FINAL FOUR NOTEBOOK From San Antonio

Tenacious defense: Georgia Tech players called their 38 percent shooting effort an "off night." "I mean, you never really have control over that. That's something that can pop up on any given night," guard B.J. Elder said. UConn took exception to that. The Huskies said it was their defense that made the difference. "It's hard to get the ball to fall when everyone's all on you," said Connecticut guard Ben Gordon. "There was probably a reason. It wasn't the air conditioning blowing the balls down," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "It wasn't 'one of those nights.' It was the kids at UConn who played some great defense."
Great expectations: The high expectations for UConn started after last year's finish in the regional semifinals. Okafor was being hyped as the national player of the year and the Huskies were the preseason No. 1. "From September, we had folks on our campus taking pictures, talking about us being undefeated, talking about all the various things we were going to do and we really hadn't even touched a basketball yet," Calhoun said. "There aren't many teams that can go wire-to-wire. It's a very difficult thing to do," he said. "Over the past four weeks we've been an amazing basketball team."
Sticky start: UConn got an eerie flashback to the 2003 tournament when a ball got stuck between the top of the backboard and shot clock during the team pregame shootaround. Reserve forward Hilton Armstrong punched it out with a broom handle, but not before it conjured up images of the stuck ball in the final seconds of last year's regional semifinals loss to Texas on the same court. It didn't seem to bother the Huskies, who shot 41 percent in the first half. But the bad karma may have rubbed off on the Yellow Jackets. Tech shot just 29 percent on that end of the floor in the first half, missing eight of its first 10 shots.
Deep hole: UConn's 15-point halftime lead was the third largest in championship game history and the biggest since 1967 when UCLA led Dayton 38-20. All of which meant bad news from the Yellow Jackets. Only Kentucky has ever rallied to win from a double-digit halftime deficit when the Wildcats came back from 10 points down to beat Utah 78-69 in 1998.
Hall of fame: Ben Gordon said Calhoun deserved to be in the basketball Hall of Fame. Calhoun was a finalist for induction but was passed over this year when the new members were announced Monday. "They're going to be smart enough to eventually induct coach Calhoun. He's won two championships," Gordon said.