How Dan Hurley, UConn beat Zach Edey, Purdue to win second straight national championship (2024)

GLENDALE, Ariz. — With exactly six minutes left in Monday night’s national championship game, UConn guard Tristen Newton zoomed a pass to a cutting Stephon Castle, who skipped past Zach Edey in the paint and laid in an ordinary layup. Except, it was only ordinary in execution — because that basket put the Huskies up 17 points, their largest lead of the night.

Consider that the moment the hourglass flipped, and time started ticking until UConn’s looming championship celebration.

Minutes later, the confetti cannons inside State Farm Arena erupted, finalizing UConn’s 75-60 win over Purdue in Monday’s national title game — and immortalizing Dan Hurley’s Huskies, who accomplished what no college basketball team had since Florida in 2006-07: winning consecutive NCAA championships.

That feat alone is historic. Other than Florida, only Duke in 1991-92 had gone back-to-back since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the 1960s and 1970s. But it’s the way that UConn won its 12th straight NCAA Tournament game — by, effectively, turning into the basketball version of a wood chipper — that lifts this two-year stretch to legendary status.

Last season, UConn won its six games in the Big Dance by a staggering average of 20 points per contest … yet somehow Hurley’s encore squad was even more dominant. After UConn’s 15-point victory over the Boilermakers, who were playing in their first national title game since 1969, the Huskies’ average victory margin this tournament? A whopping 23.3 points per game. That not even the Boilermakers — a No. 1 seed with two-time Wooden Award winner Zach Edey — could keep the final score to single digits speaks to UConn’s overwhelming dominance. The 7-foot-4 Edey finished Monday’s game, likely his last in college, with 37 points and 10 rebounds… and it mattered little.

And if this wasn’t already the case, go ahead and formally welcome UConn’s to the blue-blood club. Monday’s win was the Huskies’ sixth NCAA title, pushing them past Duke — which has five — and into a tie for third all-time with North Carolina; only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight) have more. That all six championships have come in a 25-year span since 1999, and under three different coaches, only further validates Connecticut’s place in college basketball’s historic hierarchy.

The same can be said of Hurley; the 51-year-old is now only the third active Division-I men’s coach with multiple national titles, joining Bill Self and Rick Pitino.

And it’s Hurley who deserves plenty of credit for UConn’s masterful game plan Monday night. Stopping Edey is an impossible task. Even in a battle of the two best bigs in America — Edey vs. 7-2 UConn’s center Donovan Clingan, who managed 11 points and five rebounds despite foul trouble — the Big Maple was always going to get his. He scored 16 of Purdue’s 30 first-half points, especially early on, when he feasted with his patented array of hook shots. But UConn countered well late, holding Edey without a basket over the final 5:47 before halftime — and during that stretch, the Huskies stretched their lead to six.

At the same time, UConn completely smothered Purdue — which entered as the second-best 3-point shooting team in America, making 40.6 percent from deep — from behind the arc. Hurley’s strategy of not having UConn’s guards help when Edey got the ball inside meant Purdue’s perimeter players had no breathing room. Case in point: Purdue only attempted one 3-pointer in the first 17 minutes of the game; it wasn’t until Braden Smith canned a fadeaway 3 with the shot clock expiring, 2:17 before intermission, that the Boilermakers actually made a triple.

Offensively, the difference between the two teams’ philosophies couldn’t have been more pronounced. Edey took 12 of Purdue’s 28 first-half attempts, making more shots than the rest of the Boilermakers did combined. On the flip side, while Cam Spencer scored seven of UConn’s first 11 points, the Huskies leaned on their balance and depth. Four different Huskies — Spencer, Clingan, Tristen Newton, and Hassan Diarra — had at least three made shots before any non-Edey Boilermaker did so.

That dichotomy became untenable for Purdue from the very first possession of the second half. Edey missed a bunny inside, and UConn turned it into a Newton 3 on the other end — a critical five-point swing that pushed Purdue into an early danger zone. From then on, what had been a back-and-forth battle between KenPom’s No. 1 and 2 teams — only the fourth time that’s happened since 2005 —became a lopsided, 20-minute-long UConn’s coronation. A surprise putback dunk from freshman Camden Heide, off another Edey miss, only briefly revived the Boilermakers’ hopes… until, soon after, they went 4:29 without a made field goal, during which UConn pushed its lead to 16. Newton — who finished with 20 points, seven assists and five rebounds — was the maestro making it all happen.

The last made shot of that run was a Diarra layup in transition; Purdue coach Matt Painter couldn’t have called timeout more quickly, sensing the game getting away from his team.

And he was almost right.

