The quote “standing on the shoulders of giants” is a quote that was popularized by Isaac Newton as a metaphor for using the understanding and knowledge of those that have gone before us to make progress. It is a quote that can certainly be applied metaphorically to the 2024 Men’s March Madness Tournament.
Alexander Jonesi
Zach Edey Attempts a freethrow.
Without the progress of Jim Calhoon bringing UConn into the national spotlight through his several title runs from 1999 – 2011 UConn would never have attracted head coaching candidate Dan Hurley, and they would certainly never be in the conversation as a NCAA men’s basketball Blue Blood.
However, when looking at the historic run of both Perdue and UConn the quote “standing on the shoulders of giants” can be taken literally. Perdue’s offensive and defensive schemes relied heavily on their 7-foot-4 giant Zach Edey. Going into the championship game Edey led the Nation in points scored averaging 24.9 points, and second in rebounds with 12.2 per game.
Edey’s physicality, his length, and his uncanny shooting ability for a big (.625) enabled him to lead the Boiler Makers to the championship game. However once Edey led his team to the championship he did not meet his David, he met another Goliath in the form of consensus top five NBA draft pick Donovan Clingan.
Clingan is defensive “anchor the paint” according to Bleacher Report, and was the crucial part in Dan Hurley’s plan – play one-on-one defense with Zach Edey with the only player that can do it in Clingan and lock down every other player.
“We didn’t care if Zach (Edey) took 25, 28 shots to get 30, 35 points. This whole gameplan was: no Smith, no Loyer, no Gillis, no Jones. Keep that collective group under 18, 20 points as a group, they had no chance to win no matter how well Zach played,” said Coach Hurley.
Even with Edey dropping 37 points and 10 rebounds it was not nearly enough to stop UConn. Edey said it himself, “When you play a team like UConn, you’ve got to be perfect for 40 minutes. And there were stretches where I wasn’t perfect.“
Nina Millers
Donovan Clingan puts a bucket past Zach Edey.
Men’s March Madness was a tournament that checked all the boxes, we had Cinderellas in No. 14 seed Oakland, 13 seed Yale, and 12 seed GCU. We had epic overtime buzzer-beater games when Colorado’s KJ Simpson hit a jumper to beat Florida as time expired, or when Texas A&M’s Anderson Garcia hit a 3 pointer to send it into overtime against Houston.
The NCAA March Madness tournament is the only tournament where you have future professional players, playing guys like Jack Gohlke of Oakland (who went from a D2 ball player to a March Madness superstar) who helped bring down Blue Blood Kentucky and became tied for second in NCAA Tournament history for most threes made in a game.
It is the only tournament where an 11 seed in NC State can make it to the Final Four and have a forward DJ Burns go from unknown fifth-year senior to a pro football prospect – a sport he has never played.
But in the end no one can stop what was always inevitable. UConn had the most NBA prospects of any team in the Tournament with Stephon Castle, Donovan Clingan, and Alex Karaban. They had one of the best coaches in the league in Dan Hurley who simply had a better gameplan than Perdue’s Ryan Walters.
The only thing left for them to do was stand on the shoulders of their own giants to win the tournament and cement themselves as a modern dynasty.
Stay tuned for next week’s edition where we explore the Women’s March Madness Tournament and Catlin Clark’s historic tournament run.