For the final quarter century and alter, it’s laborious to argue towards Storrs, Connecticut being the middle of the faculty basketball world.
Since Geno Auriemma led the ladies’s program to its first nationwide title in 1995 and Jim Calhoun did the identical for the boys’s program in 1999, UConn has change into the gold commonplace within the sport and has risen from the ranks of relative obscurity to licensed blue blood standing.
Since Auriemma first cracked the Ultimate 4 for the college in 1991, the boys’s and ladies’s applications have made a collective 32 appearances within the nationwide semifinals. The ladies have executed it 25 instances to the boys’s eight, however you additionally should do not forget that it took Calhoun and the boys one other eight years to succeed in the large stage, and after they lastly did the Huskies went all the way in which and upset Duke for the nationwide title in what continues to be thought of the best win in program historical past.
Earlier than the occasions that transpired towards Duke on Sunday, there actually wasn’t even a detailed second. If UConn goes on to finish this unbelievable run with its third ring within the final 4 seasons, the Huskies 19-point comeback punctuated by an answered Braylon Mullins prayer within the closing seconds will stand proper subsequent to that maiden ‘99 title win as this system’s best hour.
Maybe essentially the most absurd statistic to make the rounds on-line within the hours following each group’s Elite Eight wins is the truth that between each the boys’s and ladies’s applications, UConn has made a Ultimate 4 look each single season since 2007. And with what Auriemma and Dan Hurley proceed to do with their respective teams, it actually is difficult to think about that streak ending anytime quickly.
Forward of the Huskies’ report sixth DOUBLE Ultimate 4, let’s check out how the groups have fared when attaining this feat prior to now.
That is 18th straight 12 months with an NCAA Match that UConn has made Ultimate 4 in both males’s or girls’s tournaments. Final time Huskies missed each was 2007. Since 1995, the Huskies have received 18 mixed titles (12 girls, 6 males) and made 31 Ultimate Fours (24 girls, 7 males). Males…
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) March 29, 2026
2004
5 years after upsetting Duke within the ‘99 title recreation, UConn entered as slim favorites in a rematch towards the Blue Devils within the ‘04 Ultimate 4. Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon and firm led UConn to an exciting 79-78 win in that recreation, sending the college to its second males’s nationwide title recreation. In that contest, the Huskies took care of enterprise as predicted towards Georgia Tech and minimize down the nets for the second time in program historical past.
For the ladies, 2004 was enterprise as typical for a program that was now established because the premier outfit within the sport. Senior Diana Taurasi capped off her storied profession with a 3rd consecutive nationwide title, beating the legendary Pat Summitt and Tennessee within the consecutive nationwide title video games en path to turning into arguably the best participant in WNBA historical past,
2011
Cardiac. Kemba. Probably the most memorable tales within the historical past of March was authored by the Bronx native, highlighted by his show-stopping buzzer beater to beat Pittsburgh within the Massive East championship and ending with the Huskies slicing down nationwide championship nets for the third and last time within the formative Calhoun period after beating Butler. Regardless of dropping 4 of their last 5 common season video games, the Huskies received 5 video games in 5 days on the Massive East event earlier than going all the way in which within the NCAAs to succeed in faculty hoops immortality.
Whereas 2011 introduced one other Ultimate 4 look for the ladies, it additionally introduced disappointment. With senior Maya Moore and junior Tiffany Hayes main the way in which, a nationwide championship was once more the expectation. Nonetheless, an upset loss to Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame within the semis ended Moore’s legendary run in Storrs on a bitter word.
2014
Shabazz Napier did his greatest Kemba Walker impression to steer the Huskies on their unbelievable 2014 nationwide title run as a No. 7 seed, and that was much more absurd than the 2011 run all issues thought of. An time beyond regulation win over St. Joe’s within the first spherical obtained the ball rolling, earlier than upset wins over No. 2 Villanova, No. 3 Iowa State and No. 4 Michigan State despatched UConn to the Ultimate 4 at Jerry World in Dallas. As soon as the Huskies obtained there, they downed No. 1 seed Florida earlier than dispatching No. 8 seed Kentucky within the nationwide title recreation.
2014 was the prime of the Breanna Stewart dynasty on the ladies’s aspect, because the sophomore celebrity led the Huskies to their second of 4 nationwide titles throughout her four-year profession with the college with an ideal 40-0 report (a part of the college’s report 111-game win streak). That group additionally received each single recreation by double-digits and solely had two video games finish inside a margin of 20 factors.
2024
The lads’s program lastly obtained to see what it was wish to repeat after watching Auriemma and the ladies’s program do it habitually during the last 35 years, they usually did it identical to the ladies’s group usually does, with true wire-to-wire dominance from October to April. The Huskies completed with a 36-3 report and received all of their NCAA Match video games by at the very least 14 factors en path to essentially the most dominant title run in over a decade.
The 2024 Ultimate 4 didn’t go so properly for Paige Bueckers and the ladies’s group. The lasting picture of the Huskies’ extremely anticipated loss to Caitlin Clark and Iowa within the semis is Clark giving Bueckers a stone-cold glaze after primarily sealing the sport by throwing the ball off Buckers turned again on an inbounds play.
Will Historical past Repeat Itself?
Maybe it’s an excellent, even nice omen that the boys’s program has received the nationwide title all 5 instances it has appeared alongside the ladies’s program within the Ultimate 4 throughout the identical season. It’s additionally in all probability not so good that the ladies have solely received it twice on this precise situation, particularly when you think about that they have been the extra traditionally dominant program by far regardless of how far the boys’s program can be forward of its friends. The ladies head to Phoenix as decisive favorites, whereas the boys head to Indy with the worst odds of the 4, so it would take a shock on both finish for the development to proceed this weekend.
