College Hoops Today

Serving College Basketball 365 Days a Year

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 was the most dominant team in recent memory
I’m not saying that the Huskies are the best team of the modern era, but they certainly played like the best team of the modern era during the 2024 NCAA Tournament. UConn won six games during March Madness by an average of 23.3 points; it won six games by an average of 20 points a year ago during the 2023 NCAA Tournament. The Huskies’ average margin of victory over the past three weeks was more than other teams — North Carolina (2009), Villanova (2018), Florida (2006 and 2007), and Baylor (2021) — that won the national title in convincing fashion over the past twenty years.

The Hurley family legacy has reached a new level
Dan Hurley joined Billy Donovan, Mike Krzyewski, and John Wooden as the only head coaches to win back-to-back national titles since 1965. His brother Bobby — who’s currently Arizona State’s head coach — won back-to-back national titles as a player at Duke in 1991 and 1992. Meanwhile their father — Bob Hurley Sr. — won 26 state titles as the head coach of St. Anthony in Jersey City. This family is basketball royalty on steroids.

A salute to Zach Edey
Purdue’s star big man, who finished with 37 points and 10 rebounds in Monday night’s loss against UConn was the first player to win National Player of the Year honors in back-to-back seasons since Ralph Sampson did it at Virginia in the early 1980s. The 7-4 Edey averaged a whopping 29.5 points and 14.5 rebounds in the 2024 NCAA Tournament as he concluded a memorable college career. Bravo young man and all the best in future endeavors.

On The Side.

  • UConn is 33-1 in non-conference games over the past two seasons. The one loss? A four-point defeat at Kansas earlier this year without Stephon Castle.
  • The big difference between UConn’s back-to-back national title run and Florida’s in 2006 and 2007? The Gators returned five starters in the second year of their run while the Huskies only returned two.
  • Purdue averaged 8.4 made three-point shots in its first five NCAA Tournament games. It made one on Monday night against UConn.
  • A year ago, Tristen Newton had 31 assists to 17 turnovers in the NCAA Tournament. One year later, he’s the Final Four’s Most Outstanding Player with an assist-to-turnover ratio of 43:9 in six games during March Madness.
  • UConn and Purdue played a combined 14 players double figure minutes on Monday night in the national title game — only four were transfers.

Leftovers