BOSTON — The closer one gets to a promised land, the harder the final step can be to take; the harder that last threshold can be to cross.
Maybe it hasn’t seemed that way for UConn men’s basketball the last couple of years; the Huskies have made it look easy. But now that they are back at the doorstep of the Final Four, there will be tension in the East Regional final against Illinois Saturday at TD Garden. There has to be.
UConn’s original Dream Season ended in the Elite Eight in 1990. Two days after hitting his miracle shot in the Round of 16, Tate George had a game-sealing steal in his hands against Duke — “I thought he was going to dribble all the way to Denver,” Jim Calhoun said that night, referring to the Final Four site. But the ball and the dream slipped away.
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That regional final was the program’s roadblock in the 1990s. UConn got back in ’95, but lost to UCLA. Finally in 1999, UConn made the breakthrough with a tense win over Gonzaga, a No. 10 seed that March, and went on to win it all.
“At one point we had a nine- or 10-point lead, and it looked like we were going to pull away,” Calhoun recalled many years later, “and then we started to realize what would happen if we did pull away. We would go to the Final Four. We let up a bit.”
There may be no metrics to support it. The NCAA Tournament is a six-game minefield, the stake for every game is win, or go home. For some, the Round of 64 can form physical or mental obstacle.
But doesn’t it just feel like the Elite Eight is the hardest, most pressure-packed game? Final Four or forgotten, those are the stakes, real or perceived.
“It’s the hardest game in the tournament to not win,” Kansas coach Bill Self told reporters during the 2022 Tournament. “You can talk about first round, you can talk about whatever, it’s the hardest game. The national championship finals, at least you’re playing for it all. But this one, every goal of every team is road to the Final Four. It’s not road to the national championship. It’s road to the Final Four.”
Kansas had been stopped in the regional final several times before Self offered his theory. The UConn women reached the Final Four 14 years in a row, ending in 2023, but Geno Auriemma, who first offered the idea that this was the toughest round in 2003, never lost his healthy respect for the challenge of the Round of Eight.
“I’ve always said it’s the most challenging game of the year, even more so than the weekend’s games,” Auriemma said in 2022, before UConn’s grueling OT win over NC State to keep the streak alive.
Why would the Regional Final feel differently? It’s the hump game. Programs, coaches are most often measured by how many Final Fours they’ve reached. That’s what is remembered, and what makes resumes. Winning it all, as the UConn men have done five of the six times they’ve reached the Final Four, is the ultimate goal, but it’s hard to find fault, even in today’s unforgiving social media environment, with a team that gets to the last weekend.
Like the World Series or Super Bowl, just getting there may not satisfy all, but the dividing line between validation and vilification tends to be reaching the Final Four.
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“I could see where some people think there’s a sense of relief to get to a Final Four,” said Illinois coach Brad Underwood, who reached this point as an assistant coach with Kansas State and lost to Butler in 2010. “It’s still an unbelievable opportunity to do something great, and we’re one of eight that are still standing with an opportunity to go to Arizona.”
Maybe it’s worth mentioning that Butler didn’t win the championship in 2010 or ’11, but two trips across the threshold built coach Brad Stevens’ reputation, and he went on to coach the Celtics. He’s now the team president.
A year ago, the UConn men steamrolled through March Madness, winning every game by double digits. That included the regional final against Gonzaga in Las Vegas, two days after the ‘Zags beat UCLA in a draining Sweet 16 game. UConn won, 82-54.
“We were super energetic to know how hard it is to make it to the Elite Eight and the energy surrounding the Elite Eight,” Alex Karaban said. “We were super excited. Making it back to Elite Eight is special. It’s hard to do two
times in a row. I think every round is hard in March Madness, the first and second round. All of them are hard and all of them equal the same value … you win and move on.”
Coach Dan Hurley, who seems to be picking up new superstitions like seashells by the Jersey seashore, says he felt the most nerves in 2023 before the first-round game against Iona, a midmajor coached by Hall of Famer Rick Pitino. The Huskies, who’d lost first-round games the previous two years, trailed at halftime, but once they broke the game open they had the wind at their backs.
“First-round games are rough,” Hurley said. “I remember last year, pretty nerve wracking going into this one with everything that’s on the table. Then going into the national championship game, not wanting to lose in the national
championship game. I think for us, it feels different.
“We broke through last year. We’ve established a level. Maybe
we feel a little less pressure as an organization because we feel like we’ve established a level now of where our program’s at, that we’re going to be in this spot moving forward. I don’t think we feel the same anxiety. We have tremendous respect for our opponent, know how hard (Saturday) is going to be. But we’ve established a level that we expect to be back to.”
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The Huskies have again steamrolled through the tournament, beating Stetson by 39, Northwestern by 18 and San Diego State by 30. The Illini, a No. 3 seed, won a close one against Iowa State Thursday and would seem to have little to lose.
“I feel like there’s, like, no pressure on us,” Illinois’ Coleman Hawkins said. “I feel like it’s another game.”
It may not feel that way for long, for either team, once the idea of reaching college basketball’s highest plateau, one of the grandest stages in all of sports — or the idea of falling one game short of it — starts to become real.
“Last year, it was a blur,” UConn’s Donovan Clingan said. “Going into that Gonzaga game, we knew how hard we’d have to play, but we were so hungry, and even this year’s team. We really want to succeed at high level. Just don’t let the nerves and the moment get to you and just realize, you’ve just got to go out there and win.”
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