Michigan is 40 minutes away from a National Championship, but must beat the tournament’s toughest out: the UConn Huskies.
UConn is on a 19-game winning streak in the second weekend or later in the NCAA Tournament. Yes, that’s 19 games. When the Huskies make the Sweet Sixteen, they’ve won the National Championship: 2011, 2014, 2023, and 2024. It’s a streak that embodies modern college basketball as much as the Big Ten’s lengthy title drought since 2000.
On Monday night (8:49 p.m., TBS), Michigan can flip the script on both narratives.
It’s hard to argue with the run of success that Dan Hurley is on at UConn. He’s now 20-5 in the NCAA Tournament and is playing on Monday for the third time in four years, after winning back-to-back titles in 2023 and 2024. Say what you want about his sideline antics, but the man knows how to win basketball games in this tournament.
The Huskies enter this game ranked 9th on KenPom — 27th in offensive efficiency and 8th in defensive efficiency. They had big non-conference wins over Florida, Illinois, and Kansas and are 34-5, but spent most of the year in that next tier on KenPom, usually ranked in the 7-12 range, in part because the Big East just wasn’t at the same level as other top leagues.
With a tournament path over Furman, UCLA, Michigan State, Duke, and Illinois, there’s no question that the Huskies earned their spot on Monday night, and also proved they might have been a pretty good Big Ten team as well.
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