How the men's 2024 NCAA championship game will play out - ESPN

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The UConn Huskies and the Purdue Boilermakers.

After playing 66 games, we've gone from 68 teams to two teams that stood out as the best in the country for the balance of the 2023-24 men's college basketball season. Their combined record is 70-7. They rank as Nos. 1 and 2 at KenPom, respectively. Meeting in the 2024 men's national final feels like a fitting end to a special season.

On its way to Monday, UConn took down 16-seed Stetson, 9-seed Northwestern, 5-seed San Diego State, 3-seed Illinois and 4-seed Alabama. Purdue took down 16-seed Grambling, 8-seed Utah State, 5-seed Gonzaga, 2-seed Tennessee and 11-seed NC State.

This will mark just the ninth time that two top seeds have met in the title game since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985. In other words, a collision like this on Monday night happens less than 25% of the time.

There's a lot more on the line in this one, too. UConn is attempting to win back-to-back national championships — the first to do it since Florida in 2006 and 2007 — after one of the most dominant tournament runs.

Purdue has a chance to win its first national championship ever. In doing so, it could also break the Big Ten's national championship drought: no team from the conference has won since 2000.

No matter what's happened in the past three weeks, chances are we'll remember this tournament simply as the year when the Huskies faced the Boilermakers for the championship.

As we approach Monday, ESPN's Jeff Borzello, Myron Medcalf, Josh Weinfuss and John Gasaway look ahead to the potentially historic championship matchup in State Farm Stadium. — John Gasaway

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