UConn wins NCAA men’s basketball championship over Purdue: Highlights

UConn’s back-to-back tournament titles give its men’s basketball program six national championships — an impressive feat given that only two schools (Kentucky and UCLA) have ever won more than six in the men’s game.

But the UConn men still stand quite short of the squad with whom they share a campus, the UConn women’s program. Those Huskies have 11 national titles and show no signs of slowing down, having gotten to a Final Four this season. 

National titles have been free-flowing in Storrs, Connecticut, as the two teams have come home with a combined 17 titles in the last 30 years.

Tristen Newton has been named the most outstanding player of this year's NCAA Tournament. The senior guard led his team in its pursuit of a second consecutive title, ending with 20 points and 7 assists in tonight’s title game.

Newton ends his career at UConn by averaging 14.5 points and 7.2 assists per game during the 2024 tournament, getting to 20 points twice — against Northwestern in the second round and tonight. 

UConn’s sixth men’s Division I title puts the Huskies in elite company. UConn ties North Carolina for third most titles in program history. The Tar Heels and the Huskies trail only Kentucky (eight titles) and UCLA (11) for the most. 

UConn has won its second consecutive and sixth all-time NCAA title, beating Purdue 75-60.

UConn will most likely clinch its title on the free throw line, where it shot 74% during the regular season, 81st in the country.

Edey's 31 points tonight have helped to put him in some elite company — he has now scored 171 points across tournament play this year. As the broadcast pointed out, that is the third-best mark for total single tournament points all time, behind only Princeton’s Bill Bradley in 1965 (177 points) and Michigan’s Glen Rice in 1989 (184).

Bradley’s Princeton ended up third in the 1965 tournament, while Rice’s Michigan won the tournament in 1989.

As UConn has aggressively built its second-half lead, the Huskies have paid a bit of a price. Four Huskies are in foul trouble, including the two big men tasked with defending Edey: Johnson and Clingan both have four fouls.

Senior guards Cam Spencer and Hassan Diarra also have three personals.

UConn leads Perdue 45-40, the Huskies' largest lead of the night, with a little less than 10 minutes remaining.

There's 11:45 left in the second half, and UConn is starting to think about cutting down the nets as it leads Purdue 51-38. Newton now has 16 points. Edey has 20 for Purdue.

After a tightly contested first part of the second half, UConn has begun to pull away. The Huskies have established an 11-point lead with 14 minutes remaining and had a lead as large as 13. 

Samson Johnson has helped build that lead of late, stringing together two massive dunks to pace UConn’s offense.

Off an Edey miss, Purdue forward Camden Heide came flying in for a put-back dunk.

That was Heide’s first bucket of the evening, and it came at a good time — keeping Purdue's deficit manageable.

STORRS, Conn. — Precautions were in place today at the University of Connecticut to prevent a repeat of the violence and vandalism that marred the celebrations of the school’s 2023 NCAA men’s basketball championship.

In advance of the Final Four, the school removed the aluminum light posts along Hillside Road, the main thoroughfare through the center of campus, and replaced them with temporary recessed lighting.

The school also has limited the size of the campus watch party planned for tonight’s title game against Purdue. Only 6,700 students, all of whom won tickets to the event through a lottery, will be allowed inside Gampel Pavilion for the event, and they all will be seated in the upper bowl of the 10,000-seat arena.

Unlike last year, the general public will not be allowed into the arena, and no alcohol will be sold during the event, school spokesman Mike Enright said.

A total of 39 people were arrested after celebrants broke windows, overturned vehicles and even used a light post to ram a door at the student union after the Huskies’ win over San Diego State last April.

Edey played a major role in the story of the first half, as the senior center contributed more than half of his team's points and five rebounds.

But potentially more notable so far is his game-changing shot-altering ability. Edey has a couple of blocks. (He initially appeared to have three, but one was taken away from the box score.)

The all-time NCAA title game record for blocks is six, shared by Joakim Noah (2006) and Anthony Davis (2012).

UConn is 45-0 when leading at halftime. It leads 36-30 after 20 minutes. The Huskies are now laying 8.5 points with the game total at 140.5 points. 

The Huskies cover the first-half spread of 3.5 points, and the under-68.5 first-half total points cashes.

Hall of Fame men’s college basketball coach John Calipari is finalizing a deal to leave Kentucky for Arkansas, according to multiple reports.

