UConn completes dominant run, wins 5th national championship

HOUSTON — UConn assistant coach Tom Moore embraced guard Tristen Newton in a big hug as he walked toward the bench. Dan Hurley high-fived his players as they jogged off the floor. The Huskies' fan section was the loudest it had been all night.

It wasn't the end of the game. It wasn't even the end of the first half. There was still 2:55 left in the half, but the Huskies had opened up a 16-point lead on San Diego State and had all the momentum.

At that point, the final outcome seemed decided and the second half, for all intents and purposes, looked to be a coronation. San Diego State did cut UConn's lead down to five, but UConn promptly responded with a knockout punch to close out one of the most dominant runs in NCAA tournament history with a 76-59 win over the Aztecs on Monday.

The Huskies have now won five national championships in the past 24 years under three different coaches, with Jim Calhoun leading the program in 1999, 2004 and 2011, Kevin Ollie in 2014 and now Hurley. If 2011 was the Kemba Walker year and 2014 the Shabazz Napier year, 2023 will be remembered for Adama Sanogo.

UConn won its six NCAA tournament games by an average of 20.0 points per game, the fourth-largest average win margin since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1985:

«We knew we were the best team in the tournament going in,» Hurley said, «and we just had to play to our level.»

Sanogo, a junior center who was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player, finished with 17 points and 10 rebounds, after averaging 20.2 points and 9.8 rebounds in the first five games of the tournament.

San Diego State hit its first two 3-pointers of the game, which provided the Aztecs some hope they would be able to keep up with UConn offensively. Through four