ARLINGTON, Texas – Like a skilled Texas holdem poker player, Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie never tips his hand. With outsiders labeling UConn’s December victory over Florida a “fluke” and siding with the Gators before Saturday night’s national semifinal game at gigantic AT&T Stadium, Ollie kept his best card concealed until the Huskies took the court.
And when it came time to play the game, Ollie threw his trump card right in the direction of Florida point guard Scottie Wilbekin.
“We wanted to really stay on Wilbekin, keep him out of the lane, keep him on one side,” Ollie said. “I thought we did a great job of that starting with Ryan [Boatright]. And then it just started with everybody. That was our key. We call it the ace of spades. That was the ace of spades in this game and we wanted to take him out.”
The ace of spades.
In folklore, it is known as the “death card.”
That’s exactly how it must have felt to the Gators, the No. 1 team in the nation for most of the season and the overwhelming favorite to leave the Final Four as the new champion. But now, after UConn’s dazzling 63-53 victory, the Gators are headed home – just like Michigan State. The Spartans also found their path blocked by the Huskies, last Sunday in the East Regional final at Madison Square Garden.
UConn (31-8) is headed to Monday night’s championship game Kentucky, a 74-73 winner over Wisconsin in Saturday’s second semifinal. Aaron Harrison’s 3-pointer with 5.7 seconds left gave the Wildcats the win.
The Huskies are in quest of their fourth national championship since 1999 and are the first No. 7 seed to reach the championship game. Kentucky is the third No. 8 to make it to Monday, joining Villanova (the 1985 champ) and Butler (which lost to UConn in 2011).
“It all starts with Boatright,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “He does a great job really pressuring the ball. . . . There’s not many guards that we have played against that have kept Scottie Wilbekin out of the lane. These guys kept him out of the lane.”
Here’s the stat of the day – an maybe one of the great stats in Final Four history. Florida had three assists. Eleven turnovers and three – yes three – assists. That’s the fewest assists in a national semifinal since assists became an official stat in 1983-84.
“That’s crazy,” Wilbekin said. “That’s not usually what we do. All the credit goes to [UConn] and their guards and the way they were denying and putting pressure on us. When we would get by them, we wouldn’t keep the ball tight and they would reach from behind. We were just being too loose with it.”
DeAndre Daniels continued his torrid NCAA pace with 20 points and 10 rebounds. Boatright had 13 points and was the defensive standout, harassing Wilbekin into 2 of 9 shooting, four points and three turnovers in 34 minutes. Shabazz Napier didn’t need a buzzer -beater, as he did on Dec. 2 in Storrs when the Huskies tripped the Gators for their last defeat prior to Saturday. He scored 12 points, but orchestrated the entire show with six assists, only two turnovers and four steals.
If you only saw the first 10 minutes of the game, you would have thought UConn was going to be blown across the Texas prairie by the storm that was rumbling around the massive playground of Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones. UConn trailed 16-4 until Daniels hit a three-pointer with 8:49 left before halftime. That triggered an 11-0 run and got the Huskies back in the game.
That tied for the fourth-largest comeback in national semifinal history. It meant UConn was responsible for two of Florida’s (36-3) three losses this season.
“We sat down after Coach called timeout and he just said, ‘Guys we have been in this position before; believe in each other,’ ” Napier said. “They were leaving DeAndre open because they were doubling and doing all sorts of things. He took advantage of it. When he knocked down that three, our fans went crazy and then we understood what was going to happen next.”
What happened next was that the Huskies took the lead. After being held scoreless the first 3:54 and with just four points in the opening 11:11, UConn went ahead 21-20 on a free throw by Niels Giffey that completed a three-point play with 3:18 left before halftime.
Daniels, 9-for-14 from the field, was inspired by a talk he had with former UConn coach Jim Calhoun on Friday.
“He was telling me that nobody is paying attention to me,” Daniels said. “I told him don’t worry about it. Everybody will pay attention to me after Saturday I promised him.”
You can do the math, but UConn outscored Florida 59-37 over the final 29 minutes of the game. After the slow start, the Huskies shot 63.6 percent in the second half and 55.8 percent for the game. Florida was held to 38.8 percent shooting and made just one 3-pointer to five for the Huskies. UConn ended with a reported 1.11 points per possession, the third highest against the nation’s top defense this season.
Giffey finished with 11 points, including a runout slam dunk off a length-of-the-court pass by Napier off a Florida basket. Giffey had been the subject of what can only be described as rude treatment by CBSSports.com national columnist Gregg Doyel during breakout interview sessions on Friday.
Doyel, notorious for his controversial and abrasive style, got in Giffey’s face and stated that UConn’s Dec. 2 win over Florida was a “fluke.” He used the word repeatedly in a column you can read here and concluded that “the real Florida will get its first shot at UConn” in the semifinal.
But the Huskies are happy to bring on all challengers and then dismiss them, as they did again Saturday night.
“All the experts were picking us to lose,” Boatright said. “So naturally there’s going to be conversations that everyone thought it was a fluke. We like that. We love it. They had us losing every game in the postseason. We believe in each other and we believed in this coaching staff and we knew we could be in this situation. It’s like an us against the world mentality.”
Boatright has always prided himself in playing defense. But he has taken his effort to another level in the postseason.
“At this magnitude, with the emotion and meaning you’ve got in these games, you definitely get an extra ‘umph’ on the defensive end,” Boatright said. “When you’re tired, you just dig down deep and tell yourself you can’t be tired. I felt like we broke them when we cut the lead to one. We knew they had their best punch and they had messed up and let us back in the game.”
Patric Young led Florida with 19 points. Casey Prather had 15. But Florida’s starting backcourt of Wilbekin and Michael Frazier II, so effective to this point in the tournament, combined for just seven points. Frazier took just three shots.
“We didn’t play well,” Frazier said. “They were the better team. You just have to give them credit.”
Give the Huskies another ace of spades too. They may need it for Monday night.
Speak Your Mind