March Madness: The 5 best moments from UConn's national championship win over Purdue

Dan Hurley and UConn rolled to yet another dominant NCAA tournament win on Monday night.

The Huskies flew ahead in the second half to grab a 75-60 win over Zach Edey and Purdue in the national championship game at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. That officially gave UConn its sixth national title since 1999, and made it the first program to successfully defend a championship since Florida did so 17 years ago.

While things got a bit out of hand down the stretch, here are the five best moments from the 2024 national championship game.

Zach Edey throws down on Donovan Clingan early

At least in the first half, Edey won the battle of the bigs.

Edey had 16 points in the first 20 minutes on Monday night, and there wasn’t much Donovan Clingan — who somehow had only allowed five successful post-up shots on him all season long — could do to stop him.

The perfect example of Edey’s dominance inside in the first 20 minutes was a huge alley-oop dunk he threw down over Clingan early on.

Zach Edey’s back-to-back blocks

Edey nearly single-handedly kept the Boilermakers in it early on. There was a stretch where he scored 11 straight points for Purdue.

After his dunk over Clingan, Edey followed it up with a pair of wild blocks in the same possession on the other end.

Despite his first half, though, the Huskies still took a 36-30 lead into the break. It was the first time Purdue had trailed at the half the entire tournament.

The Tristen Newton-to-Samson Johnson connection

UConn opened the second half on an 11-5 burst, and the Huskies shut down Zach Edey from scoring for more than 10 minutes overlapping the halftime break.

Pretty quickly, thanks to a great connection from Tristen Newton to Samson Johnson, UConn took over for good. Newton hit Johnson for a pair of lobs on back-to-back possessions. Edey could only watch.

Newton, who was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player, then followed up those assists with a truly wild layup that had no business going in. It looked like he was going to lose the ball several times on his way to the rim, yet he somehow got it to go.

From there, UConn had no issue cruising to the win.

Camden Heide’s dunk of the tournament

While it didn’t change the game much, Camden Heide threw down what should easily be the best dunk of not just the Final Four, but the entire tournament.

Just a few minutes into the second half, Edey missed a hook shot in the post. Heide, who was left wide open on the wing, timed it perfectly. He came flying in and threw down a one-handed putback dunk that stunned just about everyone watching.

That bucket was Heide’s only shot of the night.

Dan Hurley’s near ejection late

This play ended up not meaning much either, but it was so close to causing what would have been among the funniest — and most poorly timed — ejections in college basketball history.

Hurley, with less than three minutes left in the game, seemed to forget where he was and picked up a warning from the official. The problem was that Hurley, while the game was being played, walked out onto the court and lightly pushed UConn guard Cam Spencer.

Not the best move.

But hey, it all worked out for him. Hurley has built a true dynasty in Storrs over the last several years and joined an elite group of college coaches in the sport’s history.