.UConn was the hottest team during March Madness but they certainly are not some unbeatable juggernaut. Here are the facts:
1) They lost 6 out of 8 games at the beginning of Big East conference play;
2) They finished fourth in the regular season standings in the Big East behind Marquette, Xavier and Creighton (and essentially tied with Providence);
3) They did not win the Big East Tournament;
4) They were a four seed in the NCAA Tournament; and
5) Their own coach said they were pretty mediocre when they didn't play good D at the beginning of conference play.
Does that sound like a great or dominant team to you? If you didn't know the outcome of the NCAA Tournament and someone just told you those five facts at the beginning of the Tournament, would you have viewed them as a juggernaut and likely winner of a National Championship?
There really weren't any great teams this year. UConn had size/quality bigs, quality depth, strong shot selection and no holes. They played very good defense in the NCAA Tournament. They also seemed the most comfortable on the big stage. They were not a historically great team like the Running Rebels of UNLV that won an NCAA tournament game with a score of 131-101 and scored 100 points in the Championship game (an all-time record). UConn barely broke 70 in most of their Tournament games. They were a good solid team that was hot at the right time. Their defense (defensive rebounds, blocked shots & size requiring opponents to alter their shots in the paint) was a major reason they won plus Hawkins, Karaban and Calcaterra made timely shots fairly consistently. We certainly could have beaten them but we absolutely bricked it most of the game and lost by around 4-5 buckets.
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