UConn a champ, but definitely not a great team

HOUSTON -- Isn't this what we heard all season?

That college basketball didn't own a great team?

That no matter which program was ranked No. 1 a certain week -- Ohio State, Kansas, Duke, Pittsburgh, whoever -- none could rival the best sides of recent times?

That parity had grabbed hold of the game so tightly, the days of domination by anyone had disappeared quicker than your father's hairline?

Funny. It took the final game to prove all of the above true.

One team at Reliant Stadium on Monday evening scored 53 points, shot 34.5 percent from the field, 9 percent on 3-pointers, allowed 20 offensive rebounds and had 11 turnovers.

Congratulations to the Connecticut Huskies.

The national champions of 2010-11.

UConn beat Butler 53-41 before 70,376, then cut down what were perfectly shaped nets given how little the ball touched them.

"If you wanted wide open like a 49-42 football game, this wasn't your game," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "If you wanted two teams that gave it everything they had ... To me, that's beauty. Yeah, you'd like a few more baskets made. But, damn, I loved it in the sense of the fight, the competitiveness between two teams."

They combined to shoot 31-for-119.

Calhoun has a weird sense of beauty.

Maybe it was an inevitable outcome for a game featuring the two lowest combined seeds -- a No. 3 and a No. 8 -- to make an NCAA final in history. Maybe it should give everyone else hope. Maybe players across the country today will work a little harder, sweat a little more, stay a few hours longer in the gym if they know how close a national title really exists.

UNLV could have won Monday. Seriously. Even the way it shot most of the season. So too could have San Diego State or Utah State or at least 50 other teams.

UConn was the better team in the season's biggest game, but it's not the best team.

Who is?

Who knows?

It depended on the day all season, and this was by far the worst one Butler could have imagined. Someone should have reminded the Bulldogs that "One Shining Moment" didn't mean they were supposed to try to make just one shot.

It was a perfect storm of Connecticut's length and defense and what happens to shooters when the frustration of so many misses sets in and the clock winds down.

Butler made just 3 of 31 attempts inside the 3-point line and shot 33 times beyond it. It became painful to watch this team -- which meant so much to college basketball in advancing to the last two title games -- play so incredibly bad.

It shot 18.8 percent and again walked off a championship court swiping away colorful streamers pouring down from the ceiling for another team.

Its two stars, seniors Matt Howard and Shelvin Mack, shot a combined 5-for-28. The Bulldogs missed open shots, tough shots, close shots, long shots. One player even missed patting the head of the team's English bulldog mascot before tipoff, and Blue 2 has a giant dome.

"You know, we kept telling each other, 'Keep shooting, they're going to start going in,' " said a tearful Howard, whose only field goal was a first-half 3-pointer. "It just wasn't happening. The belief was always there. I couldn't tell you that we shot as poorly as we did. I knew it was pretty bad. But we kept thinking the shots would go in. That's the mindset you have to have."

People equate low-scoring games to bad teams. That wasn't the case for the first 20 minutes, when Butler shot 22 percent and still led by three in the lowest scoring first half (22-19) since World War II.

Teams want to defend as these two did before intermission. Want to rotate and help like Butler does. Want to contest like UConn does.

Teams think they can. Hope they can. Most can't.

But then Connecticut made a few shots to open the second half, and Butler began to gamble defensively in hopes of rallying and couldn't.

It couldn't make anything. It was awful.

Calhoun is now the fifth coach to win at least three titles, and he stopped short, thank heavens, of saying this one compared talent-wise to the other two. This one went 4-9 in the regular season against other Big East teams that made the NCAA field. This one was picked 10th in league and finished ninth.

This one scored 53 points and shot 34.5 percent in the national championship and is sizing players and coaches for rings today.

This one is hardly great.

Isn't it, then, an ideal ending to a season defined by its flawed teams?

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 3 to 5 p.m. Monday and Thursday on "Monsters of the Midday," Fox Sports Radio 920 AM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.