A historic run spanning more than 11 minutes of game time between the first and second halves was the story of UConn's 77-52 win over Illinois in Saturday's Elite Eight matchup. The top-seeded Huskies were fueled by an eye-popping 30-0 run to close the first half and open the second half to put the No. 3 seed Illini away. Now, UConn advances to its second consecutive Final Four with eyes on defending a national title.
The game was at one point tied at 23 in the first half before UConn's avalanche of offense and defense crashed hard on the Illini and quickly closed out the game down the stretch. That was led by an all-time performance from Huskies big man Donovan Clingan, who finished with 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks.
A 9-0 run to open the game and a 25-0 run at the start of the second half separated the Huskies in a game that was otherwise played fairly close. The Huskies actually struggled to make shots in the first half and only led by five at the break before busting things open in the second half.
"This time of year you just, you love your team," said UConn coach Dan Hurley postgame on TBS. "You can't imagine what it would be like to not get up the next day and still coach your team. ... It really is about the work, the journey."
1. A historic run
UConn's 30-0 run was the largest for the Huskies since starting a game vs. New Hampshire in 1990 with a 32-0 run, per UConn, and the largest in any NCAA Tournament game since at least 2015, per CBS Sports Research. The run flipped an otherwise competitive game quickly into a blowout and helped UConn reach its second consecutive Final Four and seventh as a program.
"We were able to just systematically break them down in the second half there," said Hurley.
2. Clingan turns in dominant performance
During an in-game interview with TBS, Illini coach Brad Underwood told Andy Katz: "If [Donovan Clingan] blocks 100, he blocks 100." That turned out to be rather prescient. Clingan finished with five blocks and altered countless other shots. Illinois' gameplan was to attack UConn's biggest man in the paint; it paid the price, finishing just 8 of 30 on shots that qualified as layups.
3. The inevitability of UConn
All season long, there has been a steady march of three elite teams -- UConn, Purdue and Houston -- on a collision course for the Final Four. As the NCAA Tournament unfolds, it feels increasingly as though the Huskies are something of an inevitability. This Illinois team was as hot as any in college basketball over the last few weeks and stood no chance against the Huskies onxw they flipped the switch. UConn still will have two games to win to repeat as champs -- which no team has done since Florida in 2006 and 2007 -- but it is feeling more and more likely we could see a repeat champion for the first time in nearly two decades.
