Connecticut beats Purdue to win second straight NCAA tournament title

When the 75-60 win over an excellent Purdue before 74,243 on Monday night had piled atop the emphatic list, and when sixth-year coach Dan Hurley had said, “You just feel so light right now” — he does know the feeling — his Huskies (37-3) had accessed a rarefied expression of basketball. Their mastery shone in how Connecticut could play with dazzle or play with fight, play while hot or play while not, play outside or play under the boards with their voracious rebounding (a 35-28 advantage here), play any way you wish to play.

And it shone in one doozy of a stat: 1 for 7.

That stat, the three-point shooting of a Purdue team ranked No. 2 in the three-point-shooting nation all year, eclipsed even all-American Tristen Newton’s 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds, or freshman Stephon Castle’s 15 points with five rebounds, or the 11 points and eight rebounds from senior transfer Cam Spencer, or the 11 points and five rebounds from 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan. Along its way to a 26th Big Ten title and Purdue’s first national championship game since 1969, the Boilermakers (34-5) had averaged 8.3 for 20.5 from afar. In the 1 for 7, the “7” rang almost as tellingly as the “1.”

Would 1 for 7 have shocked you?

“Yeah,” Purdue’s Lance Jones replied.

That 1 for 7 told and told and told. It told how Connecticut decided to let Zach Edey, Purdue’s 7-foot-4 national player of the year, collect his 37 points on 15-for-25 shooting while the Huskies went about putting the kibosh on the three-point line until the scoring margin among guards wound up at 55-17. It verified Hurley’s oft-stated respect for the scouting of his assistants, with Luke Murray getting the hosannas this time. And it reminded how carrying off that sort of statistical feat requires stupefying defensive range and capability.

“I mean, we watched the film,” Newton said. “They get their three-pointers off people going down there and helping on Edey. [The coaches] did a great job planning and made sure it was a focus that we didn’t leave the three-point line, let Edey do his damage. He only shoots twos. He doesn’t shoot threes. If he makes 15 twos like he did today, that’s 30. Where are the rest of the points going to come from?”

“This whole game plan,” Hurley said, “was no [Braden] Smith, no [Fletcher] Loyer, no [Mason] Gillis, no Jones [meaning other Purdue mainstays]. Keep that collective group under 18, 20 points as a group, they had no chance to win no matter how well Zach played.”

“Our responsibility was to take away the three-point line from them,” Castle said, because, “We knew that Edey couldn’t beat us by himself.”

“Yeah, they were just going to let us play one-on-one in the post,” Smith said. “You see the 25 attempts that Zach had.”

Smith did fine orbiting around with 12 points and eight assists and only one turnover and bold drives into the trees, but beyond himself and Edey, the other six players with double-digit minutes went 5 for 17, the “17” a particular paucity there. Purdue’s lone three-pointer, from Smith, came with 2:18 left before halftime, whereupon Hurley yanked a quick timeout.

Adopting the strategy seemed shrewd. Pinpointing how it could work via film seemed shrewder. “Obviously,” Loyer said while seated at his locker, “they scouted well how we get our threes and where they come from.”

“He was probably in the mirror this morning at like 5 o’clock,” Clingan said of Murray.

And then, having the physical and mental capacity to implement it seemed rarer yet. For that, 19th-season Purdue coach Matt Painter had some fresh, up-close analysis. “We’ve played against athletes, played against some really good defensive guys this year and in the tournament, but not the collection of defensive players like U-Conn. has,” Painter said. “We play against somebody, they would have a lockdown defender. These guys are bringing lockdown defenders off the bench. Defense always travels.”

Reminded of Connecticut’s speed and quickness, Purdue’s 6-foot-6 muscle-and-energy man Gillis said: “I think that’s one thing about it, but they’re also really smart. You can be really athletic, really fast and physically gifted, but if you don’t have any basketball sense or any basketball IQ, it doesn’t make you a great player. And they have both. That’s why they’re great players. That’s why they’ve won two national championships in two years.”

“Not everybody can do what they just did,” Painter said. “You have to give credit to their defense and their coach and how they’re wired.”

“Amazing team,” Gillis said at his locker, soon saying also, “You can sense in their players they have confidence. They know what they’re doing.”

“They just had so many good defensive players,” Painter said at the interview dais. “Like, at every position those guys do a great job. They know how to play. They move without the basketball. They have experience” — even as, famously, they returned just two of five starters. “They’ll beat somebody by 25, go 3 of 20 from three. What if they go 12 for 20? It shows you who they are.”

Purdue made 10 of its first 17 shots as the first half stayed contentious and Edey’s pretty hooks from the post looked like little splashes of art. It then made five of its next 17 shots as Edey himself hit a midgame drought when he missed six in a row, the little hooks and whatnot straying awry.

Then, after Connecticut’s three-point shooting soured early in the second half and it missed seven in a row — it would go only 6 for 22 anyway — the Huskies’ offense flashed its elite collaboration. It started to show the signals of a tournament spent with 118 assists against 48 turnovers (18 and eight Monday night). It happened on several plays that indicated to the opponent, You’re not winning tonight.

This basketball-by-committee soared twice in particular on consecutive lobs from the unselfish Newton to fine backup Samson Johnson, Newton near the foul line, Samson materializing in the air near the basket, one on the right, one on the left, one at 15:23 of the second half, one at 14:40, both helping the lead to 47-34 before that lead got ominous. “Those were plays the coaches have called,” Johnson said, “and we executed it really well.”

Then with 9:53 left, Connecticut’s repeated tries at threes finally gained reward when a deep swish came from the left corner from yet another player who requires attention even when he gets only five points: Alex Karaban. That made it 54-40 on its way to 65-47, and it seemed to clarify that Purdue would join Stetson, Northwestern, San Diego State, Illinois and Alabama as teams who could not subject Connecticut to any drama this year after Iona, St. Mary’s, Arkansas, Gonzaga, Miami and San Diego State couldn’t do it last year, either, even if the Aztecs did pull within five with 5:19 left last championship game.

All that remained would be filler that prevented Purdue’s large, loud and frenzied portion of the stadium from utilizing its loudness and frenzy to effect. All that remained after that would be confetti-snowing and net-cutting and Hurley calling out Jersey City, his hometown, or Hurley by a wall in the hallway among reporters saying, “It’s great to join that club with my bro,” referencing how older brother Bobby point-guarded Duke to titles in 1991 and 1992, the precursor to Florida and now Connecticut.

“I’m just happy,” Karaban said, “that our team’s going to get talked about forever,” especially in those conversations where connoisseurs sit up late at night and revel in how anybody could take a hard sport and infuse it with such mastery.