When Purdue and NC State wrap up tonight's opener, we will turn our focus in Phoenix to UConn and Alabama in the nightcap. Dan Hurley's Huskies are trying to win their second straight national title and the program's sixth as UConn returns to the Final Four for the seventh time (all since 1999). Behind Donovan Clingan, UConn (35-3) has dominated Stetson, Northwestern, San Diego State and Illinois to get to Phoenix.Nate Oats' high-powered Alabama team is led by Mark Sears and carries a 25-11 record into the program's first Final Four trip. The Crimson Tide beat Charleston, Grand Canyon, North Carolina and Clemson to get to this point.Time/TV8:49 p.m. ET/TBSRequired ReadingHurley sought some advice about repeatOats found the right formulaClingan's dominance leads Huskies to Phoenix -For ticket information on the Final Four, click here.
To add to the list of things you don’t see every day, Nick Pringle extricated himself from a mass of happy bodies and headed off to dance with a fuzzy elephant. The Alabama big man skipped down the Crypto.com Arena floor with a smile. He located Big Al near the cheerleading team. Pringle slung his long left arm around the mascot’s shoulders, and the two of them hopped and kicked as the band played, like a fever dream brought to life.As Pringle explained a few minutes later, while wearing a hard hat and cradling a trophy, he does this after home wins, too. This was not new. The rest of it, though? A strange world. Where no Alabama man nor hatted pachyderm has gone before. For the first time in actually forever, the Crimson Tide men were in the Final Four. Surreal was a pretty good place to start, whether you believed your eyes or not.“A lot of people called us soft, said we’re not ready,” Pringle said, following an 89-82 win over Clemson that effectively served as proof of eve
GLENDALE, Ariz. DJ Burns Jr. isn’t interested in spending a lot of time catching the ball on the perimeter and trying to show off a shimmying crossover dribble before chucking 3-pointers for North Carolina State.
No, he’s content to catch an entry pass, use his size to back down an opponent, then turn to make a winning read to shoot or pass.
It isn’t much different for Purdue’s 7-foot-4 reigning national player of the year Zach Edey. Or for Connecticut’s 7-2 Donovan Clingan with game-changing defensive potential.