GLENDALE, Ariz. — UConn delivered the latest of its suffocating basketball beatdowns Monday night, smothering Purdue for a 75-60 victory to become the first team since 2007 to capture back-to-back national championships.
Tristen Newton scored 20 points for the Huskies, who won their 12th straight March Madness game – not a single one of them decided by fewer than 13 points.
UConn was efficient on offense but won this with defense. The Huskies (37-3) limited the country’s second-best 3-point shooting team to a mere seven shots behind the arc – Purdue only made one – while happily allowing 7-foot-4 AP Player of the Year Zach Edey to go for 37 points on 25 shot attempts.
UConn joined the 2006-07 Florida Gators and the 1991-92 Duke Blue Devils as just the third team to repeat since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty of the 1960s and ’70s.
Purdue made it this far a year after becoming just the second No. 1 seed in the history of March Madness to fall in the first round. But the Boilermakers (34-5) left the same way they came – still looking for the program’s first NCAA title.
In what was supposed to be a free-for-all in this new age of the transfer portal and name, image and likeness deals, UConn has figured out how to dominate.
The 2024 Huskies are the sixth team to win all six tournament games by double-digit margins. They won those games by a grand total of 140 points, blowing past the previous high of 121 by the 2009 North Carolina team for the highest margin among that exclusive club.
Cam Spencer, a transfer from Rutgers, Stephon Castle, a blue-chip freshman, and Alex Karaban, a sophomore from last year’s team, spent the night guarding the 3-point line and making life miserable for Purdue’s guards.
This was only the second time this season Purdue didn’t put up 10 3-point attempts, and how ’bout this final score: Edey 37, the rest of the Boilermakers 23.