One thing not being discussed here is a terrible backfire in the SMU strategy. It was noted during the game by Len Elmore that SMU wasn't crashing the boards and was rotating 4 guys back because, according to Len Elmore, SMU "fears UConn's lighting strike transition attack." In fact, I don't think that was the strategy. They didn't crash the boards because UConn is dead last in the AAC in offensive boards and they figured UConn was more likely to hurt them in transition than on the O-boards.
In fact, UConn did not hurt SMU in transition but did burn SMU with critical offensive rebounds at key points of the game. I don't think there was any reason for SMU to worry so much about UConn's transition because in recent games they have been getting breaks and missing layup and not finishing. Maybe Larry Brown was concerned that this was the game that UConn starts making those bunnies and layups. But to me that strategy did not work and next time they play SMU look for them to crash the boards a bit more aggressively than this game.