He has led the Wildcats to seven Elite Eights, four Final Fours and the 2012 national championship. 

ESPN was the first to report the news.

Calipari, 65, is 410-123 over 15 seasons in Lexington. He was under contract through the 2028-29 season but will not owe the program a buyout for leaving early. He would have been owed $33 million if he were fired by the university.

Read the full story here.  

With the championship game halfway over, the UConn Huskies are leading Purdue 36-30.

Tristen Newton has 11 points for UConn.

Edey is the leading scorer for the Boilermakers, with 16.

“I really like the pace of the game," UConn's coach said at halftime. "The pace of the game favors us a little bit. We’re forcing them to play a little faster than they are used to.”

With so much attention on the big men in the paint, the winner may be the team that shoots it best from deep.

Purdue was the country’s second-best 3-point shooting team during the regular season, hitting nearly 46% of its shots from the arc. The Boilermakers hit 10 3-pointers against N.C. State in the Final Four but went 3 for 15 against Tennessee in the Elite Eight.

Purdue will need a bounce-back from point guard Braden Smith, who was frustrated after he went 1 for 9 — 1 for 5 from 3 — in the national semifinals.

UConn isn’t nearly as proficient from the arc, but it has two players who can create their own shots in Tristen Newton and freshman Stephon Castle.

Newton is a first-team AP All-American and the Huskies’ leading scorer, at 14.3 points per game. Castle, the only five-star recruit in the Final Four, hasn’t shied away from the spotlight, leading UConn with 21 points against Alabama.

UConn has weathered the storm of Edey’s early 16-point, 5-rebound first half by spreading its offense around effectively. Four Huskies have seven or more points already, led by senior guard Tristen Newton, who has nine. Newton, who was named a first-team All-American by the AP, led UConn in scoring during the season with 14.9 points per game.

Painter said that defensively the Boilermakers have to force UConn into harder shots.

“We’ve allowed them to get a little bit too deep on the drive, you know, three of four times, and they’ve made some plays at the rim,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job of keeping them out, trying to get them into tougher 2s.”

6:50 left in the first half and we are tied at 23. It is the Zach Edey show. The two-time NCAA Player of the Year has scored 14 of Purdue’s 23 points. UConn is now a 5.5-point favorite, and the game total is now 145.5 points.

When Clingan is out of the game, UConn has featured Samson Johnson as the key defender on Purdue’s 7-foot-4 center, Edey. Johnson has struggled — he’s got two fouls and had to sit immediately after he recorded his second personal. 

With 10 minutes left in the first 20-minute half, UConn leads Purdue by three, 21-18.

UConn’s Cam Spencer and Hassan Diarra were scoring leaders for UConn, and Purdue center Zach Edey leads in scoring for the Boilermakers.

UConn has outscored opponents by a combined 125 points in the NCAA Tournament, and Purdue is plus-98 in its five games. The combined 223 points is the highest combined scoring margin between two finalists in NCAA Tournament history.

That will put a premium on defending.

UConn might have an advantage there.

The Huskies are No. 4 in KenPom.com’s defensive efficiency ratings, and they locked down late in the game to knock high-scoring Alabama out of the Final Four.

Purdue isn’t shabby on D, either, ranked 12th by KenPom.

Just seven minutes into the title game, the battle of the bigs is making good on its promise. Edey just recorded back-to-back blocks to stymie a UConn possession, following an earlier block from UConn center Clingan. Edey also leads his team with 11 points. 

While No. 1-seeded Purdue fights for its first NCAA basketball title in history, last year it was a starkly different tale.

In the 2023 tournament, Purdue, also then a No. 1 seed, was bounced out in the first round by Fairleigh Dickinson University, 58-63, in a stunning upset.

The Associated Press in its coverage wrote that “Fairleigh Dickinson brought down a giant” and called it one of the biggest upsets in the history of the NCAA Tournament.

Purdue senior Mason Gillis said earlier in this year’s tournament that the team remembers the early exit.

“We take it in and talk about it rather than ignoring it and let it fuel us,” Gillis said two weeks ago, the Lafayette Journal & Courier in Indiana reported.

15:04 remaining in the first half. The Huskies lead 11-9 over the Boilermakers. UConn remains a 6.5-point favorite. The game total is climbing and is up to 147.5 points

Purdue’s Trey Kaufman-Renn scores first with a 2-point jumper.

