San Diego State’s Long Drought Meets its Match in Title Game Against UConn

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The San Diego State Aztecs were on a magical journey to their first Final Four ever, with a thrilling buzzer-beater by Lamont Butler moving them closer to the national title. The Aztecs started off hot and raced to an early lead against the UConn Huskies during the championship game, but then things began to go wrong – they couldn’t make any shots for 11 minutes straight! “It’s really hard when that happens,” said Butler after the 76-59 loss.

The Aztecs (32-7) were having a tough time against the opposing team’s defense. They took 14 shots but all of them failed – hook shots, layups, 3 pointers and jumpers, none of them went in! Butler said they talked about it and tried to figure out what they can do to win again, but nothing was working.

Darrion Trammell finally made a jump shot with around 5 and a half minutes left in the half. This meant that the Aztecs, who usually relied on their fantastic defense, had now fallen behind by 26-17. It seemed like their offense just stopped working when they needed it most.

“Matt Bradley said, ‘we had to do a lot of things right in order for us to win the national championship. But when we weren’t making shots and were turning over the ball and even when we tried really hard on defense, it still wasn’t enough. We definitely learned that lesson tonight.'”

The Aztecs played really well and came from behind to beat Florida Atlantic in the national semifinals. It was the first time in Final Four history that a team had won by making a buzzer-beater!

In this game, it wasn’t quite so dramatic, but they did put up an impressive fight. Jaedon LeDee scored four points early on, kickstarting a 14-4 run which almost gave them the win – getting them within five points of their opponents with around five minutes left in the game!

Jordan Hawkins then made a 3-pointer, starting off a 9-0 run that made it impossible for the Aztecs to come back.

Their defense had been great during this “fairytale” tournament until now, but their offense was also performing equally as well.

Going into the biggest game of their school’s history, the Aztecs had been shooting an average of 42.48%, but Monday night, they had a tournament-low shooting percentage of 32% in the first half! This was their second-worst performance in terms of shooting all season, behind only the 31.7% they shot while winning against Utah State in their conference tournament title. They also scored 24 points in the first half which was the second-fewest number of points this season.

When the players from San Diego State University walked into their locker room after their ninth game in a row, they weren’t sad but rather proud. Trammell said that nobody believed in them when they started out and that going so far was more than anyone had expected. Keshad Johnson, who scored 14 points during the game, said he was happy because they were able to put their school’s name on the map.

If you’re looking to follow along the March Madness basketball tournament, check out this website: https://bigbignews.net/march-madness. There are also links to the NCAA tournament bracket (https://bigbignews.net/ncaa-mens-bracket), AP Top 25 College Basketball Poll (https://bigbignews.net//ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll), and a Twitter page for updates (@AP_Top25).