GLENDALE, Ariz. – Connecticut often overwhelms opponents with its size and strength.

Harried by the fighting Missouri Tigers, UConn needed something else: speed.

Enter 6-foot-1 freshman Kemba Walker, who matched a career high with 23 points as the top-seeded Huskies held off Missouri 82-75 in the West Regional final on Saturday. UConn earned a trip to Detroit and extended the Big East’s dominance of the NCAA tournament.

UConn is headed to its third Final Four, where it will meet either Big East rival Louisville or Big Ten powerhouse Michigan State. This trip may have seemed harder than the others, because the Huskies were rocked this week by a report alleging that they violated NCAA recruiting rules.

Then came a duel with Mizzou. But the Huskies kept their poise even as the Tigers erased an early 11-point lead to surge ahead in the second half.

“We took some bumps, we took some bruises, but here we are once again going to the Final Four, and I’m just elated,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said.

Among those banged up was 7-foot-3 center Hasheem Thabeet, who bloodied a finger on his right hand scrapping for a loose ball on the floor in the second half. The Big East co-player of the year finished with 13 rebounds but only five points and no blocks, and held a bandage to his hand after the game.

“I’m getting it checked out, but I should be good,” Thabeet said.

A.J. Price added 18 points and was named most outstanding player of the West region. But the difference was Walker, who deftly handled the Tigers’ pressure defense.

“I told him he grew up,” Price said. “He played like a man among boys today.”

When it ended, Calhoun made an exaggerated fist pump and the emotional Huskies (31-4) mobbed each other at center court.

“I can’t lie to you, after the game I actually did cry,” said Walker, who went 7-of-9 from the floor and 9-of-10 from the free throw line.

UConn kept their emotions in check when it counted, though, clinching the victory by making all 10 of their free throws in the final 1:02.

The Huskies are still in the hunt for their third national title – the first two went through regionals in Phoenix in 1999 and 2004.

“We do love coming out here,” Calhoun said with a chuckle. “I’m buying a house. I’ll come out here once every five years.”

While the Huskies are headed for Detroit, the wait goes on for Missouri, which remains one of the top programs never to reach a Final Four.

Leo Lyons and Matt Lawrence each had 13 points for Missouri (31-7), which was long on heart but short on rebounds. UConn dominated the boards 47-32.

“Obviously, I hurt for our guys,” Mizzou coach Mike Anderson said. “I thought I could get them to that magical place. Maybe we just ran out of time, a couple minutes.”

Indeed, the Tigers edged within 68-65 on Justin Stafford’s tip-in with 2:42 to go.

That’s when Walker answered with the shot of the game – an improbable off-balance bank shot as the shot clock clicked toward :00.

“I was turning and turning and turning, and I just kind of threw it up,” Walker said. “It was definitely a big basket. It was a heartbreaker.”

Said Missouri’s J.T. Tiller, “It just described what kind of day it was.”

Stafford scored again, but Price hit a jumper from the lane to push the Huskies’ lead to 72-67, and the Tigers never recovered.

“It does feel like it slipped away,” Lyons said. “That game right there was a game we could have won and should have won.”

The first meeting between the schools featured a clash of styles. The Tigers, who had scored 102 points on Memphis on Thursday night, wanted a track meet. The Huskies wanted a weightlifting contest.

Early on, it was all UConn. The Huskies easily broke Missouri’s pressure defense and built a 13-2 lead before Anderson called timeout three minutes into the game.

The Tigers regrouped, and on the next possession they drew the first foul on Thabeet, who went to the bench.

It was clear the Tigers weren’t going to go away. And for a few moments it looked like they would be headed to Detroit instead of the Huskies.

Keith Ramsey’s layup off a dish from Tiller capped a 9-0 run and gave Missouri its first lead, 50-49, with 13:30 to play in the game.

