SAN ANTONIO, Texas – Rashad Anderson sank the 19-foot jump shot with jarring precision.
He beat the buzzer to conclude the first half and ran to Connecticut teammate Emeka Okafor, who slapped Anderson’s hand amid thunderous applause.
There were still 20 minutes of basketball remaining, but the scene summed up the first half – and the rest of the game – Monday night in the NCAA championship game between Connecticut and Georgia Tech at the Alamodome.
Anderson’s basket gave Connecticut a 15-point lead at intermission and the Huskies were well on their way to their second NCAA title in six seasons. They humbled Georgia Tech with an 82-73 victory before 44,468 fans.
When Connecticut’s women’s team beat Tennessee, 70-61, in their NCAA final Tuesday night in New Orleans, the university had the first sweep of the championships.
A day earlier, Okafor had talked about his hopes of cutting down the nets after the final.
“Most coaches would shudder,” Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said of Okafor’s comment. “Why? Why would you shudder when he dreams the greatest dream?”
Okafor was, after all, the integral element to his team’s success, an anchor physically and emotionally who missed only three games despite a stress fracture that caused back spasms.
He had 10 points and seven rebounds by halftime and finished with 24 points and 15 rebounds and was named the Final Four’s most outstanding player.
“We wanted it all, and we took it,” Okafor said.
Teammate Ben Gordon led the Huskies (33-6) in the first half with 14 points, including nine on three-pointers. By game’s end, Gordon had 21 points.
Their performances were a fitting finale to their exceptional seasons.
Okafor, the Big East player of the year, won All-American honors, and Gordon was named the Big East tournament’s and the Phoenix regional’s most outstanding player.-
Combined, they went 7 -of 15 in the first half while their teammates were 6- of -17.
Georgia Tech, meanwhile, made just 10 of 34 shots in the first half, and the Yellow Jackets (28-10) were almost as bad from the free-throw line (4 of 11).
With a little more than 12 minutes left, Georgia Tech, which was led by Will Bynum’s 17 points, trailed by 25, a stunning deficit for a team that had beaten Oklahoma State in the national semifinal.
Georgia Tech’s season had been full of surprises. The punishment UConn inflicted through most of the game bordered on cruel, considering the stakes.
In the preseason Georgia Tech had little reason to believe it could advance to the title game. The Yellow Jackets began the season unranked and were picked to finish seventh in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
But all sorts of signs began popping up, telltale indications that a Final Four run was in the making.
Georgia Tech won 12 straight games to open the season, including a 16-point win over No. 1 Connecticut in the semifinals of the Preseason NIT.
Although Okafor was bothered by back spasms and Charlie Villanueva had not yet been declared eligible, Georgia Tech’s thorough beating of the Huskies turned heads.
Georgia Tech had played without Bynum, a Crane grad who transferred from Arizona and became eligible in December, and reserve Theodis Tarver.
The Yellow Jackets tied for third with Wake Forest in the ACC, behind Duke and North Carolina State, but they managed to beat Duke in Durham, won at Wake Forest and also defeated North Carolina.
“Our game at Duke, once we won that game, our goal kind of changed,” Bynum said before Monday’s game.
“We saw we could win the whole thing. Other than that, our goal had been to make the tournament.”
On this night, a runner-up finish would have to do.(c) 2004, Chicago Tribune.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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