Purdue got the tipoff at 9:22 p.m. ET (6:22 p.m. in Arizona, where the game is being played), but Zach Edey missed a shot and there was a turnover.

Purdue got a defensive rebound on a missed 3-pointer by UConn’s Alex Karaban, setting the stage for the first score by Purdue.

Matt Painter, Purdue's head coach since 2005, is making his first appearance in a national title game. For many, Painter's arrival here has been a long time coming. Coming into the tournament, Painter's name was most frequently mentioned by his peers as to which coach was the best who had never made it to a Final Four.

But perhaps more important to Painter, now that he's here, is what team he led to the Final Four, and tonight's championship game. He's doing it at his alma mater.

Painter played four solid seasons with the Boilermakers from 1989 to 1993, culminating in a senior season in which he averaged 8.6 points and 4.5 assists per game. Though Purdue never made much noise in the NCAA Tournament when Painter was a player, he has now spent 20 seasons at the helm of the Boilermakers' ship, getting to five Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight before he helped guide Purdue to the title game this year.

UConn and Purdue, two of the country's top offenses all season, arrive in tonight's national title game as the result of balanced attacks that feature a wide array of offensive weapons. But the two teams have spent all season highlighted by two (literal) towering figures of the college game: Boilermakers center Zach Edey and Huskies center Donovan Clingan.

Edey and Clingan, who are 7-foot-4 and 7-foot-2 respectively, have had shining NCAA Tournaments, and were both named most outstanding player of their respective regions on the way to the Final Four and tonight's title game.

Edey — who was named to the John Wooden All-American team and is a favorite to repeat as the institution's player of the year — has averaged 28 points in five tourney games, while Clingan has averaged 16.2 per game.

Both have also had massive impacts on defense, and especially on the boards, with Clingan improving his rebounds per game from 7.4 per in the regular season to 9 per game in the tournament, while Edey has averaged an eye-popping 15.4 rebounds per game leading up to the duo's title game showdown.

The NCAA Tournament is difficult. For any team looking to win a national title, the prospect of winning six consecutive games over three weekends in a do-or-die environment seems beyond stress-inducing. And yet, judging by final score lines alone, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that UConn has had any trouble being on the verge of two consecutive titles.

In fact, over the 11 tournament games the Huskies have played since the start of the 2023 edition, UConn has won double-digit victories every time it ha touched the court. Again, that's no small feat — yes, that includes romps in opening round games against No. 16 Stetson this year (91-52) and No. 13 Iona last year (87-63) — but it has also included battle-tested Final Four opponents on the game's biggest stage.

Last season, UConn capped its impressive postseason run with a 17-point victory over San Diego State. Purdue will look to end UConn's undefeated and blowout victory streak tonight.

The first half spread has UConn (-225) favored by 3.5 points over Purdue (+190), with the first half total set at 68.5 points.

Here’s a look at the odds for a variety of players to score the first basket tonight:

First field goal

Zach Edey                       +290

Donovan Clingan           +380

Stephon Castle               +700

Cam Spencer                  +725

Alex Karaban                  +800

Trey Kaufman-Renn      +950

Tristen Newton              +1050

Fletcher Loyer                +1100

Perhaps it’s appropriate that Purdue and UConn meet in tonight’s NCAA final, as one of the most exciting things about this tournament has been watching both teams put away games with ease.

Admittedly, Purdue has had a bit of a tougher time doing that, but both teams have seemingly been on a collision course for most of the tournament.

UConn has bested teams by an average of 25 points in its five games, while Purdue has won games by an average of nearly 20 per game.

Even the two teams' closest matchups during this tournament haven't been true nail-biters. Purdue's closest win was in the Elite Eight over Tennessee by six, and UConn's closest night came at the hands of Alabama in the Final Four, a 14-point victory.

Thirty minutes from tip, and the defending champion UConn Huskies are favored by 6.5 points over the Purdue Boilermakers, with the game total set at 143.5.

Earlier today, the Huskies were 7.5-point favorites, with the game total sitting at 145.5.

Purdue’s team name, the Boilermakers, began as one of the insults leveled by newspapers after Purdue’s success at football in the 1890s.

After Purdue thrashed Wabash College 44-0 in 1891, the Daily Argus-News of Crawfordsville, Indiana, ran the headline “Wabash Snowed Completely Under by the Burly Boiler Makers From Purdue.”

