NCAA men’s basketball tournament: UConn, Purdue will play for title

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Connecticut and Purdue punched tickets to Monday’s NCAA men’s basketball championship game, withstanding challenges in their semifinal matches on Saturday night.

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UConn, the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, will try to become the first men’s team to win back-to-back titles since Florida in 2006 and 2007. The Huskies (36-3) earned an 86-72 victory against Alabama (25-12), which was playing in its first Final Four.

Purdue (34-4) advanced to its first title game since 1969 with a 63-50 win against North Carolina State (26-15).

Tipoff Monday night is at 9:20 p.m. EDT at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

The championship game will feature a battle of big men, with 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan for Connecticut and 7-foot-4 Zach Edey of Purdue. Both teams were in top five of The Associated Press basketball poll all season, according to The Athletic. UConn was No. 1 for seven weeks, while the Boilermakers spent five weeks atop the polls.

Both teams wore down their opponents.

Alabama tied the game 56-56 with 12:44 left in the second half. Then UConn regained its composure.

Huskies guard Stephon Castle hit a pair of free throws and then scored another basket. Samson Johnson dunked and Alex Karaban put back a miss to highlight an 8-0 run, The Athletic reported.

Alabama would never get closer than six points the rest of the way, according to ESPN.

“We don’t crumble,” Clingan told reporters after Saturday’s game. “Basketball is a game of runs. We stay composed, stay together and just keep playing as a team, and they’re not going to make every shot.”

“Our identity is to be pretty relentless,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We might not break you for 18 minutes, 25 minutes, but at some point if what we’re doing at both ends and on the backboard is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”

Castle led UConn with 21 points. Clingan added 18 points, five rebounds and blocked four shots. Tristen Newton had 12 points and nine assists, while Karaban and Cam Spencer scored 14 points apiece.

The Huskies have won 11 straight NCAA tournament games in double digits since last season, ESPN reported.

“We make a hard tournament look easy,” Hurley said. “It’s crazy.”

North Carolina State found a way to neutralize Edey early in its game against Purdue, but the Boilermakers were potent from outside, sinking 10 of 25 3-pointers, The Athletic reported. Lance Jones led the sharpshooters with four 3-pointers en route to a 14-point night.

Edey led the Boilermakers with 20 points and 12 points but also had four assists.

Despite 16 turnovers, Purdue overcame the Wolfpack, who turned cold in the second half on 1-for-10 shooting, ESPN reported. DJ Horne led North Carolina State with 20 points.

“Just getting a win without any of the particulars is worth it, right? To be able to advance,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said after the game. “I always talk about that, trying to win a Big Ten championship. Everybody wants to talk about winning it. I said, ‘Man, you got to get yourself in position before you can win one.’ It’s like winning a national championship. You can talk all you want, but if you’re not going to play on Monday, you don’t have a chance.

“Obviously, we put ourselves in a position to win one. You’ve got to give our guys credit. They’ve been able to battle back. They’ve also been able to handle a lot of adversity.”

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