Except the game wasn’t getting away by then; it was gone.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Connecticut assistant coach Luke Murray went to sophom*ore center Donovan Clingan sometime in the middle of this season with a declaration. UConn was going to face Purdue in the national championship, and he’d better get familiar with Zach Edey. Murray and Clingan discussed how they would play the hypothetical matchup, and Clingan said he wanted to play him one-on-one and let the rest of the Huskies win the game.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — That this started, or restarted, with a then-75-year-old Jim Calhoun nearly kicking Dan Hurley’s ass is so perfectly Connecticut that the scene should replace the state flag. It was early spring of 2018. Hurley was the recently named UConn head coach and Calhoun was the retired patriarch of the program, one whose endorsem*nt helped secure Hurley’s hiring.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — During Tristen Newton’s first Connecticut practice, right after he transferred from East Carolina in the summer of 2022, UConn’s coaching staff put him through a normal shooting drill: make 50 3-pointers, timed, to see how quickly you can do it.

Newton got to 37 … and started cramping in his right arm.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — The master plan for men’s college basketball was in plain sight again Monday night, but for distracting confetti flakes floating into the area. Connecticut won another national championship, its second straight, which is an extremely hard thing to do. But the imprints and spoor leading directly to masses of happy humanity in April were right there, for any coach or administrator who cares to look. This is what wins now. It is intricate and tenuous and, honestly, not that hard to figure out.

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GLENDALE, Ariz. — Will Berg arrived in West Lafayette, Ind., last year from Sweden, desperately homesick and missing his father, Martin. The two are incredibly close, bonded after they lost Berg’s mother to a battle with alcoholism. Berg didn’t talk about it much to anyone, trying to find a way to fit in with his new team, but as the months continued, the gnaw in his stomach grew. One afternoon in practice, maybe about a month into the season, Zach Edey told Berg to hang in there, that though Canada isn’t quite as far as Sweden, he understood what it was like to transplant yourself entirely on your own.

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Those in the industry have always called this exercise the way-too-early Top 25. A more appropriate title in this transfer portal era of college basketball would be the almost-impossible Top 25.

We realize this is a tough task, trying to speculate on who might return and who might leave and who might even be the coach. (Thanks, John Calipari.) We have done our best to make those projections. If we anticipate that you’ll leave for the NBA Draft based on our projections, then you are not included. There are probably some players listed here who think right now that they are leaving for the NBA but will ultimately return when they receive their feedback. This will be a lot easier in a few months when we have clarity on the rosters but, hey, the national champion has been crowned. We are starting to think about next year. And it’s always fun to project ahead. With that, here is your don’t-hold-us-to-it-super-early Top 25.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Dan Hurley entered rare air on Monday night, becoming just the third men’s college basketball coach to repeat as a national champion since the end of John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the 1970s. And when it was over — a 75-60 victory over Purdue marking Connecticut’s 12th consecutive NCAA Tournament win by double digits — Hurley found himself in another very small club: coaches who’ve won it all and immediately had to address the possibility of leaving for another program. Such is life when you’re the hottest coach in the sport and the Kentucky job unexpectedly becomes available on the eve of the championship game.

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Dan Hurley: “For the last 25, 30 years, UConn’s been running college basketball.”

Six titles in 25 years, hard to argue.

No college in the western side of the United States has won a national championship in football or basketball in at least 20 years.

27 in basketball (Arizona) and 20 in football (USC).

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Another television duty with a new man in charge in 2024: Ernie Johnson takes over as the man interviewing the champions on the dais.

That, too, was a Jim Nantz job. And while Ian Eagle took over for Nantz as the primary television play-by-play voice for the Final Four, he indicated to me way back in February that being on the stage after the game was not going to be a job for him.

UConn claimed its sixth national title with its win over Purdue on Monday night. That breaks a tie with Duke and Indiana at five titles.

It moves UConn into a tie for third with six titles with North Carolina. Only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight) have more.

UConn is the eighth program to repeat as the national champion and the first since Florida in 2006 and 2007. Before that, Duke (1991-1992) was the last program to repeat since UCLA's run of 10 straight from 1964-1973.

The other programs to repeat:

• Oklahoma State: 1945-1946
• Kentucky: 1948-1949
• San Francisco: 1955-1956
• Cincinnati: 1961-1962

GLENDALE, Ariz. — With a minute left, Purdue called off the fouls. Zach Edey wiped his face with his jersey. The Connecticut celebration began.

And with 36 seconds left, Edey left the floor.

The UConn Huskies, are national champions. Again.

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The UConn family section is relentless and vicious. During Tristen Newton's free throws after the under-4 timeout, one of them cut through the silence, trying to get the attention of Purdue's Lance Jones.

"Hey! Lance!" he said. "L for loss!"

Jones just smiled.