SAN ANTONIO — Connecticut and Michigan booked the final stage of the men’s NCAA Tournament on Saturday night at the Alamodome, with the Huskies grinding out a methodical win over Tennessee in the early game and the Wolverines stunning overall No. 1 seed Duke in a back-and-forth nightcap that ended in the third major upset of the bracket.

The Huskies’ 74-63 victory over the Volunteers, controlled almost wire-to-wire, was the kind of disciplined performance head coach Dan Hurley has built the program around. Michigan’s 81-78 win over the Blue Devils was the opposite — a frenetic, foul-heavy slugfest decided by a contested baseline jumper from guard Tre Donaldson with 4.2 seconds remaining and a missed three at the buzzer by Duke freshman Cooper Flagg.

“We came here to win two games, not one,” Hurley said in the postgame news conference, standing in front of a Final Four backdrop with his sleeves rolled up. “Monday is the only thing that matters now.”

UConn, the No. 2 seed in the East, used a 14-2 run bridging the end of the first half and start of the second to pull away from Tennessee, which had ridden a veteran backcourt and the nation’s top-rated defense through the bracket. Huskies forward Solo Ball led all scorers with 22 points and added eight rebounds, while sophomore guard Stephon Castle added 18 points, six assists and the kind of two-way shift that has made him the talk of NBA scouts in the building.

Tennessee head coach Rick Barnes praised his seniors and conceded that UConn “made winning plays in winning moments,” but the Volunteers shot just 4-of-22 from beyond the arc and were outscored 38-22 in the paint. “We knew they were physical,” Tennessee guard Zakai Zeigler said. “They were more physical.”

The late game delivered the drama. Duke, which entered as a near-unanimous favorite to cut down the nets and had not trailed by more than five points in any of its first four tournament games, found itself behind for most of the second half against a Wolverines team that played its third overtime-tight game of the bracket. Michigan center Vladislav Goldin scored 19 points and pulled down 12 rebounds, repeatedly punishing Duke’s smaller frontcourt on second-chance possessions. Donaldson finished with 21 points, including 4-of-7 from three.

Flagg, the projected top pick in this summer’s NBA draft, was brilliant in spurts — 28 points, nine rebounds, four assists — but went 2-of-9 from three and was hounded all night by Michigan defensive specialist Nimari Burnett. Duke head coach Jon Scheyer called Burnett’s effort “as good a job as anyone has done on Coop all year.”

The decisive sequence began with Michigan trailing 78-77 and 38 seconds on the clock. After Duke guard Tyrese Proctor missed the front end of a one-and-one, Michigan ran a delayed ball-screen action that ended with Donaldson rising over Flagg from the left baseline. The shot kissed off the glass and dropped through cleanly. Duke called timeout, drew up a lob set for Flagg curling off a double, and got a clean look at a 25-footer that rimmed out.

“He had the best shot we could’ve drawn up,” Scheyer said. “Sometimes it doesn’t go.”

Michigan head coach Dusty May, in his second year in Ann Arbor after taking over a program that had been to the second round just once in five seasons, struck a measured tone afterward. “We respect the heck out of Duke. We respect the heck out of UConn. We have one day to recover and prepare for the best program in college basketball over the last five years. That’s the assignment.”

The Wolverines, a No. 4 seed, have now beaten Auburn, Houston and Duke on consecutive weekends. Their path to the title game has been the most demanding of any team in the field, and the back-to-back games against No. 1 seeds left several players visibly limping in the postgame handshake line. Goldin, who logged 38 minutes, declined to comment on a knee that was wrapped in ice as he left the floor.

The championship will be the first between Connecticut and Michigan since the 2013 Final Four semifinal that the Wolverines won en route to the title game, and the first national championship matchup between the two programs. UConn is seeking a third title in four years, a stretch that would put Hurley’s program in conversation with John Wooden-era UCLA and the Mike Krzyzewski Duke teams of the early 1990s.

CBS reported that ticket prices on the secondary market for Monday’s championship spiked nearly 40% within an hour of the final buzzer, with get-in prices crossing $900. The Alamodome listed attendance for Saturday at 68,212, a Final Four record for the venue.

For Duke, the loss caps a season that had carried genuine expectations of cutting down nets. Flagg, asked whether he planned to declare for the NBA draft, said he would “talk it over with my family” before making any announcement. Scheyer, fighting back emotion at the podium, called this group “as connected a team as I’ve ever coached” and said the result “won’t define them.”

Tipoff for the title game is scheduled for 8:50 p.m. Central on Monday. CBS analysts and oddsmakers were already lining up for the inevitable matchup chatter; the early betting line had UConn favored by 2.5 points. Both coaches said they would hold short practices on Sunday before final walkthroughs Monday morning.