For the last quarter century and change, it’s hard to argue against Storrs, Connecticut being the center of the college basketball world.
Since Geno Auriemma led the women’s program to its first national title in 1995 and Jim Calhoun did the same for the men’s program in 1999, UConn has become the gold standard in the sport and has risen from the ranks of relative obscurity to certified blue blood status.
Since Auriemma first cracked the Final Four for the university in 1991, the men’s and women’s programs have made a collective 32 appearances in the national semifinals. The women have done it 25 times to the men’s eight, but you also have to remember that it took Calhoun and the men another eight years to reach the big stage, and when they finally did the Huskies went all the way and upset Duke for the national title in what is still considered the greatest win in program history.
Before the events that transpired against Duke on Sunday, there really wasn’t even a close second. If UConn goes on to complete this improbable run with its third ring in the last four seasons, the Huskies 19-point comeback punctuated by an answered Braylon Mullins prayer in the closing seconds will stand right next to that maiden ‘99 title win as the program’s finest hour.
Perhaps the most absurd statistic to make the rounds online in the hours following both team’s Elite Eight wins is the fact that between both the men’s and women’s programs, UConn has made a Final Four appearance every single season since 2007. And with what Auriemma and Dan Hurley continue to do with their respective groups, it really is hard to imagine that streak ending anytime soon.
Ahead of the Huskies’ record sixth DOUBLE Final Four, let’s take a look at how the teams have fared when achieving this feat in the past.
This is 18th straight year with an NCAA Tournament that UConn has made Final Four in either men’s or women’s tournaments. Last time Huskies missed both was 2007. Since 1995, the Huskies have won 18 combined titles (12 women, 6 men) and made 31 Final Fours (24 women, 7 men). Men…
— Josh Dubow (@JoshDubowAP) March 29, 2026
2004
Five years after upsetting Duke in the ‘99 title game, UConn entered as narrow favorites in a rematch against the Blue Devils in the ‘04 Final Four. Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon and company led UConn to a thrilling 79-78 win in that game, sending the school to its second men’s national title game. In that contest, the Huskies took care of business as predicted against Georgia Tech and cut down the nets for the second time in program history.
For the women, 2004 was business as usual for a program that was now established as the premier outfit in the sport. Senior Diana Taurasi capped off her storied career with a third consecutive national title, beating the legendary Pat Summitt and Tennessee in the consecutive national title games en route to becoming arguably the greatest player in WNBA history.
2009
Arguably the greatest individual team in women’s college basketball history, the loaded 2009 UConn led by Maya Moore, Tina Charles and Renee Montgomery went 39-0 and ran the table in the NCAA Tournament by winning every game in the dance by at least 19 points as they won the first of consecutive titles during their 90-game win streak,
Calhoun led the men to their third Final Four in program history in ’09, parlaying a No. 1 seed in the tournament to a trip to a historically loaded 2009 Final Four in Detroit. The Huskies fell short to national runner-up Michigan State in the semis, but the men and women would reverse fortunes when they made it back together two seasons later.
2011
Cardiac. Kemba. One of the most memorable stories in the history of March was authored by the Bronx native, highlighted by his show-stopping buzzer beater to beat Pittsburgh in the Big East championship and ending with the Huskies cutting down national championship nets for the third and final time in the formative Calhoun era after beating Butler. Despite losing four of their final five regular season games, the Huskies won five games in five days at the Big East tournament before going all the way in the NCAAs to reach college hoops immortality.
While 2011 brought another Final Four appearance for the women, it also brought disappointment. With senior Moore and junior Tiffany Hayes leading the way, a national championship was again the expectation. However, an upset loss to Skylar Diggins and Notre Dame in the semis ended Moore’s legendary run in Storrs on a sour note.
2014
Shabazz Napier did his best Kemba Walker impression to lead the Huskies on their improbable 2014 national title run as a No. 7 seed, and that was even more absurd than the 2011 run all things considered. An overtime win over St. Joe’s in the first round got the ball rolling, before upset wins over No. 2 Villanova, No. 3 Iowa State and No. 4 Michigan State sent UConn to the Final Four at Jerry World in Dallas. Once the Huskies got there, they downed No. 1 seed Florida before dispatching No. 8 seed Kentucky in the national title game.
2014 was the prime of the Breanna Stewart dynasty on the women’s side, as the sophomore superstar led the Huskies to their second of four national titles during her four-year career with the school with a perfect 40-0 record (part of the school’s record 111-game win streak). That team also won every single game by double-digits and only had two games end within a margin of 20 points.
2024
The men’s program finally got to see what it was like to repeat after watching Auriemma and the women’s program do it habitually over the last 35 years, and they did it just like the women’s team typically does, with true wire-to-wire dominance from October to April. The Huskies finished with a 36-3 record and won all of their NCAA Tournament games by at least 14 points en route to the most dominant title run in over a decade.
The 2024 Final Four didn’t go so well for Paige Bueckers and the women’s team. The lasting image of the Huskies’ highly anticipated loss to Caitlin Clark and Iowa in the semis is Clark giving Bueckers a stone-cold glaze after essentially sealing the game by throwing the ball off Buckers turned back on an inbounds play.
Will History Repeat Itself?
Perhaps it’s a good, even great omen that the men’s program has won the national title four of the five times it has appeared alongside the women’s program in the Final Four during the same season. It’s also probably not so good that the women haven’t been the more dominant ones in this scenario, especially when you consider that they have been the more historically dominant program by far overall despite how far the men’s program is also ahead of its peers. The women head to Phoenix as decisive favorites, while the men head to Indy with the worst odds of the four, so it will take a surprise on either end for the trend to continue this weekend.
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