The NCAA Tournament is difficult. For any team looking to win a national title, the prospect of winning six consecutive games over three weekends in a do-or-die environment seems beyond stress-inducing. And yet, judging by final score lines alone, you probably wouldn't be able to tell that UConn has had any trouble being on the verge of two consecutive titles.

In fact, over the 11 tournament games the Huskies have played since the start of the 2023 edition, UConn has won double-digit victories every time it ha touched the court. Again, that's no small feat — yes, that includes romps in opening round games against No. 16 Stetson this year (91-52) and No. 13 Iona last year (87-63) — but it has also included battle-tested Final Four opponents on the game's biggest stage.

Last season, UConn capped its impressive postseason run with a 17-point victory over San Diego State. Purdue will look to end UConn's undefeated and blowout victory streak tonight.

The first half spread has UConn (-225) favored by 3.5 points over Purdue (+190), with the first half total set at 68.5 points.

Here’s a look at the odds for a variety of players to score the first basket tonight:

Zach Edey                       +290

Donovan Clingan           +380

Stephon Castle               +700

Cam Spencer                  +725

Alex Karaban                  +800

Trey Kaufman-Renn      +950

Tristen Newton              +1050

Fletcher Loyer                +1100

Perhaps it’s appropriate that Purdue and UConn meet in tonight’s NCAA final, as one of the most exciting things about this tournament has been watching both teams put away games with ease.

Admittedly, Purdue has had a bit of a tougher time doing that, but both teams have seemingly been on a collision course for most of the tournament.

UConn has bested teams by an average of 25 points in its five games, while Purdue has won games by an average of nearly 20 per game.

Even the two teams' closest matchups during this tournament haven't been true nail-biters. Purdue's closest win was in the Elite Eight over Tennessee by six, and UConn's closest night came at the hands of Alabama in the Final Four, a 14-point victory.

Thirty minutes from tip, and the defending champion UConn Huskies are favored by 6.5 points over the Purdue Boilermakers, with the game total set at 143.5.

Earlier today, the Huskies were 7.5-point favorites, with the game total sitting at 145.5.

Purdue’s team name, the Boilermakers, began as one of the insults leveled by newspapers after Purdue’s success at football in the 1890s.

After Purdue thrashed Wabash College 44-0 in 1891, the Daily Argus-News of Crawfordsville, Indiana, ran the headline “Wabash Snowed Completely Under by the Burly Boiler Makers From Purdue.”

A newspaper reporter in Lafayette, closer to where Perdue is, responded that it was making excuses for the drubbing by claiming it could only be because of brute force, according to Purdue’s team website.

People who attended Purdue were seen as more working-class than those attending liberal arts colleges at the time, the university says.

Purdue had a working railroad engine in its locomotive laboratory. A boiler maker — like it sounds — works in the construction of boilers in heating and steam power, although the boilermakers union represents other trades, as well, some of which now have nothing to do with boilers.

It is never too early to start thinking about the 2025 NCAA Tournament champion. Jay Croucher and Drew Dinsick are talking college basketball, the Masters, the NFL draft and the NBA and NHL playoffs.

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Tonight’s 9:20 p.m. ET tip is nothing new. In fact, the game has started around 9:20 p.m. on Monday evening for decades. So why keep folks up so late, especially East Coasters? 

The easy answer: TV ratings. A tipoff that happens post-rush hour for the whole county maximizes the potential TV audience.

And yet, look to yesterday’s women’s title game, which tipped about 3 p.m. ET, to find a reason to trust the audience to find what it wants. That game was watched by 18.7 million people, more than any other basketball game (men’s or women’s, pro or college, playoff or regular season) to air on ESPN since 2019. 

Among the many other potential reasons for the late tip is the game’s location. The game is at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, where things get underway at 6:20 p.m. local time. Getting people anywhere before 6 p.m. on a weekday is a challenge, to say nothing of a 63,400 people, the capacity of the stadium. 

Transgender athletes should be allowed to compete in women’s sports, South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley said ahead of her team’s NCAA Tournament championship game.

Staley made the comments during a news conference Saturday when asked by OutKick reporter Dan Zaksheske whether she believes “biological males” should be “included” in women’s sports.

“I’m on the opinion of if you’re a woman you should play,” Staley said. “If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports, or vice versa, you should be able to play.”

Read the full story here.

Sixty-six NCAA Tournament games, including the First Four and Saturday’s Final Four, have led to tonight’s final showdown between Purdue and UConn. You do 66 of anything and you’re bound to make a few memories — and this year’s March Madness is no exception. 

Here are some of the most memorable moments from three full weekends of NCAA action:

Typically, March has been a home for the inexperienced-unknown-leads-mid-major-to-upset-victory storylines we all know and love. This year’s tournament had a version of it, save for one detail — the inexperienced part. A graduate student six years into his college basketball playing career, Oakland guard Jack Gohlke hit 10 3s to lead his Grizzlies in an upset of Kentucky in the opening round.

A No. 1 seed is never guaranteed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen, and even in the last few years we’ve seen No. 1 seeds not escape their opening round matchups (cough, cough Purdue last year). But second-round meetings with the winners of 8-9 matchups two days before can sometimes feel like trap games. That was certainly the case for Houston-Texas A&M, in which A&M used a 17-5 rally over the span of just two minutes to force overtime. The favorite, Houston, eventually prevailed, but we got a tense battle along the way. 

An 11 seed making its way to the Final Four isn’t unheard of, but N.C. State’s journey to the final weekend of the tournament was particularly noteworthy because of the deep hole the Wolfpack had to climb out of to make it there. N.C. State, the 10th seed in its own conference tournament, pulled off five consecutive wins in the ACC Tournament followed by four consecutive wins in the NCAA Tournament behind dazzling efforts from senior forward DJ Burns.