The 2024 version of March Madness has apexed with a trio of streak busters in the desert.
N.C. State is in the Final Four for the first time since Jim Valvano ran around trying to find someone to hug after the 1983 national championship. Purdue and big man Zach Edey will make their first Final Four appearance since Joe Barry Carroll dominated the paint in 1980.
Alabama? Never been.
An angry pack of Huskies awaits them in the Valley of the Sun.
Dominating on its way to a fifth national championship a year ago, UConn has looked even more unbeatable so far in its run to become the first repeat champion since Florida in 2006-07.
“Our defense is elite. Our offense is elite. We rebound the ball,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “These guys play every possession like it’s the end of the world.”
The Huskies have done nothing but end opponents' hopes through consecutive dominating March runs.
UConn steamrolled its way through the 2023 bracket, winning each game by at least 13 points. That was the best since Indiana in 1981.
These Huskies may be better.
With 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan in the middle and talent across the roster, UConn won its first four NCAA Tournament games by an average of 27.7 points. The Huskies made Illinois look like a JV team in the Elite Eight, reeling off 30 — yes, 30 — straight points in a 77-52 victory to become the first reigning champion to reach the Final Four since Florida's consecutive titles.
Knocking off UConn will be a monumental task in Glendale, Arizona, starting with Alabama in the semifinals Saturday.
“His (Hurley's) formula is working out pretty well,” Alabama coach Nate Oats said. “I’m going to have to figure out that formula myself here soon.”
Oats already has sorted a few things figured out.
The Crimson Tide lost in the Sweet 16 last season, then most of its roster. Oats had three returning players and replaced three assistants who left for head coaching jobs.
Playing fast and letting 3s fly from all over, Alabama led the nation in scoring during the regular season and has kept up the pace in March. Led by heady, gritty point guard Mark Sears, the Crimson Tide scored at least 89 points in three of four NCAA Tournament games, including 109 in the opener against Charleston.
Alabama reached its first Final Four by making 16 3-pointers in an 89-82 win over Clemson in the Elite Eight.
“Guys bought in — we can make this run, other teams have done it,” Oats said. “We have the capability to do it.”
The first national semifinal on Saturday will be big — as in more than 14 feet and 575 pounds of men in the paint.
Purdue has college basketball's most unstoppable force in Edey.
At 7-4, he didn't need a ladder to cut down the nets in Detroit and has the skill to go with his size. Edey was the AP national player of the year last year and the front-runner to become the first player to repeat since Virginia's Ralph Sampson earned it three straight years from 1980-83.
Edey has been nearly unguardable in the NCAA Tournament, becoming the first player since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) in 1968 to have at least 50 points and 35 rebounds while shooting 65% from the field the first two games of an NCAA Tournament.
Edey topped that with a career-high 40 points and 16 rebounds in a 72-66 win over Tennessee that sent the Boilermakers to the Final Four a year after making history by losing to a No. 16 seed.
“Zach’s got a competitive fight to him. He doesn’t back down,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “When you have that elite physical size and you have that competitive spirit with it, with some skill, it’s pretty dangerous. He’s pretty hard to handle.”
So is N.C. State's DJ Burns Jr.
The 6-9, 275-pounder has a big-sized game and a personality to go with it. He's the focal point of the Wolfpack offense and opponents have yet to find a way to stop him.
Burns has great footwork, a soft touch and vision to find the open man nearly every time. Combined with the team's other DJ, Arizona State transfer DJ Horne, N.C. State won five games in five days just to get into the NCAA Tournament and kept rolling into the Final Four as a No. 11 seed.
“DJ Burns has been around for a long time, but his personality, his play has really opened eyes of a lot of folks around the country,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said.
Now the Wolfpack get to play in the game's biggest spotlight with two other teams who ended long droughts — and a fourth vying for a place in history.
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates with center Donovan Clingan, left, after defeating Illinois following an Elite 8 college basketball game in the men's NCAA Tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
North Carolina State's DJ Burns Jr. reacts following an Elite Eight college basketball game against Duke in the NCAA Tournament in Dallas, Sunday, March 31, 2024. North Carolina State won 76-64. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
UConn head coach Dan Hurley celebrates after defeating Illinois in the Elite 8 college basketball game in the men's NCAA Tournament, Saturday, March 30, 2024, in Boston. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer)
Workers on Friday began tearing down a bridge over a Connecticut highway that was damaged in a fiery crash involving a gasoline tanker truck — a project expected to extend the traffic nightmare caused by the closing of Interstate 95 through the weekend.
A day after the crash, crews removed metal fencing on the span in Norwalk before two large excavators — one on each side of the highway — began demolishing the concrete parts of the structure. Bucket loaders scooped up the debris that fell on the highway and dumped it in containers that were hauled away by trucks.
Gov. Ned Lamont said the plan is for both sides of the highway to fully reopen by Monday morning's commute. He and other officials continued to urge drivers to avoid the area.
“And here we are more than 24 hours later. And that bridge is going to be down very soon,” Lamont said at a news conference in Norwalk on Friday. “The sheers are coming in. Lift off the final piece of this. Get the asphalt back in place. And hopefully ... we get I-95 going in both directions on Monday.”
