BOSTON — Invoice Clingan had simply watched his son, Donovan, dominate an Elite Eight sport in breathtaking style. His boy, now a 7-foot-2 man, had so completely terrorized the second-ranked offense in faculty basketball that Illinois truly seemed damaged. As Donovan accepted the Most Excellent Participant award for the NCAA Match’s East Regional, having led Connecticut to a 77-52 victory and second straight Closing 4, his dad’s eyes stuffed up with tears and glued on the rafters inside TD Backyard.
“I’m feeling … I’m feeling … oh, man, what am I feeling?” he stated. “All types of stuff. So comfortable for him, his teammates, his coaches. So comfortable. However man, I want she was right here. I want she was right here so unhealthy.”
Virtually six years in the past to the day, on March 27, 2018, Stacey Porrini Clingan, Invoice’s spouse and Donovan’s mother, died after a battle with breast most cancers. She’d been a star herself in faculty, performed in three NCAA Tournaments, scored 1,128 factors, grabbed 929 rebounds, blocked 220 pictures. Then she handed on the basketball bug to her son, taught Donovan so most of the issues he unleashed on the Illini within the regional ultimate. To have seen him play the sport they each beloved like this?
“My God,” Invoice stated, “she could be crying. She could be hootin’ and hollerin’. She was an incredible girl, and a lot of her is in him. He’s doing this for her — and he’s doing it.”
GO DEEPER
UConn’s subsequent large star performs for his father within the stands and his mom watching from above
Clingan delivered 22 factors, 10 rebounds, 5 blocks and three steals in slightly below 22 minutes Saturday. Nearly as good as that stat line is, it doesn’t start to explain his dominance. Illinois, with all its offensive firepower, missed all 19 pictures it tried when Clingan contested, per ESPN Stats & Data. Within the first 17 minutes he was on the courtroom, the Huskies outscored Illinois 34-4.
The reigning nationwide champions have gained 10 consecutive NCAA Match video games by double digits — and a median margin of 23 factors — however they’ve been much more unstoppable to date on this run than the final one. After the Illinis tied the sport late within the first half, for 27 entire seconds, Connecticut (35-3) scored the following 30 factors. Blink, sport over.
how about THAT run?#MadeForMarch | #MixForSix pic.twitter.com/4aJOCwFvWV
— UConn Males’s Basketball (@UConnMBB) March 31, 2024
The Huskies are an avalanche, and this time Clingan was the stick of dynamite on the prime of the mountain.
“It’s a tough month for me,” he stated, moments earlier than ascending a ladder to take his snip of the web. “I misplaced my mother six years in the past in March. To do what I did at present, it means loads to my household and it means loads to me. I do know she’s comfortable. She dreamed of this as a participant. I do know she could be the primary one on this stadium, the primary one within the doorways at each sport, however I do know she’s smiling down. And I do know she’ll be even happier if we end the job.”
Clingan scored the primary seven factors of the sport. He blocked three pictures in a single 37-second span — two of them towards Illini star Terrence Shannon Jr., who’d scored 25-plus factors in seven straight video games however missed 10 of his 12 pictures towards Connecticut. Clingan backed down Illinois large man Coleman Hawkins and scored proper over him on the primary play of the second half. He adopted a monster block with a large dunk on the opposite finish in one other 12-second burst of brilliance. Quickly after, he dropped a reverse layup over Hawkins, spiked yet another off the glass and initiated a transition sequence that led to a back-breaking Alex Karaban 3-pointer.
Bob Hurley, legendary highschool basketball coach and father of Huskies coach Dan Hurley, stood along with his mouth agape because the confetti fell on Clingan late Saturday.
“It was a blitzkrieg. No, you already know what that was?” he stated. “That was Invoice Walton-esque.”
Clingan was an integral a part of Connecticut’s nationwide championship run final season, however he was a complementary piece. He got here off the bench, behind star heart and Closing 4 MOP Adama Sonogo. He averaged 13.1 minutes as a freshman, totalled 23 factors within the Huskies’ ultimate 5 NCAA Match video games final yr. This time round, Dan Hurley wants him to be the person, and he’s greater than delivering.
“He’s like probably the most impactful participant within the nation, together with Zach Edey. They’re the 2 guys who’re simply full game-changers,” Hurley stated. “What he did to them on the rim defensively spooked them, and clearly they’d no solutions for him offensively.”
The factor that makes Connecticut — which is 50-5 since Jan. 25, 2023 — so terrifying is that there are such a lot of threats. The Huskies bludgeoned Illinois whereas getting simply seven whole factors from star guards Tristen Newton and Stephon Citadel. Karaban and Cam Spencer can detonate at any second. Hassan Diarra comes off the bench, and he would possibly’ve been the second-most invaluable participant on the ground Saturday.
However this model of Clingan? Wholesome now, having overcome foot accidents earlier than and through this season, and actively making an attempt to interrupt opponents’ will?
“He’s intimidating, even to me,” stated Invoice Clingan, who shouldn’t be a small man.
“When he’s doing what he’s doing now,” Diarra stated, “we’re laborious to beat. We’re in a position to strain the ball, actually get into guys and drive them to Donovan, as a result of we all know he’s received our backs defending the rim.”
Dan Hurley has nicknamed him Cling Kong. Requested if he felt worthy of that moniker after Saturday evening, Clingan stated, “Hell yeah, I do.”
“He’s a jolly inexperienced big,” Hurley stated. “However he’s a canine. Don’t let the smile idiot you.”
Clingan can be a homegrown hero, a top-40 recruit from Bristol, Conn., who stayed house for faculty — and stayed in faculty when he might’ve entered the NBA Draft after final season. As a substitute, he’s now on the cusp of serving to the Huskies turn out to be the primary crew since Florida in 2007 to repeat as nationwide champions.
“I don’t know if there can be such a particular connection between a participant and a state faculty,” Hurley stated. “He’s a larger-than-life determine within the state, and his legend is rising.”
(Picture: Maddie Meyer / Getty Pictures)