INDIANAPOLIS — Dan Hurley has built a dynasty at Connecticut by playing a unique style that he believes gives his team an advantage in the postseason. The Huskies run intricate sets with shooters flying off endless screens.
Even on nights when the shooting isn’t great, it takes a toll on the opponent. Legs get heavy. Shots that usually go in just don’t have enough oomph.
The Huskies are used to running marathons. Used to going deep in this NCAA Tournament.
“The later you get in this thing,” Hurley said, “there’s this mindset that the group develops that like, ‘Yeah, we were supposed to win.’”
Inevitable? It almost feels that way in April for Hurley’s program.
Once again, the Huskies are on to the last leg of the marathon, advancing to Monday’s national championship game against Michigan with a 71-62 win Saturday over Illinois in a Lucas Oil Stadium packed with orange-clad Illini fans.
UConn will go for its third championship in four years and can become only the third men’s program to pull it off: The two that have done it are UCLA (10 titles in 12 years under John Wooden) and Kentucky (1948-1951, under Adolph Rupp).
The Illini came in Saturday with the most efficient offense in the history of college basketball, one that feasts on mismatches and plays to the analytics with mostly layups and 3s. They try to attack the worst defenders, who they identify on their scouting board as “beards” — a knock on Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden.
Put those players on an island, and it either creates easy shots for the guy attacking or for his teammates when the help inevitably comes. But UConn’s game plan was to guard the Illini one-on-one and rarely bring two to the ball. The one exception was on ball screens set by bigs, which UConn always hedges, but the plan was to not stay with the hedge as long as usual. The Illini shoot more pick-and-pop 3s than anyone in college basketball, and came in making 35 percent of them, per Synergy, but the Huskies were going to live with those shots.
“We wanted to take away 3s from the most dangerous shooters,” UConn assistant Kimani Young said. “For us, that was (Ben) Humrichous and Jake Davis. I think those are the two guys that can absolutely shoot the cover off the ball.”
Humrichous and Davis combined to take just five shots, with a late, deep 3 from Humrichous the only basket between the two.
Without those two getting spot-up 3s, it was on Keaton Wagler, David Mirkovic, Tomislav Ivisic and Andrej Stojakovic to attack. And often, it seemed like they were getting to their spots. Stojakovic said they came into halftime, with only 29 points and shooting 34.5 percent, feeling optimistic.
“We were so positive,” he said. “We came in, we were like, ‘Oh, we’re getting all the shots we want. They’re gonna fall, because we’ve been doing that all year long.’”
But the worst two shooting games of the season for the best offense in college hoops history? Both against these Huskies, who also won a late-November game at Madison Square Garden.
“Me and Tommy had a decent amount of looks that usually go in, in the paint, especially,” Stojakovic said. “A couple that rolled out so oddly, but it’s how basketball works.”
At least basketball against the Huskies, who have held three of their past four tourney opponents to one of their four-lowest efficiency games this season.
“We spent a majority of the year as a top-five defense,” Hurley said, making sure no one tries to deemphasize its influence on the result. “We won a lot of one-on-one battles.”
The Huskies also executed their game plan on the other end. This one was not the most aesthetically pleasing of Hurley’s 18 tourney wins (and counting) the past four years, but the strategy was the same: Play through a dominant center and lean into the stamina of his always-running shooters.
That center, Tarris Reed Jr., was the only guy who could consistently make shots in the paint. The Illini have the tallest team in college basketball, and that length seemed to bother everyone but Reed, who bullied in the post and eventually forced the Illini to bring double teams.
When they did double Reed — who finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds — it led to some great spot-up looks on the perimeter. While the Huskies weren’t much better shooting the ball, making only 34.5 percent of their 2s, they made enough 3s — 12 of 33 — and minimized turnovers (four) to make the math work out.
And while the Illini couldn’t seem to get a bounce, the basketball gods were smiling on the Huskies, who got several generous rolls. Then there was Braylon Mullins, UConn’s new hero of March, who banked in a 3 and reacted, appropriately, with a Jordan-esque shrug.
Mullins, who had been in a long shooting slump before he played hero against Duke in the Elite Eight, finished with 15 points and made 4 of 7 3s, the first time he’s made at least four treys since Feb. 18. Solo Ball also had his best shooting game of the tournament, finishing with 13 points and making 3 of 7 3s.
One thing that helped was that the Illini didn’t switch any off-ball screening action, meaning Mullins and Ball often had the space to catch and shoot.
“We had so many opportunities,” Hurley said. “We could have made 18 threes.”
Even though they did not, the amount of running the Illini guards and wings had to do chasing those shooters seemed to take their legs on the other end.
And while the shots quit falling for the Huskies in the second half, when they made just 8 of 28 from the field, Mullins had the stamina to make the one that mattered, flying off a down screen in the final minute, with the lead down to four and with Wagler several steps behind him, burying the dagger.
“The year hasn’t been a joyride,” Hurley said. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this. We’re comfortable in a possession game like that.”
The shots will likely have to fall more frequently on Monday for the Huskies to really complete this dynamic run. It will be the first time Hurley has played in a national title game as the underdog.
But Michigan has yet to see a team like UConn. Yet to see an offense that operates like this. Maybe the Wolverines will finally have the antidote, and the numbers certainly favor them, but …
“There’s a lot of analytics that we use in sports to determine who’s going to win a game or who’s gonna advance in a tournament,” Hurley said. “But will, fight, toughness, culture of a program, the fact that wearing this jersey when you get later in this tournament becomes a benefit.”