With just a minute and a half to go in the 1st half of their Elite Eight matchup, Dan Hurley's UConn Huskies and the Illinois Fighting Illini were tied at 23 points apiece. For the Illini, to be tied with the defending national champions at this point in the game had to be considered an early win. They withstood a 9-0 Huskies run to start the game, and found themselves in position to potentially go into halftime with the lead against a team that has won nine consecutive tournament games by at least 13 points.

And then, over the course of about eight and a half minutes of game action, a UConn avalanche buried the Illini and ended the Big Ten champions hopes of advancing to their first Final Four since 2005. In total, it was a stunning and utterly dominant 30-0 run, arguably the best stretch of basketball we've seen from a team all year in college hoops, and it couldn't be more fitting that it was Hurley's UConn squad that put it together.

“The level of basketball that we're playing right now is going to be really, really hard to beat,” Hurley said after the game, per Pete Thamel of ESPN.com. The brash, emotional, intense, and some would say villainous head coach of the Connecticut Huskies is right. This is greatness on a different level than we're accustomed to seeing in the college game.

I'll admit that my perspective may be skewed, because I'm a fan of the Connecticut Huskies, but I find it interesting that even though so many college basketball fans spend so much time reminiscing about the 80s — when college hoops was king, when players played as a team, and when the coaches were arguably bigger stars than the players were — that this team is the one that is being villainized. Think about it… they play the right way, without one superstar who monopolizes the attention either on or off the court. They're unselfish, consistently making the extra passes and running their offense crisply until an open shot becomes the end result of each possession. And my God can they lock in defensively. Illinois, the nation's #2 offense, was held to 52 points, their lowest total of the season by 12 points, thanks to swarming defense on the perimeter and a game-changing interior defender in the 7'2″ Donovan Clingan, who was named the East Regional Most Outstanding Player.

And then there's Dan Hurley, who much like 80s coaching icons John Thompson, Rollie Massimino, and Lou Carnesecca, has not only become the face of the Big East, but perhaps the face of all of men's college basketball.

“If I am one of those [faces of the sport], I'm probably a good one because I'm authentic, and I am who I am,” Hurley said following the win. “I'm basically a high school coach that's like masquerading up at this college level. I don't really care what people necessarily think of my intensity, it obviously shows up the right way with my team. We don't cheat, we don't lie. I think we're about all the right things. Just, at times, I'm an a**hole.”

Hey, if Dan Hurley can say it, I suppose that puts me in the clear to say it too. Yes, I can see how Dan Hurley could certainly come off like an a**hole if you weren't rooting for the Huskies, and heading to Arizona, Hurley knows that the Huskies and their “obnoxious” fan base will be the villains of the Final Four.

“So everyone hates us,” Hurley said, seemingly proud of his UConn program's villain status.

The Huskies will also be the favorites to cut down the nets on Monday April 8th. They'll have to get through a hot shooting Alabama team in their Final Four matchup, but you'll be hard-pressed to find any prognosticators who are expecting the Tide to roll over the Huskies, who are in search of their second straight National Championship.

It's been 17 years since we've seen a repeat champion in the NCAA Tournament. The Florida Gators, led by Joakim Noah, Al Horford, Corey Brewer and head coach Billy Donovan, had their own villainous qualities, as did the early 90s Duke Blue Devils, who were the last team to repeat as champions before the Gators did so in 2006 and 2007. But what otherwise impartial sports fans seem to hate more than anything else is unparalleled success, and that's what UConn is on the verge of achieving. And if you think that Dan Hurley and the Connecticut basketball program is content already, or if they're going to be content if they win a second consecutive National Championship, you're sorely mistaken.

“I'm an obsessed coach,” says Hurley. “And I'm going to be more of a maniac the next couple of days than I was leading up to this. I promise you. And then when this season's over, it's going to be worse.”