A newspaper reporter in Lafayette, closer to where Perdue is, responded that it was making excuses for the drubbing by claiming it could only be because of brute force, according to Purdue’s team website.

People who attended Purdue were seen as more working-class than those attending liberal arts colleges at the time, the university says.

Purdue had a working railroad engine in its locomotive laboratory. A boiler maker — like it sounds — works in the construction of boilers in heating and steam power, although the boilermakers union represents other trades, as well, some of which now have nothing to do with boilers.

It is never too early to start thinking about the 2025 NCAA Tournament champion. Jay Croucher and Drew Dinsick are talking college basketball, the Masters, the NFL draft and the NBA and NHL playoffs.

"Bet the Edge" is your source for the day in sports betting. Get all of Jay Croucher and Drew Dinsick’s insight at 6 a.m. ET weekdays right here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Tonight’s 9:20 p.m. ET tip is nothing new. In fact, the game has started around 9:20 p.m. on Monday evening for decades. So why keep folks up so late, especially East Coasters? 

The easy answer: TV ratings. A tipoff that happens post-rush hour for the whole county maximizes the potential TV audience.

And yet, look to yesterday’s women’s title game, which tipped about 3 p.m. ET, to find a reason to trust the audience to find what it wants. That game was watched by 18.7 million people, more than any other basketball game (men’s or women’s, pro or college, playoff or regular season) to air on ESPN since 2019. 

Among the many other potential reasons for the late tip is the game’s location. The game is at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where things get underway at 6:20 p.m. local time. Getting people anywhere before 6 p.m. on a weekday is a challenge, to say nothing of a 63,400 people, the capacity of the stadium. 

Transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said ahead of her team’s NCAA Tournament championship game.

Staley made the comments during a news conference Saturday when asked by OutKick reporter Dan Zaksheske whether she believes “biological males” should be “included” in women’s sports.

“I’m on the opinion of if you’re a woman you should play,” Staley said. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play.”

Read the full story here.

Sixty-six NCAA Tournament games, including the First Four and Saturday’s Final Four, have led to tonight’s final showdown between Purdue and UConn. You do 66 of anything and you’re bound to make a few memories — and this year’s March Madness is no exception. 

Here are some of the most memorable moments from three full weekends of NCAA action:

Oakland pulls a major upset behind Jack Gohlke

Typically, March has been a home for the inexperienced-unknown-leads-mid-major-to-upset-victory storylines we all know and love. This year’s tournament had a version of it, save for one detail — the inexperienced part. A graduate student six years into his college basketball playing career, Oakland guard Jack Gohlke hit 10 3s to lead his Grizzlies in an upset of Kentucky in the opening round.

Houston vs. Texas A&M’s back-and-forth battle 

A No. 1 seed is never guaranteed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen, and even in the last few years we’ve seen No. 1 seeds not escape their opening round matchups (cough, cough Purdue last year). But second-round meetings with the winners of 8-9 matchups two days before can sometimes feel like trap games. That was certainly the case for Houston-Texas A&M, in which A&M used a 17-5 rally over the span of just two minutes to force overtime. The favorite, Houston, eventually prevailed, but we got a tense battle along the way. 

N.C. State rides the wave of momentum to the Final Four

An 11 seed making its way to the Final Four isn’t unheard of, but N.C. State’s journey to the final weekend of the tournament was particularly noteworthy because of the deep hole the Wolfpack had to climb out of to make it there. N.C. State, the 10th seed in its own conference tournament, pulled off five consecutive wins in the ACC Tournament followed by four consecutive wins in the NCAA Tournament behind dazzling efforts from senior forward DJ Burns.

Here are the most popular player prop bets and their corresponding odds for tonight’s national championship game at BetMGM:

Most-bet player props

1. Zach Edey over 12.5 rebounds (-120)
2. Zach Edey over 24.5 points (-105)
3. Donovan Clingan over 13.5 points (-135)
4. Stephon Castle over 2.5 assists (+110)
5. Tristen Newton over 5.5 assists (-145)

Most-bet game props

1. UConn to win by 6-10 points (+320)
2. Purdue first to score 5 points (+105)
3. Purdue first to score 10 points (+115)
4. Will the game go to overtime (Yes +1250)
5. UConn first to score 20 points (-190)

Sunday’s NCAA women’s basketball national championship broke historic ground with a record-setting 18.7 million viewers, ESPN said today.

