UConn celebrates back-to-back titles with parade

Apr 13, 2024, 01:17 PM ET HARTFORD, Conn.– Thousands of fans lined the streets of downtown Hartford on Saturday to fete the UConn men’s basketball team following its second straight NCAA champion, its sixth in 25 years.The players and

coaches paraded on a double-decker bus with an open-air top and lifted the nationwide title prize from the state Capitol to the XL Center, the arena in which the team plays about half its home games. The procession included marching bands, cheerleaders, first responders, state politicians and other groups as fans yelled and waved UConn signs.Editor’s Picks 2 Related The event followed Monday’s 75-60 win over Purdue, which topped among the most dominant two-year runs in NCAA tournament history, one in which the Huskies won all 12 games they played by double digits.Coach Dan Hurley, who has spent the week rejecting that he was considering leaving the program for another school, informed the crowd his focus is on a third successive championship, as he and the players offered brief speeches outside the arena.”The champs are here today in Hartford with the best fans on the planet,

“Hurley stated.”Basketball capital of the world– Storrs, Connecticut. Back-to-back champs. Back-to-back champs. … Some of the best players to ever wear the UConn uniform are up here, and next year we opt for the three-peat! Let’s go!”Donovan Clingan, the 7-foot-2 sophomore center who revealed Friday that he was leaving UConn and going into the NBA draft, thanked the fans and said their support assisted fuel the title run.”I appreciate you guys,”the Bristol, Connecticut, local said.” You guys have been the very best fans to me for the past 2 years. I’ll value those moments for the rest of my life. I’ll be a Husky for life. Love you guys.”

THE CHAMPS ARE HERE pic.twitter.com/JoxSu3yJYk!.?.!— UConn Huskies(@UConnHuskies)April 13, 2024 The group likewise will be losing Tristen Newton, the Last 4’s most

outstanding player, and Webcam Spencer, who both ran out of eligibility when the season ended. In addition to Clingan, freshman Stephon Castle might be a lottery game pick in the NBA draft this summer if he decides to leave.”Thank you for all the support that you guys have offered me the past 2 years

and supporting the group,”Newton told the crowd. “Without you guys, back-to-back wouldn’t have actually been possible.”This was the 15th victory parade for UConn, which in addition to its six guys’s basketball national championships has won 11 ladies’s basketball titles over the past 30 years.There were joint parades in 2004 and 2014 when UConn won both the guys’s and ladies’s titles in the same season– the only Division I school to accomplish that feat.The UConn males and females are 17-1 in NCAA basketball title games.Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, who today hinted that Hurley would get a pay raise, signed up with the team on the double-decker bus and

the podium. “Hey America, this is what the basketball capital of America appears like. Right here, “Lamont stated.”Let’s hear it for the Huskies

. … We are the champs, my good friends.”