From the Associated Press

HOUSTON -- The rims were tight, the shots weren't falling and points were at a premium -- surely one of the ugliest championships played on college basketball's biggest stage.

Ah, but for Kemba Walker and UConn, the final score was a thing of beauty.

In a game that featured 40 minutes of guts and grit, Connecticut made Butler look like the underdog it really was, winning the NCAA men's title Monday night with an old-fashioned, grinding, 53-41 beatdown of the Bulldogs.

Walker finished with 16 points for the Huskies (32-9), whose amazing late-season streak could be stopped only by the final buzzer. They won their 11th straight game since closing the regular season with a 9-9 Big East record that foreshadowed none of this.

"Every time we play hard, great things always happen to us," Walker said.

The Cinderella Season has ended for VCU as Butler dashed their NCAA Title hopes.  UConn is also hoping to make it a Men's/Women's Title for the UConn Huskies as they downed Kentucky to reach the Title Game.

Butler 70, VCU 62

Shelvin Mack scored 24 points, Hahn scored all eight of his points during a 90-second span in the second half that gave Butler control of the game for good and the Bulldogs shut down hot-shooting VCU with their trademark unforgiving defense. The eighth-seeded Bulldogs (28-9) will face Connecticut on Monday night as the lowest-seeded team to play for the national title since Villanova won it as a No. 8 seed in 1985.

"We've just got to be one shot better than last year," coach Brad Stevens said.

VCU (28-12) sure didn't look like a team critics dismissed as "unworthy" -- and a whole lot worse -- after it skidded into the NCAA tournament with five losses in its last eight games. But Butler's stifling defense was too much for the Rams, only the third No. 11 seed to reach the Final Four.

Courtesy of Andy Katz with ESPN.com

Either Butler or Virginia Commonwealth will play for the national championship next Monday in Houston.

Neither was a lock to even make the NCAA tournament before Championship Week. Butler was 6-5 in the Horizon at one point and VCU lost its final four regular-season conference games. But then the Bulldogs won at Milwaukee to take the Horizon League tournament title, and VCU's at-large profile was deemed good enough for the selection committee after reaching the Colonial final and losing to Old Dominion.

Maybe that shouldn't be a shock. In the six Final Fours from 2006 to 2011, the CAA (two) and Horizon (two) have each sent more teams than the Big 12 (one). The Horizon also has more Final Four victories (one) in that span than the Big East, which hasn't won a game at the event since Connecticut's 2004 national championship.