UConn’s legendary run continues to another Final Four after bashing of Illinois

As the last pieces of confetti fell from the TD Garden rafters, Donovan Clingan stood tall in the middle of the party. UConn’s center – moments after the game of his life – was soaking in the scene around him when he recognized the song blaring in the arena.

Holding the East regional championship trophy, Clingan turned to a few of his teammates and sang part of Drake’s verse in Travis Scott’s “Sicko Mode.”

“I tried to show ‘em!” Clingan belted out. “I tried to show ‘em!”

Clingan showed them. UConn certainly did, too. Again, and again, and again. The Huskies’ unstoppable run continued with their most dominant performance, a 77-52 bashing of Illinois. It was a demolition, yet another destruction. UConn is heading back to the Final Four next weekend, and it looks like it’s playing another sport than everybody else in its quest for a second consecutive national championship that almost seems inevitable.

This is why Clingan returned. The 7-foot-2 center – who was named the region’s Most Outstanding Player after thoroughly dominating the Fighting Illini with 22 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks – came back to school to improve his NBA draft stock, but also make a run at history with his hometown school, the place he dreamed of doing exactly this.

“I grew up dreaming of playing for the University of Connecticut,” Clingan, a native of Bristol, Conn., said. “So to be able to wear this jersey every single day and play for such a historic and special program and insert myself and my teammates inserting themselves into history, it’s special.

“Don’t take any moment for granted, go out, give it everything you’ve got, and I’m extremely blessed to be in this position.”

There was some outside belief that Saturday’s regional could mark UConn’s first true test. Illinois had the second-highest rated offense in the country. The Illini had the size to potentially slow the Huskies down. There were some that, somehow, still doubted UConn.

That was a mistake.

UConn coach Dan Hurley is not on Twitter, but on Saturday night, he said he was sent a tweet written by former Illinois guard Sean Harrington, who said the Huskies don’t have an answer for Illini star Terrence Shannon Jr., that he wouldn’t be held to single digits and that UConn had not seen a team as physical as Illinois all season.

Hurley saw it as another slight against his team, which was predicted to finish fourth in the Big East. All that tweet did was stoke the flames.

“One of the staff members wanted to add a little more fuel to my fire, a little something,” Hurley said. “Statements like that are just asinine.”

“We like those external things.”

It proved to be asinine. Shannon – who entered with seven consecutive games of 25 or more points – was held to eight points on 2-for-12 shooting, as freshman guard Stephon Castle ate him alive, and Clingan swatted away several of his layup attempts in the first half.

And then UConn, like a machine, completely rolled over Illinois. In Hurley’s words, the Huskies systematically broke them down.

They broke the Illini’s will. The game was actually tied at 23-all late in the first half before UConn scored five straight into the halftime locker room. When they returned, the Huskies erased the Illini with an almost unbelievable stretch of dominance. Clingan and his teammates straight up bullied them to the tune of an absurd 30-0 run. Stop after stop, transition score after score.

They humiliated the Illini. When Justin Harmon scored Illinois’ first points of the second half with 12:41 to go, it earned a loud Bronx cheer from UConn fans, who filled up at least 70 percent of the building.

Hurley didn’t even take notice of how lopsided the game got, just that Illinois coach Brad Underwood kept burning his timeouts. It got so out of hand that comedian Larry David, sitting a row back near the UConn bench, left early.

“It was a special level of basketball that we were playing,” Hurley said.

“Our defense is elite. Our offense is elite. We rebound the ball. These guys play every possession like it’s the end of the world.”

And they kept pouring it on. During one of the timeouts – as the Huskies held an enormous lead – Clingan said that Hurley told them, “Remember what these guys were saying yesterday? We’ve got to go put them away.”

“We just motivate each other, playing for one another.”

UConn buried Illinois into submission. Somehow, Hurley didn’t feel safe until the media timeout with 3:33 to go, when they were up 29. He walked across the court and let out a big scream to fire up one of the UConn fan sections.

“You see enough games, man, and it’s like I’m always concerned that something bad could happen,” Hurley said. “But we’ve defied the odds this year, just with past champions and losing everything that we lost from last year’s team, and having this giant target that we’ve carried the entire year, the UConn target, plus the defending national champs target.

“We’re a program our players have a lot of confidence and a lot of swagger. Our fan base, again, is obnoxious as (expletive) on social. So everyone hates us.

“It was a chance to celebrate with them because our fan base and our organization right now, it’s an us against the world of college basketball and I wanted to celebrate with them a little bit.”

The celebration continued into that huddle, where the Huskies could taste their dream becoming reality.

“It feels a little surreal,” said Cam Spencer, who transferred to UConn this season with this goal in mind.

UConn was not perfect on Saturday. The Huskies were 3-for-17 from 3-point range, an area Hurley said – humorously, given the context – that they need to clean up. Castle scored just two points, and All-American guard Tristen Newton went 0-for-6 from the field.

The scary part is that it didn’t matter at all. UConn is bludgeoning opponents by 27.8 points per game in this tournament. Now this unstoppable train heads to Phoenix, two wins away from being remembered as possibly the most dominant team in the history of the sport.

“We’re going to be tough to beat,” Hurley said.