The sheers are special heavy equipment that will be used to cut down the metal support components of the bridge beginning Saturday morning, officials said. That should take about 24 hours, then the damaged parts of the highway will be repaired by milling and repaving, said the state transportation commissioner, Garrett Eucalitto.
The crash happened at around 5:30 a.m. Thursday on the southbound side of the highway. The tanker truck, carrying about 8,500 gallons (32,000 liters) of gas, burst into flames under the Fairfield Avenue bridge after a collision with a tractor trailer and a car. Highway traffic camera video showed the massive fire engulfing the span. Officials said no one was seriously injured.
State police said Friday that the car driver was merging out of the right lane when he struck the gas truck, which then hit the tractor trailer in another lane and caught fire. The cause of the crash remained under investigation, and no charges were announced.
Traffic on both sides of the highway was being corralled from three travel lanes into exit-only lanes as drivers were detoured onto local streets around the crash site. Livestreams showed cars and trucks creeping slowly on the exit ramps. On Friday afternoon, the state Department of Transportation said the travel time was nearly 90 minutes for the 16 miles (26 kilometers) from the New York border to Route 7 in Norwalk on I-95 north.
Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and some drivers' nerves were frayed along Norwalk's Connecticut Avenue, one of the detour routes. Employees at local stores said it took them an extra 30 minutes to an hour to get to work, and they were seeing a drop in business.
“It's crazy,” said Marco Ortiz, a tattoo artist at Javier Eastman Tattoo Studios on Connecticut Avenue. “I’ve seen people beeping, trying to cut other people off, making faces, hand gestures. It's not good. You've got to be patient. What else can we do? It was a really bad accident.”
About 160,000 vehicles travel that section of I-95 in both directions daily, officials said.
John Blair, president of the Motor Transport Association of Connecticut, said the trucking industry group has been working with state police and the DOT to get the word out to truckers across the Northeast about safe alternate routes.
He said the association has had a lot of problems over the past 24 hours with tractor-trailer drivers who don’t know Connecticut well striking low bridges or taking down power lines on local roads as they try to drive around the closure. The group has been trying to get long-haul truckers to avoid that part of state.
“We are pushing them up north as best as we can,” Blair said. “We’re trying to get to them before they get to Connecticut and have them avoid 95 completely.”
The crash prompted the closure of Norwalk schools and significantly increased traffic on other highways and secondary roads. The major alternate route in the area, the Merritt Parkway, cannot be used by trucks because its underpasses are too low.
Jillian Mauro, a press aide with the Connecticut House Republicans, said she noticed many more tractor trailers during her commute from Danbury to Hartford, as well as fender benders with the stop-and-go traffic.
“There’s definitely a steady parade of trucks,” said Mauro, whose commute to the Capitol on Friday took 90 minutes instead of the usual hour. On Thursday night, she saw an unusually large number of tractor trailers parked along the side of I-84 as drivers appeared to be taking their mandatory rest breaks.
The bridge removal and road repairs could cost about $20 million, said U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat. He and other members of the state’s congressional delegation will ask the Federal Highway Administration for emergency funds to pay all the expenses. Lamont has declared a state of emergency, which could expedite the funding.
The accident was reminiscent of a deadly one last year in Philadelphia when a tractor-trailer carrying gasoline along I-95 lost control and caught fire, destroying a section of the highway.
Thursday's crash also came just over a year after a similar wreck on I-95 in Connecticut in April 2023, when a fuel truck caught fire after colliding with a stopped car on the Gold Star Memorial Bridge between New London and Groton. The fuel truck driver was killed, and the southbound side of the bridge was closed for hours. The driver of the car was recently charged with negligent homicide.
Associated Press writer Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this report.
In this photo made from video, a demolition crew begins work on tearing down the Fairfield Avenue bridge, Friday, May 3, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. Workers have begun removing the bridge over I-95 that was damaged in a fiery crash involving a gasoline tanker truck on Thursday. The demolition is expected to keep both sides of Interstate 95 in Norwalk closed through the weekend. (WABC TV via AP))
This image provided by the Norwalk Police Department shows the scene of a tanker fire on I-95 in Norwalk, Conn., Thursday, May 2, 2024. Both sides of I-95, the East Coast's main north-south highway, were shut down following the early morning crash involving a passenger car, a tractor-trailer and a tanker truck carrying 8,500 gallons (about 32,000 liters) of gasoline. (Norwalk Police Department via AP)
In this image provided by the Connecticut Governor's Office, emergency personnel work at the scene of a fiery early morning crash that left both sides of Interstate 95, the East Coast’s main north-south highway, shut down in southwestern Connecticut., Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. (Norwalk Fire Department/Connecticut Governor's Office via AP)
In this image provided by the Connecticut Governor's Office, emergency personnel work at the scene of a fiery early morning crash that left both sides of Interstate 95, the East Coast’s main north-south highway, shut down in southwestern Connecticut., Thursday, May 2, 2024, in Norwalk, Conn. (Norwalk Fire Department/Connecticut Governor's Office via AP)
