Great as all these stories are, the stark reality is that nothing - other than the airplane - has been making much of a dent in UConn this year.

“When you get beat in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by a 16 seed, that doesn’t change anything.”

“I’ve always dove into what we’re doing and tried to pick at what we’re doing to make improvements,” coach Matt Painter said. That ‘83 squad might have been the first to inscribe “Cinderella” into the March Madness dictionary, though it’s hardly the only team that rode momentum and dreams en route to a championship no one saw coming. The Wolfpack did the same as the ‘83 squad, staring down a weekend’s worth of must-win games in the ACC Tournament simply to qualify for the NCAAs. “But in our mind as a team, this is not a fluke.”

I know people don’t believe that,” coach Kevin Keatts said. The Wolfpack is back in a reboot of 1983, only instead of coach Jim Valvano rushing the court, looking for someone to hug after winning the title, this year’s mascot is 6-foot-9, 275-pound DJ Burns Jr., the center with the mile-wide smile and, some say, potential in both the NFL and the NBA. Alabama, which plays UConn on Saturday, is in the program’s first Final Four after a complete rebuild of a roster that was supposed to make a deep run last season, then lost nine players to the pros, the transfer portal and graduation.

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