What a championship would mean to UConn men’s basketball

UConn has rolled into the Final Four with some of the biggest winning margins of the entire tournament. They are the only program in this year’s Final Four that has been to the Final Four in previous years. The Huskies have reached the final weekend of the tournament six times now, going back to 1999 and most recently going in 2014. They have won the national championship four of the five previous times that they reached the Final Four.

While a national championship would be a redefining moment for the other three schools in the Final Four — making Miami lean into basketball, putting FAU on the map as a contender, and pushing SDSU into the Power Five — UConn may not gain as much. It would give head coach Danny Hurley some extra room for error in the coming years, if that should befall the program. Hurley has been with the Huskies since 2018.

UConn is arguably more known for its women’s basketball program than for it’s men’s side. This is the first time since 1999 that the men’s program reached the Final Four and the women’s did not — while the women were dominating their sport, the men had not even gone past the second round of the tournament since 2014. This places UConn back into the men’s basketball conversation in the Big East, a conference that looked extremely impressive this year, sending three teams to the Sweet Sixteen.

The Huskies are favored to win it all at the moment, set at -125 at DraftKings Sportsbook. Can they make it back to glory after nearly a decade? We’ll find out this weekend.