Sensing the upset, the University of Phoenix Stadium crowd of 18,886 began to roar. Two nights earlier, second-seeded Memphis had wilted in the face of the Tigers’ pressure. But the Huskies are a stouter group, toughened by a winter in the rugged Big East.

“They’ve got some experienced guys that wouldn’t get rattled,” Anderson said.

Villanova 78, Pittsburgh 76

BOSTON – Scottie Reynolds made a half-court dash for the game-winning shot with 0.5 seconds left, leading Villanova over Pittsburgh 78-76 Saturday night and back to the Final Four for the first time since its shocking run to the 1985 championship.

Dwayne Anderson scored 17 points for the third-seeded Wildcats, who responded to Pittsburgh’s physical play by sinking 22 of 23 free throws in the East Regional final.

Villanova (30-7) will play the winner of the South Regional championship between North Carolina and Oklahoma. The Wildcats are the lowest-remaining seed in the NCAA tournament, though not quite as big an underdog as the eighth-seeded ’85 team that was the lowest seed ever to win it all.

Sam Young scored 28 and DeJuan Blair had 20 points and 10 rebounds for Pittsburgh (31-5), the first No. 1 seed to leave the brackets this year.

It was physical. It was defensive. It was ugly.

Just the way they like it in the Big East, which will send a second team to Detroit – with a chance at a third when Louisville plays Michigan State in the Midwest Regional final on Sunday.

With big bodies clogging the lane and 3-pointers clanging off the rim, the teams pushed and shoved their way through the first 35 minutes before they started making baskets and making plays. The lead changed 15 times – six of them in the last six minutes, before Pittsburgh’s Levance Fields hit a pair of free throws with 5.5 seconds left to make it 76-all.

Reggie Redding, who threw the ball away trying a full-court pass on the previous inbounds play, got it to Dante Cunningham this time, and he dished it to Reynolds. The Villanova guard weaved his way into the lane for a falling-down floater in traffic.

The clock expired, and the Wildcats celebrated. But the officials immediately moved to put a half-second back on the clock.

Fields took the inbounds pass and launched a 65-footer that hit the backboard but then bounced harmlessly to the floor.

Villanova coach Jay Wright went first to hug his wife and kids, then made his way to Rollie Massimino to share the moment with the last Wildcats mentor to reach the Final Four. That team beat Georgetown in an affair that was dominated by the Big East – St. John’s also made it – just like this year’s weekend in Detroit promises to be.

Connecticut advanced to the national semifinals earlier Saturday, so it was already certain that at least half of the Final Four would come from the Big East.

Reynolds was picked the most outstanding player of the regional.

Villanova, which beat Pitt back in January, got there in a way that would make the big, bruising Big East proud.

Pittsburgh guard Jermaine Dixon left for most of the second half after landing awkwardly – in the splits – before Villanova’s Shane Clark landed on his left leg.

Blair played the second half blood stains from an unknown victim streaking his shorts. Two Pitt players came over the first-row press table during the game, sending monitors and telephones and a pair of New York sports writers a-skitter.

The Panthers played Steelers-style basketball, but every time they sent Villanova to the line the Wildcats calmly sank them – until Redding missed with a chance to make it a five-point game with 20 seconds left. Blair scored on a layup with 13 seconds to go, and then Redding tried a full-court inbounds pass that Dixon gathered in.

Fields sank two free throws to tie it – the 10th tie of the game.

Villanova held Pitt to one basket in the first 4:59 and opened a 10-3 lead, making it 22-12 midway through the first half before the Panthers scored eight straight. Fields got it started with a 3-pointer, and Blair cut it to two points on a three-point play with just under eight minutes remaining.

Pitt trailed by three with several chances to tie it before Fields stepped back and hit a 3-pointer – the mirror-image of his game-winning shot from the regional semifinal over Xavier – to make it 30-all with 1:50 left in the half. After trading free throws, Young hit a pair with 4 seconds left to give Pittsburgh a 34-32 halftime lead.