UConn Beats Butler 53-41 for NCAA Championship - 04-05-11

April 5 - On Monday night in Houston, Texas, Reliant Stadium was packed to the rafters with college basketball fans lucky enough to get tickets for the NCAA Championship Game between favorites UConn and Butler, the former who chalked up a 53-41 win.

Monday's final was one of the most highly anticipated in the NCAA in recent years, not least because the Husky's controversial coach Jim Calhoun was seeking his third NCAA championship, and the Bulldogs had managed to claw their way into the finals from relative obscurity.

And as college basketball fans tuned in from across the United States to watch these two deserving teams do battle, half no doubt rooting for the dominant UConn and the other half for the lovable Butler, none could have foreseen how 'ugly' the result would actually turn out to be.

For instance, Butler surprised their fans, and no doubt even themselves, when with the country's eyes on them they shot the lowest field-goal percentage in the history of the NCAA of just 18.8 percent. From the whistle it soon became apparent that the Bulldogs were outgunned in terms of the Huskies size in the interior, as they only managed to score two points in the paint in the whole game.

They only scored their first two-pointer halfway through the first half, and then only two more, ending on 12 of 64 overall, with a lowly 3 of 31 from the two-point range, and only 19 second-half points. The Huskies, meanwhile, did just enough to build a 14-point lead in the second half, which was enough to hold on for the 53-41 win.

If fans were expecting a display of basket balling prowess in the vain of a Disney movie where the underdogs stick it to the stronger, more arrogant team, they were sorely disappointed as the game delivered pretty much what it said on the handicappers' pack, where the more aggressive Huskies proceeded to dominate, control and defeat the weaker Bulldogs.

The victory for Connecticut meant that coach Calhoun is now only the fifth coach in history to win three NCAA championships, joining the ranks of John Wooden, Adolph Rupp, Mike Krzyzewski and Bob Knight. In addition, at the tender age of 68, he is the oldest coach ever to win a NCAA championship.

When asked what he would do now that the NCAA Championship was in the bag, Calhoun said, 'I'll do the same thing I always do - go home, relax, get together with these guys and just enjoy the moment. The championship is incredibly wonderful to bring back to Connecticut and our fans, but to give it to these kids, the work they put in, it's maybe, professionally, the happiest moment of my life.'