BOSTON — Elijah Saunders strode onto the TD Garden floor Wednesday morning a few minutes past 10, or about 7 a.m. back home in San Diego. Saunders, a sophomore forward, gazed at the rafters and all the March Madness logos and shouted, “Okay!” He carried a speaker to midcourt, synced it to his phone and played the opening notes before an NCAA official asked him to cut the music.
“Ooohwee!” Saunders hollered, rubbing his hands together as he prepared for San Diego State’s last practice before the Sweet 16.
The fifth-seeded Aztecs have made themselves at home in the NCAA tournament, having advanced to the national title game last year and plowed through UAB and Yale last weekend. They flew across the country this week as a burgeoning national college basketball force, only to find the team that has loomed over their season and menaced their memories.
For viewers, Thursday’s East Region semifinal will provide a rematch of last year’s national championship game. For San Diego State, it provides the scariest chore in men’s college basketball: facing down the Connecticut Huskies. San Diego State is the latest team to walk into the maw of U-Conn. during the NCAA tournament and the first to answer a formidable question: Does knowing what you’re getting into make it better or worse?
In the past two NCAA tournaments, the top-seeded Huskies have turned a capricious enterprise into an exercise of inevitability. They have won eight consecutive tournament games by at least 13 points with an average margin of 22. They last trailed in the second half of an NCAA tournament game with 19:45 left during the first round last year against Iona, which the Huskies eventually dispatched by 24 points. Coach Dan Hurley openly refers to his team as “bulletproof.”
Connecticut’s grandest triumph came at the expense of San Diego State. On the first Monday in April last year, Connecticut dominated the Aztecs, 76-59, inside a Houston football stadium. San Diego State will see the Huskies again at a venerable gym in Boston, a continent away from their campus and a bus ride away from Connecticut’s.
“Every loss hurts you,” senior guard Lamont Butler said. “We have a chance to have our revenge. Our goal is to get back to the championship game, and we got to go through U-Conn. to do it.”
The Aztecs still have not watched the entire title game together. They watched a few clips this week in preparation, and players said they remained analytical as they studied it. “There’s no emotions to it,” Butler said.
San Diego State took an early 10-6 lead, then didn’t score for more than six minutes and didn’t make a field goal for more than 11 minutes, at which point it trailed by 11. The Aztecs sliced their deficit to five with less than six minutes left, but the game was never really in doubt — they did not possess the ball within two scores in the final 29 minutes. The Aztecs, bothered by U-Conn.’s length, shot 32 percent.
Both teams have changed over the past year. Connecticut lost three starters to the NBA, and players responsible for 48 of their 76 points in the national title game graduated, transferred or turned professional. Freshman Stephon Castle and Rutgers transfer Cam Spencer, who plays in the fiery image of his coach, have formed with Tristen Newton a potent backcourt that scores prolifically and shares willingly.
By the standards of college basketball in 2024, the Aztecs have endured minor personnel turnover. Butler and fellow senior guard Darrion Trammell are the lone returning starters, and they lost forward Keshad Johnson to Arizona. But six of their top eight scorers played on last year’s national runner-up, including one who turned into a third-team all-American.
Jaedon LeDee scored seven points in 18 minutes off the bench against Connecticut last April. As a fifth-year senior, LeDee emerged as one of the best players in the country, averaging 21.5 points (to go with 8.4 rebounds) with muscular interior moves and a feathery midrange touch. He has the shoulders of an NBA power forward, if not an NFL defensive lineman.
“I thought he was going to be what he is now last year,” Saunders said. “Everybody knew how dominant he was in practice. We had so many good players, so much experience and age, Jaedon couldn’t just play his game. But this season, he’s been able to play freely. I knew this was coming, for sure.”
San Diego State players gathered on Selection Sunday and saw U-Conn.’s name pop up as the top overall seed. They immediately recognized the possible rematch when their name surfaced minutes later as the No. 5 seed in the East Region. “We saw the matchup would eventually lead here,” Saunders said. “Definitely, we were thinking about it.”
The Aztecs immediately embraced the depth of the challenge. Minutes after they dispatched Yale on Sunday, Coach Brian Dutcher cast SDSU as not only an underdog but an underdog in an adverse arena. “We’re heading on the road to play a road game against U-Conn. in Boston,” he said.
One reporter suggested to Dutcher that his players, faced with a daunting opponent, appeared impervious to intimidation.
“That’s the beauty of being young,” Dutcher said, laughing. “I’ll be intimidated. But I’ll get ’em ready to play.”
“It could have been U-Conn. It could have been Kentucky,” LeDee said. “It could have been Boy or Girl Scouts. It doesn’t matter. Being here in this position, it’s a blessing for us to be together and have fun and enjoy this game together.”
San Diego State’s challenges range from 7-foot-2 U-Conn. center Donovan Clingan to projected lottery pick Castle to geography. The Aztecs won the last game of the opening weekend in Spokane, Wash., on Sunday night. They arrived back home at 7 a.m. Monday and got to practice by 3:30 p.m. They practiced again Tuesday morning before boarding a cross-country flight at noon, landing in Boston around 9 p.m. — some 13 hours before they practiced and met the media at TD Garden.
U-Conn., meanwhile, will attempt to turn Boston into “Storrs North,” Hurley said. The 33-3 Huskies also played in front of a favorable crowd in Brooklyn last weekend, and Hurley is not about to apologize for it.
“This wasn’t some gift by the committee to try to make it as easy as possible for us,” Hurley said. “We’ve earned our position. We’ve manifested Brooklyn to Boston since really April, since last year when we won the championship.”
Two of Connecticut’s three losses this season came in conference play, which suggests familiarity is a required ingredient for an upset. “We’ll be more prepared this time,” Butler said.
But the ball movement and skill U-Conn. presents may not be replicable. At practice Wednesday, the Aztecs drilled pick-and-roll defense as scout-team players mimicked U-Conn.’s stars. Reserve wing Jay Pal walled off a drive and contested a shot, an apparently strong defensive challenge. Watching from past the three-point line, Dutcher halted the drill.
“Jay Pal!” Dutcher shouted. “Those are going to be dunks.”
The Aztecs, though, understand how to achieve the improbable: They toppled No. 1 overall seed Alabama last year in the Sweet 16, a game several players referenced even more often than last year’s title game.
“Everybody thinks the number one seed is going to run through the whole tournament,” Saunders said. “But we think we’re just as good as this team we’re about to play.”
correction
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that all three of Connecticut's losses this season were in conference play. One of its losses was to Kansas. The story has been updated.