“With a record-setting audience of 18.7 million viewers, Sunday’s Iowa-South Carolina title game was a fitting finale to the most-viewed ever NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament,” ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “These exceptional athletes, coaches and teams captured our attention in unprecedented ways and it’s incumbent on all of us to keep the incredible momentum going.”

Helping to hype up Sunday’s women’s finals between Iowa and South Carolina was Iowa star Caitlin Clark, who broke all-time scoring records this season and who is headed to the WNBA draft.

South Carolina beat Iowa 87-75 at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.

It was the most-watched basketball game since 2019, pro or college, the ESPN said. The game was shown on ESPN and ABC. It had a peak viewership of 24 million.

Read the full story here.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont is putting up a case of beer, chocolates and a pizza, and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb is venturing root beer, sugar cream pie and a pork tenderloin in a bet on their state’s teams in tonight’s game.

The UConn Huskies are trying for back-to-back championships — giving them six overall — while Purdue is trying for its first.

Lamont’s bet involves a case of beer from Athletic Brewing Co., a box of chocolates from Munson’s Chocolates and a New Haven-style pizza from Sally’s in New Haven’s Wooster Square, he said.

Holcomb is wagering Triple XXX root beer, sugar cream pie from Wick’s and a pork tenderloin from Harry’s Chocolate Shop.

Both governors expressed confidence that his state's team would win.

"It’s all come down to this, Boiler Up and Hammer Down,” Holcomb said in a statement. “I’m confident the NCAA trophy is coming to the Hoosier state, where we grow basketball. It’s going to be a great match-up of the best of the best.”

The University of Connecticut is in Storrs, and Purdue University is in West Lafayette, Indiana. 

Yesterday, South Carolina and Iowa battled it out in the women's NCAA championship game at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, in a game in which Iowa took an early lead.

In the end, the South Carolina Gamecocks came out victorious, 87-75, capping off an undefeated season with the ultimate trophy and a 38-0 record.

Center Kamilla Cardoso was named the tournament's most outstanding player, and coach Dawn Staley cried so hard after the win she could hardly get the words out to express her excitement and pride in her team.

It also marked the end of a decorated college hoops career for NCAA all-time scorer Caitlin Clark, who is headed to the WNBA draft as the likely first overall pick.

UConn has blown through the NCAA Tournament again to reach college basketball’s final night, this time with a chance to claim the first repeat championship in 17 years.

The final test is facing a Purdue team that spent an entire season proving it had recovered from one of the rarest of NCAA Tournament upsets.

“It speaks to the credit of what the coaching staff does — they’ve constructed a beautiful team, as we see,” UConn forward Alex Karaban said.

“They made sure the returners, we weren’t complacent, that we wanted to leave a legacy,” Karaban added. “And for the new guys, they’re hungrier than ever. ... To be one win away against a really good Purdue team, it’s going to be a battle and we know that. And it’s going to take everything to make sure that we make history.”

In addition to that history on the line, there’s a pairing of marquee big men in Purdue’s 7-foot-4 Zach Edey — the two-time AP national player of the year — and UConn’s 7-2 Donovan Clingan.

The UConn Huskies and the Purdue Boilermakers defeated No. 4 seed Alabama and No. 11 seed N.C. State, respectively, in the Final Four on Saturday.

UConn, the defending national champion, will look to become the first program since Florida in 2007 to win back-to-back titles. The Huskies have reached the championship game five previous times, winning every matchup.

Purdue has not won an NCAA Tournament.

UConn, the betting favorites entering the tournament, outlasted Alabama on Saturday thanks to a dominant performance down the stretch.

The game was tied at 56 points with 12:04 left before Dan Hurley’s squad took over. All five UConn starters scored in double figures, led by Stephon Castle’s 21 points.

Purdue cruised past N.C. State 63-50 after another big game from All-American center Zach Edey. The 7-foot-4 Canadian finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds as the Boilermakers dominated on the inside. Purdue outrebounded the Wolfpack 41-28 and added 10 3-pointers.

The Boilermakers pulled away late in the second half, going on a 14-1 run with a little over four minutes remaining.

The UConn Huskies will try to defend their title tonight against the Purdue Boilermakers.

The game starts at 9:20 p.m. ET and will be played at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

It airs on TBS, TNT and TruTV. The game will also be streaming on Max and the NCAA's March Madness Live.