that was it: We had to have a balance somewhere. Or we just needed to be more efficient at scoring at the rim.”
Purdue had no balance. It was Edey or nothing, with the other 11 Boilermakers who logged minutes combining for 23 points on 9-of-29 shooting. Fletcher Loyer was held scoreless. Lance Jones made only two field goals. Braden Smith scored 12 points but needed 12 shots to do it. The Big Ten regular-season champs made only two shots outside the paint.
The Edey post-ups were the only reliable source of offense for Purdue, but as Painter said, even the looks at the rim weren’t falling with enough regularity. The Boilermakers averaged exactly 1.00 points per possession on their 29 post-up plays in the game, per Synergy. That’s slightly lower than their average on all plays this season (1.02), which Hurley would have gladly taken before the game.
Edey isn’t without blame for the loss. He did not play well defensively outside of situations where he was playing directly against smaller ball handlers. When UConn put him in the pick-and-roll and forced him to move, you could see why NBA scouts don’t view him as a lottery pick. UConn’s backup 5, Samson Johnson, skated right by Edey’s drop coverage for two dunks off pick-and-rolls. Here’s one of them:
Connecticut was also able to win the battle for the boards. Offensive rebounding had been a big part of Purdue’s attack this season. The Boilermakers’ 266 points scored from offensive boards was the seventh most this season, per Synergy. They typically grab 37.7 percent of their missed shots, per KenPom, which also ranks seventh, but against UConn, their offensive rebounding rate was just 30 percent. Edey had four of Purdue’s eight offensive rebounds.
UConn, meanwhile, grabbed 40.6 percent of its misses. Even when Purdue managed to stop UConn’s free-flowing offense, it couldn’t regularly end possessions. Giving Hurley’s offense extra looks at the rim isn’t a winning business model. The Huskies took eight more shots than Purdue on the night.
Winner: Cam Spencer
The first of UConn’s 75 points was scored by a player who may not have been on the team had Kansas not plucked Nick Timberlake out of the transfer portal before Hurley could get a commitment. Timberlake took the Jayhawks’s NIL money, and Hurley had to change course. He ended up going with Spencer, who had spent one year at Rugers after a three-year stint at Loyola (Md.) to start his college career. Hurley didn’t realize it at the time, but he was signing his basketball soulmate.
On the court, Spencer is kind of a shithead. I mean that in the best possible way. He antagonizes opposing players, like when he let out a giant scream toward Purdue’s student section after Smith air-balled a 3 late in Monday’s blowout win.
And after hitting his first attempt from deep, Spencer yelled “all day” at the Boilermakers.
You can see why Big East fans think he owns the conference’s “most punchable face.”
But Spencer is more than an antagonistic gremlin on the court. He’s freaking good. He led the nation in offensive rating this season, per KenPom. He made 44 percent of his 3s. He scores in the paint thanks to slick footwork, a delicate touch, and a unique ability to pin defenders on his back.
He does everything else at a high level too. He’s an annoying defender who gets his hands in the passing lanes. He rebounds well for his position—he grabbed eight boards on Monday night—and he’s not afraid to dive on the court for a loose ball.
On top of all that, the dude is obsessed with basketball. He’s addicted to watching film, and will borrow (without permission) scouting reports from the coaching staff to study opponents outside of the team facility. His obsession with the game allowed him to pick up Hurley’s complex offense faster than most. “It’s the most complicated system in the country, just the way we run offense, and how much we have to move,” Clingan told The Athletic last month. “I was here last year, and I was lost for like two months. He picked it up quick.”
Spencer never stops. Even after winning a national title, he was in the locker room postgame dribbling the ball and telling Clingan, who went live on Instagram, “we have practice tomorrow.”
I have a hard time believing that practice will actually take place. Spencer, and this entire Connecticut team, has earned some rest time.
