Alabama proved it's possible to hang with UConn. Could Purdue actually finish the Huskies?

GLENDALE, Ariz. — It is, in fact, possible to make UConn sweat. The last question to be answered before the 2023-24 season wraps up is whether Purdue can make them bleed.

To this point, nobody has — in two years of NCAA men's tournament games. Eleven opponents up, 11 down, all vanquished by double digits. It’s incredible. It’s unprecedented. In an event defined by unpredictability, it defies all logic.  

“We make a hard tournament look easy,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said a few minutes after his team vanquished Alabama from the Final Four 86-72. “It’s crazy.”

But is it inevitable?

Alabama gave UConn its stiffest test of the tournament Saturday, which may not be saying much when the Crimson Tide ended up on the wrong end of a two-touchdown margin. 

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But unlike UConn’s other opponents in the last couple of years of tournament romps, this was a real basketball game. Alabama’s 3-point marksmanship and the athleticism of its guards gave UConn some things to worry about. Had one or two plays gone differently around the 9-minute mark when Alabama was going blow-for-blow for a nice stretch, maybe it’s a different game. Maybe the pressure of a possession-by-possession battle down the stretch rattles UConn’s nerves. Maybe its outside shooting goes cold at the wrong time. 

Maybe, maybe, maybe. The trick for UConn is they never allow us — or their opponents — to find out. 

“They're close to being bulletproof,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said.

What Oats’ team did Saturday was really, really good. To beat UConn, though, requires one more level of 40-minute greatness. And you better believe it's going to take all 40 minutes. 

That’s where Purdue enters the picture on Monday night. 

Had you tuned in to college basketball at any point in November, December, January or February, you could have reliably predicted these two teams playing for the national title because they have been this good from start to finish. Other contenders came into the picture at one point or another, sure, but the contours of this season were always pointing to these two. 

Purdue had the best player in Zach Edey with a supporting cast that was a year older, a year better and a year more determined to break through to the Final Four. 

UConn had incredible depth, unmatched offensive execution and a coach who would not let them relax for even a moment as the expectation built that they could become the first back-to-back champions since Florida in 2006 and 2007.

"He never let the returners get complacent with what happened last year,” UConn forward Alex Karaban said. “There’s no let-off.”

The Alabama game showed that it’s possible to hang with UConn. It also showed why it’s going to be difficult for anyone — Purdue included — to actually finish the job. 

With 12:41 remaining, this was a tie ballgame. Alabama was making things fast and chaotic, swarming the paint defensively and hitting threes at close to a 70-percent clip. 

And then? Eight consecutive UConn points in a little more than two minutes. 

Then here comes Alabama again, with point guard Mark Sears getting downhill and finishing tough shots to get things back in the nervous zone for UConn. Guess how they respond? Two possessions in a row that end with second-chance buckets. 

Against UConn, the moment you feel like you have a chance tends to get away before you even realize it's gone. 

“The feeling with the group is that it’s body blows, it’s body blows, continue to guard, continue to rebound, execute our offense and eventually there will be a breaking point opportunity that will present itself,” Hurley said. 

"We may not break you for 18, 25 minutes. But at some point if what we’re doing is at a high level, it just becomes hard for the other team to sustain it.”

Stylistically, Purdue is going to be a very different kind of opponent than Alabama. The Boilermakers are going to play a lot slower. Their guards aren’t going to have the same ability to go one-on-one and get to the rim. Whereas Alabama never just throws the ball into the post to create offense, that’s what Purdue is going to try to do as many times as they can with the 7-foot-4 Edey taking on the 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan. 

But unlike Alabama, a team with a clear weakness on the defensive end, Purdue has the best possible statistical profile to try and end this run. 

After more than 6,000 college basketball games played across Division I this year, these are two of the three most-efficient offenses in college basketball and two of the 12 most-efficient defenses. 

Often in the NCAA Tournament, all the upsets leave us with a championship game that looks like a mismatch on paper — and usually plays out that way on the court, too. Not the case this time. From so many angles, including scoring, defending, rebounding and overall depth, there’s just not much between them. 

It has a chance to be fabulous. UConn, though, has a way of making these games a lot less fabulous than they should be.

“We just stay true to our identity,” Karaban said. “It’s something the coaching staff preaches every day; if we focus on defense and rebounding, everything else will go our way. We’ll pass up good shots for great shots because we have so much trust with one another.”

The formula has been good for 11 consecutive NCAA Tournament blowouts. And now, only Purdue stands between the Huskies and the greatest two-year postseason run in the history of the sport.