Why UConn men’s basketball can (and can’t) win their seventh national title

Thanks to a legendary shot from Braylon Mullins, UConn men’s basketball is heading to their eighth Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis. It’s the team’s third Final Four in the last four years, meaning the Huskies have a shot at three national titles in that same span.

But unlike 2023 and 2024, UConn is far from a favorite to cut down the nets in Indy. The Huskies are underdogs in their Final Four matchup against Illinois and have the lowest national title odds out of any team left standing. Of course, UConn was also dead in the water against Duke until they weren’t. All four teams left standing in Indianapolis could easily win the national championship, and the Huskies will need to run that gauntlet in order to secure their seventh title.

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Here’s two reasons why UConn can win it all once again, and a few reasons why they can’t.

Why UConn can win the national championship

Championship DNA

It sounds corny, but it does matter a lot that UConn has so many guys that have done this before. Alex Karaban has won more NCAA tournament games than just about anybody. Solo Ball, Jaylin Stewart and Jayden Ross have been to the Final Four before and logged minutes. And then there’s Dan Hurley, maybe the best coach in the sport, who has coached the Huskies to back-to-back titles. Following UConn’s epic comeback against Duke, Hurley mentioned that the team’s winning culture allowed them to stay composed and chip away at what felt like an impossible task.

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“It takes strong men. It takes a strong team. It takes a tough team. It takes strong men. It takes a bunch of players that let us coach them, let us coach them hard. That starts in June. We run a very intense program,” Hurley said after the Duke game.

“We put a lot of pressure on them on a daily basis to do the right things, to do everything at game speed, to do everything hard, to do everything tough, to be prepared because that’s what it takes to win games like this or to stay in a game…

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Publish date : 2026-04-02 15:01:00

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