Connecticut Coach Kevin Ollie organized a brief field trip during his team's jaunt through Texas in early January. Taking a break from basketball, the Huskies visited AT&T Stadium, site of this year's Final Four.
Ollie glanced at the mammoth scoreboard and imagined seeing his players' faces and hearing their names announced.
"It felt very far away," the senior Niels Giffey said recently. "I have to be honest. It felt very far away."
And it was. Connecticut finished in a tie for third in its inaugural season in the American Athletic Conference, lost to Louisville in the conference tournament and qualified for the N.C.A.A. tournament as a seventh seed.
Now, the Huskies are one of the four teams still standing.
They will return to AT&T Stadium on Saturday for a national semifinal after completing a third consecutive upset, a 60-54 victory over Michigan State in the East Regional final at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
Just as the 2011 Huskies leaned on a transcendent guard (Kemba Walker) to improbably win the national title, this bunch relied on Shabazz Napier, who led all scorers Sunday with 25 points and was voted the most outstanding player of the regional.
En route to the Final Four, Connecticut toppled the region's second (Villanova), third (Iowa State) and fourth (Michigan State) seeds. Its reward is a matchup against Florida, the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament, which has won 30 straight games. The Gators' last loss? To UConn, back in December.
Michigan State's loss means Adreian Payne, Keith Appling and Dan Chapman are the first four-year seniors to never reach a Final Four in Tom Izzo's 20 seasons as the Spartans' coach. They will also leave Michigan State 0-3 against UConn, which toppled the Spartans in 2010 and in their season opener last year, Ollie's first game as the Huskies' coach.
In the final seconds Sunday, Ollie stood on the sideline pounding his chest, over and over, as if he were either atoning for his sins or reminding his players how they had arrived at that point. And with thousands of UConn fans cheering and chanting and urging on their team, it was as if half the Nutmeg State had decamped for the Garden.
The Huskies trailed by 4 points at halftime in a game in which every possession was played with intensity. Michigan State was undone by its carelessness, committing 16 turnovers - 5 more than its season average - that UConn converted into 18 points.
Just when it seemed that Connecticut had wrested control of the game, though, back-to-back 3-pointers by Denzel Valentine and Gary Harris cut the Spartans' deficit to 49-45. Michigan State further closed the gap to 53-51, on two Payne free throws, before Appling fouled Napier on a 3-point attempt with 30.6 seconds remaining. Napier made all three free throws.
One of Michigan State's chief concerns was how to contain UConn's guard tandem of Ryan Boatright and Napier, which Izzo said he considered one of the best, if not the best, in the country. The Spartans' uncertainty lingered past the opening tip, with Boatright and Napier accounting for 7 quick points as the Huskies surged to a 12-2 lead.
Michigan State looked nervous, unsure, passing up open shots and missing contested ones. Its calming influence was a defensive effort that, with the team's size advantage inside, forced UConn to take jump shot after jump shot. The Huskies made only three of their final 21 field-goal attempts in the first half, and they went scoreless over the final 5 minutes 27 seconds before the break.
Connecticut kept the ball away from Branden Dawson, who led Michigan State with 24 points Friday, and only 2 of the Spartans' 25 first-half points were scored in the paint. But they made six 3-pointers, including two by Gary Harris on consecutive possessions that gave Michigan State its first lead, with 3:25 left in the half.
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Amzing Moment: Connecticut Defeats Michigan State to Advance to the Final Four