Records do not lie:
Their first title was in 1999. They won another five after and are in the final again this season.
What makes them the undisputed best team in the last 25 years? Their success is truly remarkable.
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Simple answer, recruiting and coaching.
Same for UCLA BB in the 60s - 70s.
Same for Notre Dame football during the Knute Rockne era and the Nick Saban Bama era.
Same for Dave Williams UH golf championships from 50s - 80s era.
Now, the formula has changed to include NIL.
It’s a lot of different reasons. You look at their tournament history, and that comeback against Duke last weekend was kind of a rarity. They don’t usually have dramatic comebacks or buzzer-beating wins.
Generally speaking, their first championship in ‘99 puts them on the map with an upset over Duke in the championship. With Okafor in 2004, they seemed destined for the title.
I was a close observer of the 2011 Final Four run led by Kemba Walker. After going 9-9 in conference play, Walker put the team on his back and refused to lose starting from the conference tournament. One of the star freshmen on that team, Shabazz Napier, was there for the subsequent postseason ban, and wins it again as a senior in 2014.
They’ve had some incredible luck with their leadership too. It really was a relatively short period that their basketball team was down under Kevin Ollie, and he still managed to win a title before it went south. He’s never going to be the sports world’s favorite personality, but Dan Hurley is about as good of a coaching hire that could have been made.
There may be 300 schools that wish they were Houston, but I’m awfully jealous of UConn’s bounces in March and April.
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UConn women have 12 National Titles and their Men have 6.
UConn has 18 National Titles in Basketball !
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UConn won all of their championships in the modern era with the shot clock and 3 point line.
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True and it always comes back to great coaching. True to the extent of NIL. They have won before and after. This is truly remarkable.
Other facts that are truly astonishing:
They have won more title than Duke and Indiana!!!
They have won as many titles as North Carolina!!!
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If UConn beats Michigan for The Natty then we have to concede that they have an Alltime great program and that Hurley is an Alltime great coach.
Facts are facts.
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Phi slamma would have won a national championship if there was a shot clock back then. NC State held the ball and slowed the game down to their advantage.
If Ifs and Buts were candy & nuts we’d all have a merry Christmas…
-random football coach
SICK of hearing about UCONN…I will never cheer for them, not ever. They never scared Houston, we were 8-4 against them, including a couple of wins over teams that won a natty.
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To the victor goes the spoils…
Booby Hurley come from elite basketball family and coaching his father SR has 26 New Jersey State H.S titles to his resume 28 if you count his Assistant Coaching titles.Then his brother.at Duke. Hurley is totally obsessed with winning and continuing the legacy
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Coach Lewis held the ball after UH came out and dominated the first part of the 2nd half
In 1983 our Cougars lead NC State 52-45.
Then never scored again.
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I’ve been to UCONN - isolated and hard to get to - how they get top talent to attend there is amazing lol
UConn devotes all their efforts and resources into their basketball team.
They have resources/NIL and they don’t pretend to even care about football.
Dukes similar but they rely too much on freshman 5 stars…
UConn always got experienced players.
Michigan has money so they are good at everything….
Saw an video where they mentioned that you need to have billionaires lol to compete in college supports now…
Luckily, we do…
Same as last year since Duke was in the final four. This year UConn is the only blue blood remaining.