Hartford — March's Magicians strike again.

In their latest trick, the UConn Huskies basically came back from a near death experience, springing to life to stage an unlikely comeback that resulted in a stunning 47-42 victory over second-seeded Tulsa in the semifinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament Saturday.

UConn returns to the AAC title game for the second straight year and will face No. 1 SMU (26-6), which serves as the final roadblock to an automatic NCAA bid for the sixth-seeded Huskies (20-13), who will attempt to win their fourth game in four days.

"I'm kind of at a loss for words," coach Kevin Ollie said. "But one word that comes to mind is heart. And these guys just played with heart."

Despite enduring some brutal offensive stretches, they never stopped believing that Saturday's game belonged to them. A determined defense applied a death grip, holding the Golden Hurricane (22-10) to just one field goal in the last six and a half minutes and 29.6 percent overall.

"We all felt we just couldn't lose the game," junior Phil Nolan said. "We all just decided to lock down on defense and play as hard as we can."

Still, heading into a timeout with three minutes, 41 seconds remaining, things looked bleak for the Huskies. The deficit would soon grow to eight.

"Everybody looked at each other and said we still believe and we've got a will to win and they just dug in," Ollie said.

The Huskies responded with a gigantic push, shaking off the fatigue that threatened to overtake them. Feeding off a vocal XL Center crowd of 10,114, they finished the game with a remarkable 14-1 spurt.

Sophomore Rodney Purvis (11 points) scored the go-ahead basket on a corner jumper with 46.7 seconds left. Shot-blocking center Amida Brimah got a piece of Shaquille Harrison's driving shot and Boatright, who had a game-high 21 points, iced the win by sinking four free throws in the final 11.5 seconds.

For the second straight game, UConn overcame a halftime deficit to win, something that it did just six times during the regular season.

But this is not the regular season. Something about postseason brings out the beast in a program that thrives in these pressure-packed elimination situations.

"It's a scenario where we lose and we don't get a bid," Ollie said. "We feel not the pressure but we feel the opportunity. When I've got soldiers like this beside me, we can't lose."

It certainly appeared UConn was headed down the path to defeat for the first futile 34 minutes. The Huskies struggled to make any type of shot. They failed to cut down a 7-point deficit when the Golden Hurricane went scoreless for almost six and a half minutes in the second half.

But they kept the faith.

"Eventually, the ball had to go in," Purvis said.

The deficit grew to 10 (38-28) with 6:36 remaining. It was all UConn after that. After scoring just 28 points in the first 33:40, the Huskies piled up 19 in the final 6:20.

It was a remarkable turnaround.

As he did in Friday's dramatic quarterfinal win over Cincinnati, freshman Daniel Hamilton authored one of the game's biggest shots, sinking a 3-pointer from the corner with 2:34 remaining to slice the gap to 41-38. He had missed his previous eight field goal attempts, but grabbed a game-high 12 rebounds and added five assists.

"I just had to stay in the game," Hamilton said. "It was bigger than me not making shots. It was for the team and for the win. That was the most important thing. We just had mental toughness out there tonight."

During the postgame press conference, Ollie became emotional when talking about Hamilton, who played with a heavy heart. Hamilton's grandmother, Lucine Noble, recently passed away.

"I've just been thinking about it at night the most," Hamilton said. "It's kind of tough but something I have to get through."

The plan is for Hamilton to go home to Los Angeles on Monday.

"That young man has been through a lot the last week," a choked up Ollie said. "We love him and we want him to get on that plane and bury his grandmother with a championship. We're going to keep fighting."

The coaching staff had a long night ahead of them to prepare for today's championship game (3:15 p.m., ESPN). The two teams split the regular season series, each winning at home. SMU beat fourth-seeded Temple, 69-56, in Saturday's first semifinal.

"They're the best team in our league,"Ollie said. "There's no better way than to go through the best, and that's what we're going to have to go through to win a championship."

g.keefe@theday.com

Twitter; @GavinKeefe