UConn Wins Second Straight NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship, Beating Purdue 60-75

It was supposed to be the battle of the big men as UConn’s 7-2, 280-pound center Donovan Clingan took on Purdue’s 7-foot-4, 300-pound Zach Edey, but the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship didn’t turn out that way.

Sure, Edey had a dazzling 35 points, scoring more than half of his team’s 60 points, but it wasn’t enough against a team effort from UConn, which outrebounded the Boilermakers 33-25, and ended up scoring 75 points in a well-distributed scoring effort which saw four players in double figures to Purdue’s two.

UConn (36-3) is one win from becoming the first program to repeat as national champion since Florida in 2006-07, and it leads at the half. Purdue (34-4) is at the cusp of one of college basketball’s all-time redemption stories, one season after falling to No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson in the first round.

The first half ended with a score of 36-30 in favor of UConn. 74,000 in attendance at State Farm Stadium

When the tournament began, the defending champion UConn Huskies were announced as the No. 1 overall seed playing out of the East. Houston was the No. 1 seed in the South, and Purdue earned the No. 1 seed in the Midwest. North Carolina was named the No. 1 seed in the West.