Sports

Connecticut ends dream season with championship

The Connecticut Huskies defeated the Butler Bulldogs 54-41 in Houston Monday night, April 4, ending probably the most unpredictable March Madness in NCAA men’s basketball
tournament history.

Uconn won 11 straight games after the regular season.

They won five games in five nights to win the Big East tournament and then won six straight games to capture their third National championship.

Uconn defeated the Kentucky Wildcats 56-55 in the semifinals on Saturday, April 2, to get to the championship game.

Butler had another Cinderella run to get back to the championship game where they lost to Duke last year.

Senior Matt Howard scored the game-winning basket at the buzzer to beat Old Dominion in their first game.

Then they narrowly escaped No. 1 seed Pitt with Howard making the game-winning free throw.

They made it past No. 4 seed Wisconsin and No. 2 seed Florida to get back to the Final Four where they faced another Cinderella team, No. 11 seed Virginia Commonwealth
University, who many said shouldn’t have even made it into the tournament.

The scoring went back and forth the whole game, but in the end Butler proved to be too much for VCU.

Monday’s championship was a low scoring defensive battle. Butler stayed with Uconn and was even leading when junior Shelvin Mack hit a deep three to end the first half.

The game was not the greatest college basketball national championship but Uconn did what it needed to do to win. It held the Bulldogs to a miserable 12-for-64 shooting, the
worst in a championship game.

Uconn didn’t have the greatest game either, shooting 19-for-55. Butler seemed to be out matched by the length and size of Uconn.

They threw up too many three pointers and couldn’t make any baskets in the paint.

The Huskies star player, Kemba Walker, finished the game with 16 points, freshman Jeremy Lamb finished the game with 12 points, and sophomore Alex Oriakhi had 11 points
and 11 rebounds.

Their defense is what carried them though. Uconn finished the game with four steals and 10 blocks.

They held Howard to seven points and held Shelvin Mack to a 4-for-15 shooting performance.

The 41 points Butler scored was 10 points less than the lowest scoring championship game.

Connecticut outscored Butler 26-2 in the paint.

The Bulldogs went 13:26 in the second half making only one field goal turning a 25-19 lead into a 41-28 deficit.

At age 68, Uconn head coach Jim Calhoun has become the oldest coach to win the NCAA championship.

He won his third title since 1999 and joined John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight as the fifth coach to win the national tournament three or more times.

Butler’s 34-year old head coach, Brad Stevens, has led the Bulldogs, a school with 4,500 students, to the national championship the past two seasons.

No team played better when they had to win than Connecticut did.

They finished the season 14-0 in tournament play winning the Maui Invitational, the Big East Tournament and the National Tourney.

The Huskies weren’t even ranked at the beginning of the season and finished 9-9 in the tough Big East conference.

With the positive leadership of Walker and the improvement of their younger players throughout the season, they were able to beat the odds and cut down the nets as national
champions.