UConn dominates early and late to overwhelm San Diego State for NCAA men’s championship

San Diego State made a game of it, creating late drama in the NCAA championship game.

But this was Connecticut’s NCAA Tournament. The Huskies took the Aztecs’ best shot with plenty in return, rolling to a 76-59 victory at NRG Stadium in Houston.

“The group had a lot of confidence from how we played the majority of the season,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We knew were the best team going into the tournament. We just had to play to our level.”

For much of the night, the game looked like a mismatch, with UConn leading by as many as 16, and a San Diego State field goal drought in the first half lasting more than 11 minutes.

But the Aztecs closed the margin to five with 5:20 remaining, and it was game on. For a moment, until Jordan Hawkins stepped up and delivered a game’s biggest shot.

Hawkins, who had been righting a stomach virus during the Final Four trip, buried a deep three pointer from the top to restore an eight-point lead and began a 9-0 UConn run to seal the deal.

Some 30 seconds remained and the lead was 16 points when Hurley started wholesale substitutions.

“We knew the level we could play at,” Hurley said.

San Diego State, which won its previous two NCAA games by one point each, including a buzzer-beater to defeat Florida Atlantic in the national semifinals, didn’t get a chance to win this one at the end.

Instead, Connecticut claimed its fifth NCAA championship since 1999, more than any other school in that period. The Huskies became the first team since Villanova in 2018 to win all six of its NCAA games by double-digits.

Here are three takeaways from the championship game:

Sanogo is most outstanding

The best player on the floor for Connecticut throughout the final four was Adama Sanogo, the 6-9 forward who dominates around the basket.

Sanogo finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. He led a complete attack Monday as Hawkins added 16 and Tristen Newton led UConn with 19 points.

His defense in the middle helped the Huskies open a big first half lead as San Diego State missed 14 straight from the field.

In the semifinal victory over Miami, Sanogo went for 21 points and 10 rebounds.

This was a Connecticut team that looked unbeatable early in the season before enduring a stretch of six losses in eight games.

But the Huskies regained their early season form for the NCAA Tournament and roared through the bracket.

Eleven awful minutes

San Diego State made its first three shots and four of its first five for an early four-point lead. Then the Aztecs offense went into hibernation mode.

Two media timeouts passed before the next San Diego State field goal fell. The drought lasted 11:07 and included 14 straight missed shots. The Aztecs made five free throws in the stretch to keep the margin from growing too wide.

“It’s a really good team that beat us tonight,” Aztecs coach Brian Dutcher said.

A mini-drought by UConn to end the first half — the Huskies missed their last six shots, including a pair at the rim — turned the Aztecs’ 16-point deficit to 36-24 at the break.

That was a smaller margin than last year’s title game, when North Carolina led Kansas 40-25 at the half in a game won by the Jayhawks.

UConn climbs the charts

With its fifth NCAA title, Connecticut breaks a tie with Kansas for the sixth-most championships. The Huskies now have as many as Duke and Indiana. Topping the list is UCLA with 11, followed by Kentucky with eight and North Carolina with six.

After the Jayhawks’ four, Villanova is next with three.

No program can top Connecticut’s title-game winning percentage: The Huskies are five-for-five on championship night.

Dan Hurley becomes the third different UConn with a title, following Kevin Ollie and Jim Calhoun, who won three.

Kentucky leads the most-coaches-to-win-one category: Adolph Rupp captured four, with one each for Joe B. Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith and John Calipari.