Head Coach Jim Calhoun cutting down the net. Photo by Stephen Slade<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSophomore Alex Oriakhi scored 11 points and pulled down 11 rebounds as part of the Huskies\u2019 domination in the paint, where they outscored Butler 26-2. Freshman Jeremy Lamb, scoreless in the first half, finished with 12 points and 7 rebounds, and Walker, the tournament\u2019s Most Outstanding Player, had 16 points and 7 rebounds.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought our inside game was a little too much for them,\u201d Walker said. \u201cOur guys are extremely long. I thought we did a great job of keeping them to one shot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Butler senior forward Matt Howard said his team was frustrated by their poor shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe kept telling each other shots are going to go in. That belief is always there,\u201d he said. \u201cThis one\u2019s pretty frustrating. It was just one of those days. We had our chances there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Stevens, \u201cSometimes shots don\u2019t go in. That\u2019s basketball. UConn had a lot to do with that. They were scoring off pin downs and screen-ins. It wasn\u2019t stuff we hadn\u2019t seen. If you would have told me Lamb and Walker combined for 28 shots, I would have felt pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a third championship banner to hang in Harry A. Gampel Pavilion, Calhoun joins the elite group of coaches who have won three or more NCAA Championships: the legendary John Wooden (10 NCAA titles) and Adolph Rupp (4); Mike Krzyzewski (4), who is still coaching at Duke; and former Indiana coach, now an ESPN analyst, Bob Knight (3).<\/p>\n
Calhoun repeated something he has said over the years when asked by reporters to assess his legacy: \u201cMy father told me years ago, \u2018you\u2019re known by the company you keep.\u2019 That\u2019s awfully sweet company.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Women<\/strong><\/p>\nThe women\u2019s basketball team fell short of its goal of a third consecutive NCAA Championship after taking a 32-26 halftime lead, which held up until 13:47 remaining in the game, when the Fighting Irish took the lead for good, 41-38, before building a 10-point margin. During an exchange of baskets for the rest of the game, UConn could get no closer than three points, with Moore scoring 16 points in a row.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame was led by guards Skylar Diggins, who scored 28 points, and Natalie Novasel, who scored 22 points. The Huskies were led by Moore, who finished with 36 points, and freshman Bria Hartley who had10 points and was the only other Husky in double figures.<\/p>\n
Following the game, Huskies head coach Geno Auriemma said he would remember seniors Moore and Lorin Dixon for the totality of their time in Storrs, and the lessons they learned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know how difficult it is for Maya and for Lorin. I just wanted to remind them in the locker room that when they were freshmen the same thing happened to them,\u201d he said. \u201cThey end their senior year with the same outcome \u2026 but what happened in between only the really, really fortunate can ever experience. What Maya and Lorin experienced in the two years between their loss in the [2007-2008] Final Four and tonight, that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to choose to focus on when I think about those two, especially about Maya \u2013 the best player in the Big East, maybe the best student athlete in the history of college basketball. I\u2019m not going to let her be defined by what happened tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said Moore, \u201cI loved my whole time here. I can\u2019t pinpoint a moment. A lot of people would think the national championships, but there\u2019s so much that goes into a national championship, it is just the whole journey, the fact that I have a whole new family that I didn\u2019t have four years ago is probably the highlight.\u201d<\/p>\n
Answering reporters\u2019 questions, Auriemma reflected on how even after all the success this season, he still was concerned about the narrow margin for error that his young team faced during each game.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think some of our players got caught up in the bigness of the game,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s why I said at the beginning we\u2019re a vulnerable team because you\u2019re asking players to do things they\u2019ve never done before. One great player can\u2019t beat a really good team, not this time of the year. Whether anybody is disappointed that Stanford and Connecticut aren\u2019t playing Tuesday night, that\u2019s irrelevant. The two teams that played the best today and the two teams that deserve to play Tuesday night are playing Tuesday night.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bringing it Home<\/strong><\/p>\nThe men’s basketball team is expected to return this afternoon to Bradley International Airport at approximately 3:45 p.m. Upon arrival at Bradley, there will be a short public event \u2013 rain or shine. The team will then return to Gampel Pavilion in Storrs for a Championship Pep Rally. The doors to Gampel Pavilion will open at approximately 5 p.m. and the team is expected to arrive in Storrs at approximately 5:30 p.m. The event at Gampel is free and open to the public. The program will include the introduction of the team and also include brief comments from Coach Calhoun and other individuals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The men’s basketball team is bringing the trophy home, after a 53-41 win against Butler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,70],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[55],"class_list":["post-32338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-video"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-17 03:01:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32338"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32365,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32338\/revisions\/32365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32338"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=32338"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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