UConn topps Kentucky 60-54 to win its 4th NCAA national championship

Huskies guard Ryan Boatright celebrates after the Huskies beat the Wildcats 60-54 in the NCAA national championship game on Monday. Boatright scored 14 points in the win.   

By Blair Kerkhoff

ARLINGTON, Texas — Head coach Kevin Ollie walked to the Connecticut fans corner, raised his hands, stretched his fingers and hid his thumb.

Four, as in four national championships for the Huskies.

UConn brilliantly slowed the pace of the NCAA final and in the process cooled off the hot Kentucky Wildcats 60-54 on Monday night.

UConn played every late possession to near perfection, bleeding the clock and usually getting points.

The biggest one came from guard Ryan Boatright, who splashed a 10-foot floater as the shot clock buzzer sounded to make it 56-50 with 4:09 remaining.

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The Wildcats answered with an Alex Poythress slam, but he missed a free-throw that would have cut it to three, and after DeAndre Daniels scored inside for the Huskies, Kentucky never got the ball back with a chance to tie or take the lead.

UConn senior point guard Shabazz Napier, voted the Final Four’s most outstanding player, was a maestro throughout the tournament and especially Monday. His 22 points led the way. He set the early tone with 3-point shooting, and controlled the action late.

Napier’s three with 6:52 remaining after Kentucky had closed the gap to 48-47 was huge. Teammate Niels Giffey followed with a corner three, and at the moment it looked like UConn could pull off the improbable.

This national champion had lost to Louisville by 33 points late in the season.

But in the second year under Ollie, the Huskies were never deterred. They were underdogs in the national title game against a team that seemed even more destined.

Youth made Kentucky the story entering the game. When the starting five took the floor, it marked the second time in NCAA Tournament history that an all-freshman squad opened a championship game. It happened in 1992 when Michigan faced Duke.

This was an eighth-seeded team that has lost 10 games during the season.

But the inexperience hadn’t been a factor in the tournament as the Wildcats took down Kansas State, Wichita State, Louisville, Michigan and Wisconsin to reach the Final Four for the second time in three years.

And in the previous four games, the Wildcats won in clutch fashion. Guard Aaron Harrison was the hero in the previous three with a stretch of late-moment game-winning shots unparalleled in the tournament’s history.

UConn had been equally, if less spectacularly, impressive. The Huskies grounded Iowa State and Michigan State in the regional and took out top-ranked Florida in the national semifinal to become the first No. 7 seed to reach the national championship game.

Kentucky’s pattern of falling behind by a deep margin and rallying back before halftime repeated itself.

It happened against Michigan, Louisville and Wisconsin.

This time the margin was the Wildcats’ greatest of the tournament, 15 points. UConn’s Niels Giffey swished two free throws at the 5:59 mark to make it 30-15 in favor of the Huskies.

The Wildcats’ comeback was sparked by two whistles, fouls on Daniels and Boatright, over the next minute.

Daniels hadn’t been much of factor on offense, but both were playing excellent defense.

Ollie decided not to risk further foul trouble and pulled both, and the Wildcats smelled blood.

Kentucky buried three triples over the next two minutes, a pair by James Young, and UConn was reeling. Julius Randle’s layup with 2.9 seconds left in the half reduced the margin to 35-31, the closest the Wildcats had been since the early moments.

Toward the end, missed free throws were especially damaging to the Wildcats. They missed three in a late two-minute stretch, including the front end of a bonus.

Against a UConn team that was making the most of every possession, that couldn’t happen.