There will be no three-peat for Dan Hurley and UConn.
The No. 8 Huskies pushed 1 Florida to the brink before falling, 77-75, in a second-round NCAA Tournament matchup in Raleigh, N.C.
The loss snapped UConn’s 13-game winning streak in the Big Dance after winning back-to-back NCAA championships in 2023 and ‘24. They were bidding to become the first team to three-peat since John Wooden’s UCLA teams of the 1970s.
All five Big East teams are now out of the Big Dance.
Florida (32-4) is going to the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2017. They will play No. 12 Colorado State or No. 4 Maryland in San Francisco.
“We just stayed the course,” Florida coach Todd Golden said on CBS. “Obviously, it didn’t go our way for a large portion of that game after a good start.
“Our team’s tough, we have great senior leadership. We just wanted to continue to be ourselves and do it a little bit better, and the last six minutes of the game we did that very well.”
The game was a battle of the last two two-time defending champions. Florida won titles in 2006-7 under coach Billy Donovan, now the Chicago Bulls coach.
The Gators came into the game among the favorites — along with Duke and Auburn — to cut down the nets in San Antonio. They are now 14-1 since Feb. 1 .
The Gators won the SEC Tournament championship by scoring 285 combined points in wins over Missouri, Auburn and Tennessee.
The Gators looked out of sorts in the first half and the game was tied at 31 at the break.
UConn was able to control the tempo in the second half and led 61-58.
Solo Ball hit a game-tying 3-pointer to knot it at 64 with about two minutes remaining.
Iona transfer Walter Clayton Jr. hit a 3-pointer to put Florida ahead 70-64 with 1:03 remaining.
Overall, Florida went on a 14-5 run to go ahead 72-66.
McNeeley hit two foul shots to cut it to 75-72 with 6.6 seconds left, but Thomas Haugh hit two to push it to 77-72.
“[Going to the Sweet 16] sounds great, man,” said Clayton, who scored 23 points. “We had a plan, we know Gator basketball got a great history, we trying to bring it back a little bit, so it’s great [that] we’re getting to this point.”
UConn will lose several players to graduation, the transfer portal and likely to the NBA Draft, including Liam McNeeley, the Big East Freshman of the Year and a projected lottery pick.
UConn also brings in a four-man class ranked No. 3 nationally.
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter and Basketball Insider for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.
