LAS VEGAS — Houston, you have a problem.
The UConn men’s basketball put together the fourth-most lopsided Elite Eight victory since the tournament expanded in 1985 with an 82-54 rout of No. 3-seeded Gonzaga on Saturday in the West Regional final.
The Huskies advance to the program’s sixth Final Four and are bound for Houston’s NRG Stadium and a national semifinal on Saturday.
Jordan Hawkins cruised to a game-high 20 points on 6-of-10 shooting from 3-point range while Alex Karaban added 12 and Adama Sanogo put together a 10-point, 10-rebound double-double with six assists. Tristen Newton, Andre Jackson, Joey Calcaterra and Nahiem Alleyne each scored eight points. Jackson led the team with 10 assists.
There was a prolonged feeling out process for both teams to start the game. UConn had to figure out its offense, how it’d handle the way Gonzaga star Drew Timme defended the middle of the court, leaving Jackson uncovered to have an extra big on Sanogo. Gonzaga’s offense had to adjust to UConn’s speed and versatility, and it was a stalemate for much of the first half.
Eventually, toward the end of the half UConn got the ball into Sanogo’s hands and he backed down Ben Gregg, Gonzaga’s backup center, until Timme turned his attention away from Jackson and joined the double on Sanogo. But Jackson drew no defensive attention as he cut to the basket, sneaking where Sanogo could quickly feed him the ball out of the double team for an open layup or dunk. The Huskies had the same fortune twice in a minute-long stretch before Zags head coach Mark Few switched Timme into man-to-man coverage on Sanogo and focused one of his forwards out on Jackson.
After a mad scramble to get a loose ball about a minute after throwing down an uncontested dunk, Jackson scooped it up and found Hawkins on the perimeter for his second 3-pointer of the half at the 1:23 mark.
The clock continued to wind down and when there was six seconds left, Sanogo set a high ball screen for Newton and rolled to the rim. But his defender stayed for the double team on Newton who recklessly bounced the ball toward the paint — gift wrapping a turnover. But Jackson out hustled two Gonzaga defenders and intercepted the pass headed for the other team, then immediately skipped the ball back over his left shoulder to a wide open Karaban for a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
A pair of Gonzaga players in the paint as the ball went through the net, Anton Watson and Hunter Sallis, dropped their shoulders and stood in bewilderment. UConn hustled into the locker room with a 39-32 lead.
Twenty-six seconds into the second half, Newton set up in front of a driving Timme and drew the charge, Timme’s third foul of the game. An opportunity to build momentum for the Huskies, Sanogo converted on a long 2-pointer and Hawkins connected from deep for his third 3-pointer of the game to put UConn ahead, 44-32, just a minute into the second half.
A frantic start to the half, the Gonzaga-heavy crowd erupted in a chorus of boos after Timme was questionably called for his fourth foul of the game for an apparently incidental elbow to the face of Jackson. Few had no choice but to put his three-time All-American on the bench and, for three minutes and 15 seconds without Timme in the paint, UConn went on a 14-3 scoring run and built a 21-point lead with 25 minutes to go.
Even when something didn’t go right for the Huskies in the second half, like when Jackson struggled to collect an alley-oop pass from Calcaterra on a three-on-one fast break, Donovan Clingan was there to put it in. Calcaterra was feeling his jump shot in the second half and made his second 3-pointer to put the Huskies up 26.
Later, after Clingan slammed in an alley-oop pass from Jackson, Hawkins showed off a pretty stepback move in the corner and fired a 3-pointer, as it fell through the sophomore shuffled down the sideline flexing the ‘UCONN’ on the front of his jersey for the crowd.
With that, UConn’s lead was up to 31 points and Gonzaga made just three of its first 21 field goals in the second half.
The UConn men’s program is now 6-7 in the Elite Eight round and 4-1 in Final Four games all-time.
