Who will win the NCAA men’s crown following epic semifinal comebacks?

• The men’s NCAA basketball championship will be a battle of contrasting styles. The Florida Gators and Houston Cougars will meet in San Antonio on Monday.
• The Cougars lead the nation in defense, holding opponents to under 59 points per game, while Florida is the third-best offense in the country, averaging 85.3 points per game.
• On Sunday, the UConn women beat South Carolina 82-59 to claim their record 12th national championship.

---

Full Story

Both the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball championships have been nothing short of showcases for the best teams in the country. No “Cinderellas,” no massive upsets, no debates –– just the best teams deciding on the court who enters the history books.

Who won the women’s national championship?

The UConn Huskies certainly did just that on Sunday, April 6. After a nine-year drought, Geno Auriemma’s gang made a statement, winning a record 12th national title with an 82-59 blowout over South Carolina. Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong finished with 24 points each, and Paige Bueckers, who carried the team throughout the tournament, had 17 to cap her five-year career in style.

“Overwhelming sense of gratitude for everything that’s happened through the ups and downs, I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” Bueckers said. “To be able to be shaped to be the person that I am today and the team that we are today. And obviously, you feel like on the other side of a hard time is a really big blessing, and we stuck to it. We kept the faith, and to be rewarded with something like this, I can’t even put it into words.”

Who will battle in the men’s championship?

Florida and Houston hope to have that same gratitude Monday, April 7, when they meet in San Antonio for the men’s national championship. The Gators trailed Auburn by nine points in the second half of their semifinal on Saturday, April 5. They stormed back to knock off their SEC rival Tigers, who were the No. 1 overall seed. Walter Clayton, Jr. once again carried the day for Florida, scoring 34 points.

While that comeback was nice, the Houston Cougars had one for the ages against Duke. Down 14 with under 8 minutes to play, they finished with an 11-1 run to beat the Blue Devils 70-67.

Houston held Cooper Flagg, the AP Player of the Year, and his Duke teammates to a grand total of one field goal over the last 10.5 minutes. It’s that stifling defense that keeps Florida head coach Todd Golden awake at night.

“Their defense worries me a lot, absolutely,” Golden said. “You know, look at a guy like [Joseph] Tugler, you know, [J’wan] Roberts, they have incredible length and athleticism and physicality inside the paint. They just –– they wear you down, they make it really, really hard on you. So, I mean, it definitely concerns me. I think we’re going to have to have a couple different ideas and a couple different, you know, pitches, for a lack of a better term, to throw at them late in the game.”

Why is Houston so tough to deal with?

Houston knows exactly who they are, and they will not change, which is why they’ve been so successful. Other teams have to adapt, or, like Duke, they go home.

“I feel like we have to find different ways to impact winning and find ways to get second shots when the first shots ain’t falling,” Houston’s J’wan Roberts said. “So, I feel like when you get offensive rebounds, second chance points, points off turnovers, I feel like that can get you back in the flow of the game if you’re having a bad shooting night. So, when we approach certain games, I mean, we know we’re not a first-shot team, so I think that’s why we crash the boards so hard trying to get second and third shots.”

It’s the classic matchup –– offense versus defense. Many sports betting sites have Florida as a 1-point favorite. Television ratings for the Final Four on Saturday, April 5, were the highest in eight years. The tip-off Monday, April 7, is at 8:50 p.m. EST.