Dan Hurley and the UConn Huskie have done it. UConn basketball just became the first team since the Florida Gators of the 2000s to win consecutive NCAA Tournament titles after the Huskies took down Zach Edey and the Purdue Boilermakers Monday night in Glendale, via a 75-60 score. It was a masterclass for the Huskies on both ends of the floor, as they left zero doubts about not just which team between them and Purdue was better but which program in the nation is the undisputed No. 1 overall.
UConn basketball's Dan Hurley joins historic club of legendary college coaches
With Hurley steering UConn basketball to a successful title defense, he also just became the eighth coach in college basketball history to go back-to-back, joining an extremely exclusive club of luminaries including the likes of Mike Krzyzewski of the Duke Blue Devils and the legendary John Wooden of the UCLA Bruins,m as pointed out by Pete Thamel of ESPN.
Back-to-back NCAA title winners
Dan Hurley, UConn 2023-24
Billy Donovan, Florida 2006-07
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke 1991-92
John Wooden, UCLA 1967-73 and 1964-65
Ed Jucker, Cincinnati 1961-62
Phil Woolpert, San Francisco 1955-56
Adolph Rupp, Kentucky 1948-49
Henry Iba, OK St. 1945-46
Following the win against Purdue, Hurley was asked about his thoughts on UConn basketball winning its sixth overall men's NCAA Tournament championship.
“I mean, you can't even wrap your mind around it because you just know how hard this tournament is and what a special group of people, a special coaching staff, an incredible group of players, the best group of players you could possibly do it with,” Hurley said (h/t CBS Sports College Basketball). “And UConn, you know, UConn is a special place this time of year, and they give us all the resources we need to do it like this in March and April,” he added.
Hurley was also requested to speak about him joining the club of college basketball coaches who have won consecutive national titles.
“It means a lot because I'm a student of the game. Basketball has been my life and I've got so much respect for the history of this game. I know me and Luke Murray had some talk about if we won this one, maybe we'll both retire on Tuesday. So this could be it for me and Luke. Oh, come on. That can't be true. No, that's all.”
It took a complete team effort for the Huskies to stave off Purdue. They knew that the Boilermakers would let Edey eat a lot of touches, and he did, as the giant went 15/25 from the field and 7/10 from the free-throw line for 37 points. But outside of Edey, no Boilermaker did significant damage on UConn, who held non-Edey Boilermakers to just 9/29 shooting from the floor. The Huskies also took away Purdue's outside shooting, with the Boilermakers making just one of their seven attempts from behind the arc.
As for the Huskies' offense, UConn shot just 6/22 from deep but had four players scoring in double digits, led by Tristen Newton, who generated 20 points. Stephon Castle had 15 points, while Cam Spencer and projected NBA Draft first-rounder Donovan Clingan each had 11 points.
Not a single team throughout the 2024 NCAA Tournament got remotely close to dethroning the Huskies. From the first round to the national championship game, UConn played like a well-oiled tank that flattened each team that got in its way. The Huskies, in six games in the tourney, won by an average of 23.3 points.
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