Locklear
The UConn Huskies defeated the San Diego State Aztecs 76-59 to claim the title of national champions on Monday; their fifth all-time.
UConn has been to six national championship games, walking away with five wins. This win gives UConn another victory in a new decade, with the team taking home one tournament in 1999, 3 tournaments in the 2010s, and now a tournament in the 2020s.
UConn has now been an established program for years and also a proven program that knows how to win basketball at the collegiate level.
However, it still seems as if UConn is still considered an ‘underdog.’ In some cases, it feels as if the Huskies (at least on the men’s side) are a program that many don’t talk about much, or don’t look into often because it doesn’t carry the name of a Duke Blue Devils, North Carolina Tar Heels, Kentucky, Kansas, etc.
It seems that just when everyone counts UConn out as being an elite program, they find a way to make themselves champs, raising everyone’s eyebrows. This team could now be poised for a repeat, as the incoming recruiting class has three players ranked inside the ESPN top 100.
ESPN talk show host Stephen A. Smith believes that UConn has one of the better chances at repeating next year, elevating themselves once more into the conversation of an elite basketball school.
“The reality is how they play, they’re going to play big boy basketball… it is tough (to overcome this team) in order to do that, you got to have somebody incredibly special and elite who can offset that… I think they are destined, they should be the favorites to repeat,” Smith said.
Only next season will tell, but if the current situation is a pre cursor, it looks like UConn is in good hands to go after their sixth title.