UConn Basketball: Dan Hurley in Joking Mood After Huskies Dominate San Diego State

The University of Connecticut Huskies continued their charmed title defense on Thursday night, with a blistering 82-52 blowout of their 2023 NCAA Tournament championship game opponents, the San Diego State Aztecs.

The Huskies even briefly trailed SDSU on Thursday. The Aztecs put up the first score of the game to lead 2-0. Their advantage was short-lived, however. Connecticut quickly built up an 11-point edge, 27-16.

A shaky scoring semi-drought in the opening half across seven minutes allowed SDSU back into the game at one point in the opening half, but Connecticut managed to pull away again late, eventually leading 40-31 at the break. The Huskies subsequently doubled San Diego State's output in the second half, 42-21, to finish with a 30-point victory, 82-52.

Star guard Stephon Castle, a projected mid-first-round pick, scored 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting from the floor and 6-of-8 shooting from the foul line, grabbed 11 rebounds, and dished out two dimes. Most critically, he helped the Huskies cultivate a 16-point edge a smidge over seven minutes into the second half by scoring six straight points. Castle also had the single-coolest SportsCenter Top 10 highlight of the night, off a Cam Spencer dish:

Wings Tristen Newton and Spencer combined for 35 points on 12-of-26 shooting from the field (5-of-12 shooting from deep) and 6-of-7 shooting from the charity stripe.

Per Joe Arruda of The Hartford Courant, the game continued a promising recent trend for the reigning NCAA champs. The Huskies' last nine straight March Madness wins have been by an eye-popping 22.8-point average margin.

"We suck at winning close games, so we've got to go with the alternative," head coach Dan Hurley joked. "The group, we've got a killer instinct. We play every possession with great desperation, we've got NBA-level players that are incredibly well prepared by (assistant coaches) Luke Murray and Kimani Young... And obviously we're very comfortable in tournament play, we're hard to prepare for."

UConn has now won 34 games this season, which Arruda reports matches the team record. Hurley seemed bullish on his team's run.

"The way the defending champs have fared in recent history, it's kind of been against the odds in terms of the season we're having, following up the national championship with an even better season. Winning the Big East regular season by multiple games and setting a program record now for wins on the season and winning the Big East Tournament and now getting to an Elite Eight," Hurley said. "This team has defied what past champions have done and taken this program to a completely different level."