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The Breakfast Buffet: March Madness Edition

Here’s today’s installment of “The Breakfast Buffet”, a daily column that can be found here every single morning getting you caught up to date on everything that’s happened from the day/night before and everything that’s going to happen in the next 24 hours.

Mangia!

Things To Sample

UConn/Purdue has a chance to be a game to remember
The two best teams over the past two seasons in college basketball will be playing on Monday night for a national title. Just like in 2021 when Baylor played Gonzaga in the final game of the season, UConn and Purdue will give the college basketball community the championship game that it’s been salivating for all season. And the matchup between Zach Edey and Donovan Clingan in the middle? A throwback head-to-head showdown at the center position that feels comparable to the NBA in the mid 1990s. A special 40 minutes awaits on Monday night in Phoenix.

UConn is impossible to defend
How can you take away the head of a snake if the snake has five or six heads? The Huskies need to win one more game before we can start the debate of where they’ll rank in terms of the most dominant teams to ever win the NCAA Tournament, but one thing is already for certain: It’s been a long time since we’ve had a time that was this dominant while also being so balanced. All five of UConn’s starters — Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer, Stephon Castle, Alex Karaban, and Donovan Clingan — scored between 12 and 21 points in Saturday night’s 86-72 win over Alabama in the Final Four. Samson Johnson also added seven points off the bench. One of the biggest reasons why this team is 36-3? It’s impossible to defend because every single player in its rotation is capable of being a double-figure scorer.

Lance Jones continues to be a difference maker for Purdue
This is why Matt Painter went and got this guy out of the transfer portal last spring. Just like he has all season, the 6-1 Jones single handedly took the Boilers to a different level on Saturday in the Final Four against NC State. A grad transfer from Southern Illinois, Jones played with tremendous energy from the opening tip against the Wolfpack and finished with 14 points and four rebounds in the 63-50 victory. It was unequivocally Jones’ best all-around game of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Purdue is now 15-0 this season in games where Jones scores 14 or more points. There’s absolutely no way that the Boilers would be playing for the national title on Monday night without him.

On The Side

  • UConn is one win away from its sixth national title in program history, which would tie North Carolina. Only Kentucky (eight) and UCLA (11) have more.
  • Alabama shot 11-23 from three-point range against UConn and still lost by 14.
  • Four of Alabama’s top six scorers — Mark Sears, Grant Nelson, Latrell Wrightsell, and Nick Pringle — are COVID seniors who have an additional year of eligibility. If some or all of these players return, the Crimson Tide will have a legitimate chance to go to the Final Four in back-to-back seasons.
  • Braden Smith’s assist-to-turnover ratio in Purdue’s first three NCAA Tournament games was 31:5. The last two games? Only 13:8.
  • NC State averaged 75.5 points in its first four NCAA Tournament games. It only scored 50 against Purdue.

Leftovers