The madness has officially begun! Now that all of the brackets have been finalized and Final Four picks have been shared, let’s take a deeper dive into UConn basketball’s matchup for the opening round.
The UConn Huskies take on the Stetson Hatters at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY this Friday at 2:45 pm EST. The 26.5 point spread in favor of Connecticut is the largest point spread of the Round of 64. Since 1985, 1 seeds have a 150-2 record against 16 seeds with both of those loses coming in the last 6 tournaments.
First Round Focused.#MadeForMarch | #MixForSix pic.twitter.com/0ncsjgSQ1N
— UConn Men’s Basketball (@UConnMBB) March 18, 2024
Stetson Hatters
Stetson University is located in DeLand, Florida, and has approximately 3,000 undergraduate students. They are called the “Hatters” to honor John B. Stetson (the school’s namesake) who ran a hat company out of Philadelphia and donated money to save the university when bad weather in 1886 impacted the town’s agricultural industry which funded the university. The Hatters compete in the Atlantic Sun Conference and ran the table to win the conference tournament in order to earn their place in the Round of 64.
Stetson is led by head coach Donnie Jones who was previously a head coach at Marshall and UCF. Jones was also an assistant on the Florida Gators staff which won back-to-back national titles, something that Connecticut is trying to achieve this season.
Stetson is led by their star guard, Jalen Blackmon, who averages 21.5 points per game. A prolific scorer, Blackmon dropped 43 points on an efficient 54.5% shooting performance in the ASun Tournament Final to lift Stetson over Austin Peay.
The Hatters have three other players with double-digit scoring averages on the season with one being their athletic 6-11 center Aubin Gateretse. Over the course of the season, Stetson played Power 6 opponents Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati, but none of those games draw any comparison for the matchup with Donovan Clingan that Gateretse is preparing for.
This is the first time in program history that Stetson has made it into the big dance and boy did they get a tough draw. The Hatters will surely have their hands full with the nation’s top-ranked team on Friday and if they want any chance at pulling off a miracle upset it will likely come from an incredible scoring performance from Jalen Blackmon.
UConn Huskies
Founded in 1881 as an agricultural school, UConn has gone from cutting grass to cutting down nets as the defending champions did so for the fifth time in school history in 2023. After losing key championship roster pieces like Adama Sanogo, Jordan Hawkins, and Andre Jackson Jr., many thought the Huskies would have a hard time filling those shoes. In their second season in Storrs, Tristen Newton, Alex Karaban, and Donovan Clingan provided a healthy foundation for the Huskies to start the season as all three showed immediate improvements. To fill out UConn basketball’s starting lineup are 5-star recruit Stephon Castle and graduate transfer Cam Spencer.
Not only did Head Coach Dan Hurley recruit newcomers, but he also had to re-recruit forward Samson Johnson who was actively being sought after by other programs. The cherry on top is Big East 6th Man of the Year Hassan Diarra who has been a sparkplug off the bench for the Huskies all season.
UConn basketball has had an all-time regular season full of plenty of impressive accolades. They set the record for most regular season conference wins in Big East History, most regular season wins in program history, and were unanimously ranked atop the AP Poll for the first time in program history to name a few. The Huskies are the number one overall seed in March Madness and they still play like they have a chip on their shoulder.
Dan Hurley has outdone himself this season between recruiting, game plan strategy, and continuously motivating a team which raises their own bar every week as they continue to achieve beyond even their own expectations.