wrong side of a 69-63 result<\/a> on the final night of the college basketball season.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m just reminding myself right now that when I came into UConn, how much I\u2019ve grown, and I\u2019m ultimately leaving UConn in a better place right now from where I started,\u201d the two-time national champion from Southborough, Mass., said. \u201cI gave it everything I got. I gave it my heart. I gave everything. All I thought about was UConn basketball every single day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex Karaban #11 of the UConn Huskies looks on during the press conference after being defeated by the Michigan Wolverines 69-63 in the National Championship. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Karaban\u2019s final game was a terrific 17-point, 11-rebound effort. He played all 40 minutes. The ball was in his hands when the final buzzer sounded, with Karaban sprinting into the backcourt for a loose ball.<\/p>\n
\u201cI figured, let me play him into the ground one more time, just one more 40-minute game for Alex,\u201d coach Dan Hurley said. \u201cHe deserved to play 40 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Michigan players celebrated and confetti fell, Karaban slowly walked to the bench. After experiencing the joy of two championships, he found himself on the losing end of a title game. Still, he chose to focus on the positives.<\/p>\n
Braylon Mullins #24, Solo Ball #1 and Alex Karaban #11 of the UConn Huskies react after being defeated by the Michigan Wolverines 69-63 in the National Championship of the 2026 NCAA Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium on April 06, 2026 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Getty Images<\/p>\n
UConn Huskies forward Alex Karaban (11) shoots the ball against Michigan Wolverines forward Yaxel Lendeborg (23) in the second half during the national championship of the Final Four of the men\u2019s 2026 NCAA Tournament at Lucas Oil Stadium. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m blessed that I\u2019ve been able to wear this jersey for the longest amount of time possible, the max amount, the max amount of minutes, the max amount of games this season,\u201d he said. \u201cI came back ultimately to win. Fell short, so it hurts right now. It hurts a lot right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Karaban completes his career with an 18-2 NCAA Tournament record, having appeared in 151 games at Connecticut. His 126 wins are the most by any Husky, and his 292 3-pointers rank first, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis guy changed my life, the staff\u2019s lives, the joy he\u2019s brought to the university, the fan base,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cHe\u2019s helped to make UConn \u2026 probably the premier program in college basketball right now, having been to three out of four national championship games, having won two of them. He\u2019s put UConn in that rarefied place in college basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Alex Karaban\u2019s voice cracked. It was starting to settle in. He had just finished his memorable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":702737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,7456,84489,1043,231,772,1544,66,923],"class_list":{"0":"post-702736","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-march-madness","11":"tag-march-madness-2026","12":"tag-michigan-wolverines","13":"tag-ncaa","14":"tag-ncaa-basketball","15":"tag-ncaab","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uconn-huskies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116361883066590837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}