INDIANAPOLIS — Either way, history will be made Monday night inside Lucas Oil Stadium.
If Connecticut pulls the upset as a 7-point underdog, Dan Hurley’s Huskies will become the first program to win three national championships in a four-year span since John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins from 1972-75.
If Michigan prevails, as most experts expect, the Wolverines will become the first Big Ten school to cut down the nets since Michigan State in 2000, and could argue they belong among the most dominant teams this century.
“There’s been plenty of times in the history of this tournament where the best team hasn’t won it,” coach Dan Hurley said. “You’ve just got to be better for one night. The good thing for us, it’s not a seven-game series.”
It is a fascinating matchup, the best team against the best program, pitting the transfer portal (Michigan) against high school recruiting and internal development (Connecticut). The Wolverines (36-3) boat-raced fellow No. 1 seed Arizona on Saturday night, despite star forward Yaxel Lendeborg logging just 14 minutes after suffering a sprained ankle and knee in the first half. They have hardly had to sweat in the tournament, winning their five games by an average of 21.6 points to reach the title game for the first time since 2018. The team that owned the largest margin of victory in tournament history? UConn in 2024, by 23.3 points. There is pressure that comes with that, an expectation to win it all.
“We’ve talked about that. We have a team that we think is elite,” Wolverines coach Dusty May said. “But we also know that once the ball is tipped, that means nothing. You still have to do all the things that got you to this point, and you have to weather storms.”
This group of Huskies (34-5) lacks Michigan’s dominance, size and two-way prowess as one of two teams ranked in the top five in offensive (four) and defensive (one) efficiency. They weren’t expected to get this far. They failed to win both the Big East regular-season and postseason titles, falling short to St. John’s. They needed a big rally from 19 points down to take out Duke, the overall No. 1 seed, and entered the Final Four with the worst odds to be the last team standing.
Yet, UConn reached the final night of the season despite it all, emerging from the loaded East Region and locking up Illinois’ high-powered offense in the national semifinals despite shooting 35 percent from the field.
“We’re not going to get away with that on Monday night,” Hurley cautioned. “We’ve got to have a really good night shooting the ball on Monday.”
There is an impossible-to-kill quality to the Huskies. You have to drive a stake through their heart. Even in a down season last year, they nearly knocked off the eventual national champions in the second round. UConn is 18-1 in the last four NCAA Tournaments and it has never lost a national championship game in six appearances.
Monday night feels somewhat similar to 1999, the year Connecticut won its first title. Duke was supposed to be unbeatable, a stacked team that featured Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Trajan Langdon and Corey Maggette. The Blue Devils entered the night 37-1. They were 9.5-point favorites. UConn pulled off the shocker.
That was the last champion that was as big an underdog as the Big East school is Monday.
Can history repeat itself? Connecticut will enter this showdown convinced it can win.
“You’ve seen what UConn has been able to do, not only in ’99, but in ’11 and ’14, probably years where they weren’t expected to win and they’ve done it,” Alex Karaban, the Huskies’ senior leader and two-time national champion, said. “It’s something special when you wear the UConn jersey. You get a little bit of magic, it feels like.”
