UConn won its first national championship in 1999. They now have won five national championships and they’re the favorite to win a six national championship tonight. Indiana has won five national championships and they’ve had eight final four appearances. Tonight is UConn‘s eighth final four appearance. They have six of their seven final four appearances.
Last year they lost 75% of their offense to the pros. And they’re better this year. They did not rebuild - they reloaded. And they’ve done this with three different coaches. I graduated from UConn in 1978. At that point they were never a top 20 program. And they had zero national recognition. They played in a field house on campus with rollout bleachers and a packed home game was 3000 fans. With the benefit of hindsight, Jim Calhoun might be the most successful and influential college coach since John Wooden.
UConn’s 7‘2“ center is only a sophomore and he would’ve been a first round draft pick last year while coming off the bench but obviously is having a great time in college. I can see him getting a multi million dollar NIL deal next year to come back for his junior season. And he would have much more fun time being big man on campus again rather than sitting on the end of the bench in the NBA.
The reality is that the Huskies have, for the time being, left the Hoosiers in the dust. if they beat Purdue tonight where does that put their program relative to Duke and North Carolina? How about Kentucky? UCLA can wallow in mediocrity for another decade and still be considered a blue blood program.
One thing for certain is that tonight‘s game between Purdue and the University of Connecticut has the potential to be legendary.
