{"id":20970,"date":"2024-04-23T17:13:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-24T01:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=20970"},"modified":"2024-04-23T17:13:46","modified_gmt":"2024-04-24T01:13:46","slug":"the-newest-mens-collegiate-basketball-champions-university-of-connecticut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/the-newest-mens-collegiate-basketball-champions-university-of-connecticut\/","title":{"rendered":"The newest men’s collegiate basketball champions: University of Connecticut"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by: Jaylin Hardin | Sports Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

The University of Connecticut clinched back-to-back National Collegiate Athletic Association \u2014 NCAA \u2014 men\u2019s basketball championships over Purdue University on April 8, 2024.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The first half was a close match-up, but UConn went on a 15-7 run from a point deficit to pull ahead at the half. This deficit was the first time Purdue trailed after the first 20 minutes of play.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the second half, UConn\u2019s run of 8-2 was used to bring their double-digit lead. But, most importantly for the team, they kept Purdue\u2019s seven foot four inches tall center, Zach Edey, scoreless for a total of 12 minutes of play. UConn also limited Purdue at the 3-point line \u2014 the Boilermakers went one for seven in the second half. In the entire tournament, UConn only trailed for a total of five minutes and 42 seconds, never trailing by more than five points.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe were going to go to the well with Zach as much as we could at that point,\u201d Purdue Head Coach Matt Painter said, talking about his team\u2019s second-half trouble. \u201cIn a game like this, we had to be able to rebound defensively better, and then we had to have something balance that out. That was threes. They (UConn) stayed home with us. They did a really good job defensively.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

UConn is the eighth team to win back-to-back championships \u2014 the University of Florida was the last team to achieve this in 2007. This is also UConn\u2019s sixth championship, becoming the fourth team to win six or more championships in their program\u2019s history. This feat has been achieved by the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

All of UConn\u2019s championship wins have occurred since 1999, which is more than any other men\u2019s team in that same span, and are second only to UConn\u2019s women\u2019s team, who have won 10.<\/span><\/p>\n

Purdue has never won a national championship, despite appearing in the Final Four three times. They have only appeared in a championship game once, which was this most recent appearance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, it was not a UConn player who led the game in stats. Edey claimed a double-double \u2014 scoring 37 points and 10 rebounds in Purdue\u2019s defeat. Four of UConn\u2019s five starters scored in double digits: Tristen Newton scored 20, Stephon Castle scored 15, while Cam Spencer and Donovan Clingan both scored 11.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCredit to my teammates and coaching staff for putting me in the right positions to make plays, score, get people involved and get the win tonight,\u201d said Newton. Newton was selected as the Final Four\u2019s Most Outstanding Player.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t even wrap your mind around it, because you just know how hard this tournament is,\u201d UConn coach Dan Hurley said post-game. \u201cWhat a special group of people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlsports@wou.edu<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":20971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1512,2685,2496,2687,2034,2686,1788,2684,2689,2690,2682,2688,2683,2691],"class_list":["post-20970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-basketball","tag-cam-spencer","tag-division-one","tag-donovan-clingan","tag-mens-basketball","tag-national-championships","tag-ncaa","tag-purdue-university","tag-stephon-castle","tag-tristen-newton","tag-ucla","tag-uconn","tag-university-of-connecticut","tag-zach-edey"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}