BOSTON — Alabama and other football fans in the Southeastern Conference will soon experience the quality of Big East basketball.
The Crimson Tide, known for winning 18 NCAA football championships but never making it to a men’s basketball Final Four, will face UConn in the national semifinals on April 6. UConn has the chance to win consecutive NCAA titles, which would be the sixth in 13 years for the Big East, a conference that values its basketball history despite the impact of football money on college sports.
“The Big East is very strong,” UConn coach Dan Hurley commented after the Huskies easily defeated Illinois 77-52 on Saturday night – a March Madness record with 10 consecutive double-digit victories for the Huskies.
“Iron sharpens iron,” Hurley said. “The league prepares us for these nonconference games. … You’re going against beasts and monsters every night in the Big East, and the Big East prepared us for teams like Illinois.”
This season, UConn beat three Big Ten teams, including Indiana in the regular season and Northwestern in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. They didn't play against an SEC team this year, but they won all three games against SEC teams last season, including an 82-67 victory over Alabama on Nov. 22, 2022.
“We’re going to be tough to beat,” said Hurley, whose team scored 30 consecutive points against Illinois to dominate a game that was tied 23-all in the final two minutes of the first half. “It was a special level of basketball that we were playing.”
Donovan Clingan had 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots for UConn, which easily won the national title last year and seems certain to win a sixth.
Their wins in the NCAA Tournament this year were by 39, 17, 30 and 25 points.
Actor Bill Murray, whose son Luke is an assistant coach for UConn, watched the game from a courtside seat and recorded the postgame celebration, where his grandchildren were covered in confetti. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star Larry David was also part of a heavily biased crowd for the Huskies (35-3) called 'Storrs North' for the East Region games that were played about 90 miles from campus.
UConn, winning the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden and reaching the Sweet 16 in Brooklyn, will now travel by plane for the first time in nearly a month to reach the Final Four outside of Phoenix. Alabama advanced with an 89-82 win over Clemson later on Saturday night.
The Huskies, setting a school record for wins in a season, are the first defending champions to make it back to the national semifinals since Florida won back-to-back titles in 2006 and ’07.
That’s still a possibility for UConn, too.
“It’s not really about trying to win No. 6 or go back to back,” Hurley said. “It’s this time of year, you love your team and you can’t imagine what it would be like to not get up the next day and still coach your team. It’s what you learn when you win the way we’ve won: It really is about the work, the journey, the process.”
The Fighting Illini (29-9) scored only four points in the first half while Clingan was playing. The 7-foot-2 player from Connecticut got nine points, six rebounds, and three blocks before the halftime. In total, they missed all 19 shots when Clingan was defending.
Illinois coach Brad Underwood said, "We were getting the same shots we’ve always gotten, and Clingan blocked a few of them. He's talented. I mean, isn't he projected to be in the (NBA) lottery or close to it? He's very good at protecting the basket.
