When was the last time UConn made the Final Four?
After handling Arkansas, Connecticut is off to the Elite Eight and looks like the most dangerous team left in the Dance. While UConn looks ahead to their next game, let’s look back to the last time they made the Final Four.
Remember that viral TikTok trend, set to Quavo’s ‘Flip the Switch,’ where people would (quite literally) flip the light switch off, then on, and look completely different?
The Connecticut Huskies’ 2022 season is a lot like that. Especially entering the NCAA Tournament.
UConn opened the season unranked in both preseason polls. After eight weeks of the season, thanks to a 13-0 start, the Huskies reached as high as No. 2 in the polls, before going 2-6 in their next eight games. By the end of the regular season, UConn had righted the ship by winning five straight, only to lose in the Big East championship game to Marquette.
Since the start of the NCAA Tournament, however, UConn looks more like the dominant, 13-game win streak Huskies we saw early in the season. And therein lies the beauty of the Big Dance; rarely is the regular season a good gauge of how far a team will go. Duke entered on a nine-game win streak, only to lose to a short-handed Tennessee team. Fairleigh Dickinson didn’t even win the NEC, played in the First Four and still beat one-seed Purdue.
You get my point.
No game underscores just how tough it is to beat this UConn team than Thursday night’s thrashing of Arkansas. The Razorbacks, fresh off one of the greatest comebacks in tournament history, were never in the game. UConn led wire-to-wire, blitzing Arkansas by shooting 10-of-16 from the field in the first 10 minutes. They held the ‘Hogs to their worst shooting percentage of the season and out-rebounded them by 12.
A Sin City showdown with Gonzaga awaits the four-seed Huskies Saturday night in Las Vegas. Already off to their deepest tournament run in almost a decade, a win over the ‘Zags would put Dan Hurley’s group into the Final Four.
Flashback Friday: The last time UConn made the Final Four
Connecticut is no stranger to the Final Four, even if it has been a while since they’ve been there. Each of UConn’s last three postseason trips has ended in the second round or earlier. In fact, the last time the Huskies advanced all the way to the Final Four was the year they won it all — 2014.
Kevin Ollie, not Dan Hurley, roamed the sidelines that year. After being frozen out of the tournament the year prior due to low APR scores, UConn came back with a vengeance.
Despite losing to Louisville in the American Athletic Conference championship game, the Huskies earned an at-large berth to the Big Dance thanks to a third-place finish in the AAC and a non-conference win over #9 Florida.
Ollie’s Huskies marched through March, defeating 10-seed Saint Joseph’s before upsetting three straight higher seeds: No. 2 seed Villanova, No. 3 seed Iowa State and No. 4 seed Michigan State. That trio of victories propelled UConn to the Final Four, the first No. 7 seed to reach the national semifinals since the tournament expanded in 1985.
UConn went on to beat Florida, again, before defeating No. 8 seed Kentucky, the lowest-combined seeding in a National Championship game in NCAA history, to win the program’s fourth NCAA title.
Of course, Ollie would be sacked four years later thanks to “failure to monitor” charges and Level I NCAA violations, but he still stamped his name in Huskies history thanks to his team’s improbable run to a title that season. In addition to it being the program’s fourth National Title, it was their fifth trip to the Final Four in school history. They have yet to return since.
This season, Hurley’s group has a chance to reach the penultimate round for the first time since winning it all in 2014. While it wouldn’t be nearly as improbable of a run, it still would be considered unlikely; according to NCAA.com, only 31.2 percent of all brackets picked the Huskies to go this far.
A quick side note: both UConn’s men’s AND women’s basketball teams reached the Sweet Sixteen this season. If the Huskies women beat Ohio State Saturday, it keeps the school’s dream of sweeping the DI basketball national titles alive. That feat has only happened twice in NCAA history — 2004 and 2014, both times by the same school. That school?
The University of Connecticut.
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