UCONN HUSKIES … BEST IN SHOW!!! UCONN Huskies Win Mens College Backetball Championship 60-54 over the Kentucky Wildcats

UCONN HUSKIES … BEST IN SHOW!!!

#7 seed University of Connecticut Huskies defeat the #8 seed Kentucky Wildcats, 60-54 …

UCONN guard Shabazz Napier was the best player on the court tonight as he lead the Huskies to a 60-54 victory over Kentucky and its five starting freshmen before 79,238 at AT&T Stadium in North Texas. The UCONN backcourt of Napier and Ryan Boatright were in control the whole way as the Huskies never trailed. Napier had 22 points and six rebounds. Boatright had 14 points and three assists. In the end, the more mature, fundamentally sound UCONN Huskies defeated the Kentucky Wildcat “one and doners”. Not to mention free throw shooting killed Kentucky. It was the 4th Men’s basketball championship, adding to their school titles in 1999, 2004 and 2011. Shabazz Napier was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.

Shabazz Napier turned in another all-court masterpiece Monday night to lift the Huskies to a 60-54 win over Kentucky’s freshmen and a national title hardly anyone saw coming.

Napier had 22 points, six rebounds and three assists, and his partner in defensive lock-down, Ryan Boatright, finished with 14 points.

UConn (32-8) never trailed. The Huskies led by as many as 15 in the first half and watched the Wildcats (29-11) trim the deficit to one with 8:13 left. But Aaron Harrison, Kentucky’s big-moment shooter in the last three games, missed a 3-pointer from the left corner that would’ve given the `Cats the lead. Kentucky never got closer.

One key difference in a six-point loss: Kentucky’s 11 missed free throws — a flashback of sorts for coach John Calipari, whose Memphis team blew a late lead against Kansas after missing multiple free throws in the 2008 final. The Wildcats went 13 for 24. UConn went 10 for 10, and when Lasan Kromah made his last two with 25.1 seconds left for a six-point margin, the celebration was on.

In all, Calipari’s One and Doners got outdone by a more fundamentally sound, more-seasoned group that came into this tournament a seventh-seeded afterthought but walked away with the program’s fourth national title since 1999. They were the highest seed to win it all since Rollie Massimino’s eighth-seeded Villanova squad in 1985.