UCONN WINS NCAA 2014 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

(AP) – Coach Kevin Ollie delivered on the promise he made last month after UConn’s final home game, bringing an NCAA Championship back to Gampel Pavilion.

Ollie and the Huskies, who beat Kentucky 60-54 on Monday night in Texas, arrived back on campus Tuesday evening for a raucous pep rally in front of about 7,500 fans at the Huskies’ home arena.

“On senior night I told you all to save this date, didn’t I?” Ollie told the crowd Tuesday. “The only reason I said that is because I knew what kind of team I had, what kind of coaching staff I had and I knew I had the greatest fans in America behind us.”

Ollie had grabbed a microphone after UConn’s 69-63 win over Rutgers on March 5 and promised the crowd that UConn would be back in April to hang a banner.

The title is the fourth for the program and the second in four years. It comes a year after the Huskies were banned from the NCAA tournament for failing to meet academic requirements, and after the school was left out of the expansion plans of both the ACC and Big Ten conferences.

“I think it’s an incredible thing from being down and out of the tournament to where we are now,” said 23-year-old Matt Thomson, a 2013 graduate from Fairfield who came back to campus to welcome the team home. “I think it shows the real passion of the players, the fans and this entire school. No one lost hope. We all believed that we were still UConn.”

It’s the fourth time that the UConn men and women were in the Final Four at the same time. The school is the only Division I program ever to win both titles in the same year, accomplishing that feat in 2004.