Sitting in Las Vegas watching UConn dominate the Arkansas Razorbacks the main thought was, the Huskies are not going to have a problem in Houston.
And they didn't.
Give San Diego State credit, the Aztecs tried their best, but that wasn't good enough against a team that peaked at the perfect time and UConn coasted to 79-56 win.
In some ways, it was like watching the Razorbacks again. The Aztecs couldn't make shots because every one of them was contested. They shot 32.2 percent against the Huskies, Arkansas shot 31.7.
The Huskies shot 43% Monday night, against the Hogs they scored at will, hitting 57% for the game.
While it became more obvious with each NCAA Tournament win that the Huskies were the mightiest in March Madness and would be the last team standing, under a shower of confetti, but who would have guessed the Aztecs would be the final team between them and all the glory?
This was the same San Diego State team Arkansas beat in overtime in Maui 78-74, although it wasn't the same Razorbacks for long.
Trevon Brazile scored 20 points in that win. Less than two weeks later, he suffered a season ending knee injury.
That's not to imply the injury cost Arkansas a shot at the national championship. As the season went on, the waters were rather rocky at times and Eric Musselman did a masterful job of holding the team together and even getting them to the Sweet 16.
Plus, the Hogs' first two games were Illinois and Kansas.
San Diego State's first two games were against No. 12 seed College of Charleston and No. 13 seed Furman.
It appeared things were going to get a lot tougher as the Aztecs faced overall No. 1 seed Alabama, but apparently the Crimson Tide was imploding and San Diego State was prepared.
Alabama had zero fast break points and hit just 3 of 27 behind the arc and the Aztecs advanced with a 71-64 win.
It appears fate was an Aztec as they got a closing second free throw on a controversial call to beat No. 6 seed Creighton 57-56.
All that was left was Florida Atlantic, a No. 9 seed, but the Owls appeared to have it won, leading for more than 31 minutes and up 14 in the second half, only the Aztecs kept chipping away and Lamont Butler hit a 12-foot jumper at the buzzer and SDSU was on the way to the Finals.
The Aztecs were out of luck and heroics against the most gritty, tough team in the tournament.
UConn's offense clicked off six wins by a total of 101 points, which only overshadowed its dominating defense that could match up and slow down anyone, anytime and anywhere.
The Huskies had four transfers, but only one started and combined they contributed 21 points while the hand-picked, hard-nosed others scored 56.
The game was tied once, for a minute, there were two lead changes and the Huskies were in on top for more than 34 minutes.
The Aztecs' largest lead was 10-6 with 16:32 to play in the first half and their last lead was 10-8 with 16:09 to go to intermission.
Everyone knows what happened after that, the baddest boys of basketball, at least in March, marched to the winners circle and no doubt hundreds of miles away Marquette players were scratching their heads. It beat UConn two out of three times this season.
The NCAA selection committee didn't get it right, giving the Pac-12 too much credit and not enough to the Big East, who led all conferences in this big Dance with a 12-4 overall record.
The beast of the Big East was UConn because they played as a team and peaked at the right time.