Can San Diego State break the NCAA Tournament 5-seed curse?

2023: San Diego State vs. UConn

Make no mistake, UConn is absolutely the favorite in this game. The Huskies have won their five tournament games by an average of 20.6 points per game, and if Dan Hurley is cutting down the last strand of the net on Monday night while Jim Nantz gives his clothing to Adama Sanogo, nobody that’s watched this tournament will be surprised. As you can see below, the Huskies are already in lofty company.

Four out of those five teams won the national title, with the sole exception being UNC in 2016, which, as fate would have it, also took place in Houston, which may bode well for San Diego State.

Part of what has gotten the Aztecs this far is their strong defensive identity, and they stick with what they do best. Even when they got down by 14 to Florida Atlantic, they kept plugging away, relying on their stifling defense to catch up to the hot shooting of the Owls. Matt Bradley made clutch shot after clutch shot, but as it has been all season, the win was a total team effort.

These two teams have met once before in the NCAA Tournament, which could give an extra smidge of motivation to any revenge-minded Aztec fans. In 2011, Kemba Walker’s 3-seeded Huskies knocked out Kawhi Leonard’s 2-seeded Aztecs in the Sweet Sixteen, then rolled off three more victories on their way to a national championship.

Can San Diego State make history and break the curse? It’s going to be a tall order. Our own Tristan Freeman likes UConn to continue its dominant ways. For the Aztecs to have a chance, they’ll need to devote every ounce of effort to keeping UConn off the glass. Second chances have been the Huskies’ bread and butter, and limiting Adama Sanogo to one chance is essential.

The Huskies haven’t lost outside the Big East this season, but they also haven’t been good in close games. The problem is that it’s extremely hard to keep the game close against this bunch. Miami made a run in the first half to erase an early deficit, but UConn wasn’t fazed, handling the Hurricanes without much of a scare the rest of the way.

The Aztecs have shown that they can come back from a deficit, but nobody has built any significant lead against the Huskies in the tournament. The Huskies also haven’t faced a defense as good as San Diego State’s in the tournament, so it’s possible they’ll get frustrated when they realize scoring isn’t as easy as it seemed when they played against the porous defenses of Gonzaga and Miami.

If San Diego State can get ahead, slow the game down, and limit UConn to one chance per possession, they have a real chance at doing what Florida, Indiana, and Butler failed to do before them: lift the 5-seed curse.