UConn Huskies head coach Dan Hurley celebrates. Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images I’m going to take a seven-game win streak into the offseason — or wonder why the hell I bet against the team I picked to win the national championship before the NCAA Tournament.
The Wolverines are the better team. They are the best team in the country. Their blowout win over Arizona emphatically reminded everyone that no one can touch their ceiling.
Still, believing you’re the better team can be even more important.
Outside of a matchup with the Oklahoma City Thunder, UConn could step on any court, having been convinced by Dan Hurley that it will leave the floor the winner.
The Huskies coach didn’t have any trouble preparing his loaded teams during their dominant tournament runs in 2023-24 and motivation has only become easier this year as underdogs against Duke and Illinois, previously manhandled by St. John’s in the Big East Tournament.
If UConn wins, it would be the biggest title game upset since the Huskies stunned Duke in the 1999 national championship. And it would again be unwise to count out UConn, led by the coach with the second-best win percentage in NCAA Tournament history, who could become the first coach since John Wooden to win three titles in a four-year span.
Braylon Mullins #24 of the UConn Huskies reacts while playing against the Illinois Fighting Illini during the second half in the Final Four of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Patrick Smith/Getty Images The Huskies are also on an all-time heater, covering the spread in 18 of 19 NCAA Tournament games since 2024. Their only tournament defeat since 2022 was a two-point loss to last year’s eventual national champion (Florida).
You may be understandably reluctant to go against the best team in the country, coming off its best game of the season, but we won’t see that version of the Wolverines again.
Michigan has scored at least 90 points in every game of this tournament, but now faces a physical, top-10 defense that has slowed some of the nation’s best offenses (Arizona, Duke, Florida, Illinois), held its own against superior rebounding teams in the tournament and limited its past four opponents to 63.5 points per game.
Michigan has also recently struggled against similarly slow-paced teams — losing to Duke and Purdue — and can’t be sure what it will get from star Yaxel Lendeborg, who will attempt to play through an MCL sprain and ankle sprain, but could be limited after the adrenaline of the semifinal faded, a la Isiah Thomas in Game 7 of the 1988 NBA Finals.
The Wolverines have won their five tournament games by an average of 21.6 points, but do you really expect UConn to go down without a fight? And can you be confident in Michigan’s response to such pressure if the game is close? We already know how the Huskies will handle it.
We know that Hurley will prepare his team better than any other coach in the country could. We should know better than to doubt UConn by now — at least to cover.
Howie Kussoy has long been the New York Post’s main handicapper in college basketball (since 2011) and college football (since 2013).
