University of Connecticut Huskies beat the Kentucky Wildcats 60-54 to become the first seventh seeded team to win the basketball national championship. UConn showed more experience and poise in defeating John Calipari’s freshman one-and-done ‘Cats. The win was UConn’s fourth men’s NCAA basketball championship in the last fifteen years.
The Huskies were led by their electric point guard Shabazz Napier who scored 22 points, six rebounds and three assists and was awarded the Most Outstanding Player. UConn guard Ryan Boatright scored fourteen points in a gutty effort. Napier’s teammate on UConn’s 2011 championship team, Niels Giffey added ten points. For the first time in Kentucky’s last six games, there were no last second heroics from sharp shooting guard Aaron Harrison.
UConn raced out to a fifteen point lead in the first half; however, after the Huskies’ DeAndre Daniels went to the bench with foul trouble, Kentucky closed to within four points at the half. In the second half, UConn never gave up the lead, but the ‘Cats kept it close. In the end, the Huskies were too experienced, quick, fundamentally sound and unflappable for the young Kentucky players.
It was the first national title for second-year UConn coach Kevin Ollie. Since the Huskies were banned from playing in last year’s NCAA tournament, Ollie became the first coach to win a NCAA championship in his first year coaching in the tournament since University of Michigan’s Steve Fisher in 1989.
The UConn women’s basketball team is going for their unprecedented ninth national championship Tuesday night. If the women’s team can win, UConn will be 13-0 in title games and have thirteen national championships between them. UConn is now truly on the map as a basketball powerhouse.
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