Final Four | Graphic by Monica Brutto | The Wright State Guardian
The 2023 NCAA basketball tournament has been nothing short of jaw dropping underdog stories, domination and the twisting of fates. On Monday, No. 5 San Diego State faced off against No. 4 UConn in the championship game.
How the teams could win
To win, San Diego needed to utilize three-point shooting as well as three-point defense, not give up rebounds to UConn’s guards and prevent UConn from getting ahead through controlling the pace of the game.
Conversely, for UConn to win, the Huskies needed to work on not getting fouled, as San Diego is a very physical team, playing through contact.
The game
At the start of the game there was tension about whether the underdog would win or if the domination would continue.
In the first half, the scores were close. UConn started to slip ahead like before, but San Diego just kept coming.
With around three minutes left, UConn was still only up by four but turned it into an eight point lead. San Diego would need another strong second half to cut down the lead to get out of the hole.
With around seven minutes left and trailing by as many as 16 points, San Diego managed to cut the difference to single digits. For the first time in the tournament, UConn appeared to feel the pressure, but the Cinderella magic was gone.
UConn went on a 9-0 scoring run to push the lead to 14 and would go on to win 76-59.
Post-game comments
“We battled, battled back to five in the second half, but gave them too much separation,” San Diego State coach Brian Dutcher said in a post game brief.
UConn’s Tristan Newton, who scored 19 points, also made a post-game comment.
“I think this game right here silenced all the doubts. I don’t know why there were any. We’re here, we won the whole thing, so doubts be gone.”
With its win, UConn becomes the sixth team to win five NCAA Championships alongside Duke, UCLA, Kentucky, North Carolina and Indiana.
