Indestructible UConn One Win Away from Immortality After Final Four Win over Alabama

GLENDALE — It was clear from the outset of Saturday’s Final Four nightcap between Alabama and Connecticut that the Crimson Tide were going to make Stephon Castle beat them.

It was, empirically speaking, an extremely bold strategy.

Yes, Castle is a 19-year-old freshman. If anyone from the reigning national champs was going to fall victim to some Final Four jitters, it was reasonable to assume it would be the tenderfoot with just 32 games played in his college career.

And, yes, Castle had been a poor three-point shooter, entering the night at 17-for-65 (26.2 percent) for the season and just 1-for-12 over his last seven games. Sagging off him a bit along the perimeter was…well, probably about as good as any strategy for slowing down the most efficient offense in the entire country.

All the same, we’re talking about a likely lottery pick here. Castle was the one player in this game who will probably have a decade-long career in the NBA. Wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s playing in an All-Star Game within the next half-decade.

Alabama’s gameplan was…daring him to shoot.

It worked out about as well as it sounds like it would.

“I noticed it the first play of the game,” said Castle. “We were trying to run a set and the guy was guarding me in the paint, so I just tried to take advantage of it.”

Castle took Connecticut’s first four official field-goal attempts, scoring eight points in a hurry. It took less than three minutes for him to make more three-pointers than he had made in the previous four weeks combined.

At halftime, he led all players with 13 points.

He finished the night with a team-high 21, also tying a career high for points, matching a mark he hit in his first game of February, his first game of March and, now, his first game of April.

His most pivotal play wasn’t a bucket, though.

It was a rebound.

After Grant Nelson almost single-handedly fueled an Alabama comeback—that dunk he threw down over Donovan Clingan…my lord—to tie the game at 56 apiece, you could actually feel the intensity mounting among the nearly 75,000 fans in the State Farm Stadium.

Palpable buzz, one might say.

Alabama fans were starting to truly believe they could win the game.

UConn fans were experiencing a wee bit of uncertainty in an NCAA tournament game for the first time in a long time.

If the Huskies didn’t score on that trip down the floor and the Crimson Tide came back and actually took the lead, things might have spiraled out of control at the expense of the heavy favorites.

But when the usually clutch Cam Spencer missed his jumper, it was the 6’6″ teenager making a grown-man play to grab an offensive rebound. Moments later, Castle hit a pair of huge free throws and subsequently drained a mid-range jumper his next time down the floor.

That sequence kick-started an 8-0 UConn run from which Alabama never recovered.

The Crimson Tide dared Castle to beat them.

He did.

“I wouldn’t say it was motivation. I would just say it was kind of a disrespect on their end, just to guard me that far back. I took advantage of it early, I saw the ball going in early and I feel like that kind of sparked a good night for me.”

Again, though, can you really blame Alabama?

If they didn’t just sort of leave Castle to his own devices along the perimeter, they wouldn’t have been able to throw double teams at Clingan all night long. And that alternative would’ve been an outright disaster. The big man still had a reasonably solid night (18 points, five rebounds, four blocks), but he would’ve eaten Nelson and/or Nick Pringle alive if allowed to feast in one-on-one situations. Look no further than the previous game against Illinois for evidence of how the 7’2″ phenom can take a game over if you let him cook.

Certainly can’t sag off anyone else along the perimeter, either. Spencer, Alex Karaban and Tristen Newton can all make it rain from distance—and did, in fact, each make multiple triples by the end of the night, even as Alabama’s guards did everything in their power to deny them open looks.

It’s all just a very “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” sort of feeling when dealing with the bulletproof Huskies.

Alabama shot 8-for-11 from three-point range in the first half. Mark Sears was a perfect 5-for-5 from the field. Those first 20 minutes went about as well as they possibly could have for the Crimson Tide.

And they still trailed by four at the intermission and eventually lost by 14.

Business as usual against UConn, right?

The Huskies have now won a staggering 11 consecutive NCAA tournament games by double digits in their quest for the elusive back-to-back.

Human victory cigar and beloved coach’s son Andrew Hurley has even appeared in all 11 of those games.

John Wooden won 10 national championships at UCLA, but the dynastic Bruins never won 11 straight tournament games by double digits.

The old record belonged to 2000-01 Michigan State at nine.

And isn’t that a bit fitting, in advance of Monday’s national championship, with Purdue trying to become the Big Ten’s first national champion since those same Spartans from nearly a quarter century ago?

If any team in the country can hang with these Huskies right now, it’s the Boilermakers, who clamped down on defense in winning the first—let’s just say “less aesthetically pleasing”—game of the night by virtue of their own ability to win in a wide variety of ways.

Dating back to last year’s Fairleigh Dickinson disaster that is propelling them to this day, Zach Edey has reeled off six consecutive tournament games with at least 20 points and 10 rebounds. He will be in the rarely possible position of looking down on Clingan by a two-inch margin all night long in one of the best battles in the paint that we may ever see in a national championship game.

They can shoot it from the perimeter every bit as well as Alabama did against UConn, but they can also win the rebound battle and perhaps even the game if they keep their turnovers to a minimum. (Purdue head coach Matt Painter made sure to point out after the game that they are a perfect 27-0 when committing 13 or fewer turnovers.)

As good as Purdue has been, though, this Connecticut team feels indestructible, with a quest to repeat that is more powerful than Purdue’s quest for redemption.

Maybe the streak of winning tournament games by at least 10 points finally comes to an end, but the Huskies should win their sixth national championship since 1999. (At least as far as Vegas is concerned.)

And if and when they do complete the repeat, Dan Hurley will celebrate for a day, maybe two before preparing for the three-peat.