Dan Hurley has UConn back in the national title game, and one win away from a legitimate sports dynasty

UConn shouldn't have been an underdog against Illinois. What Hurley has done is one of the most incredible coaching jobs in any sport this century

Matt Norlander

Apr 4, 2026

11:52 pm ET

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6 min read

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INDIANAPOLIS — Dan Hurley may well be inevitable.

The best coach in college basketball conducted Connecticut to a 71-62 crunching of Illinois in the national semifinals on Saturday, sending the Huskies to their seventh national title game. It's both familiar and favorable territory for the program. UConn has never lost on the final night of the season; it's 6-0 in previous trips, including the past two in 2023 and 2024 under Hurley's colorful command.

No one should be remotely surprised that this team is headed back for another Monday night April opportunity.

This is Connecticut in the tournament under Hurley. Yet at the same time, what's happening here is beyond remarkable. It's unprecedented in the modern era of the tournament and may well prove unrepeatable for the next few generations.

For those keeping track at home, UConn is 18-1 in its last 19 NCAA Tournament games. The lone loss came in a thriller by two points last year against eventual champion Florida. Hurley's still yet to experience a loss in the Sweet 16 or later, boasting an 11-0 record from that stage and beyond. In national semifinals and title games, UConn has trailed for a total of 13:39 out of 200 minutes since 2023.

Borderline fictional.

A quick reset on where we're at with the best men's program of the past 30 years: Connecticut's blue blood status was firmed up for good with its dominant 2023 title run and fifth NCAA crown. Hurley's status as a Hall of Famer was then clinched with an even better team that snagged a second straight national championship the next year in Phoenix, in 2024.

But three natties in four seasons?

If Hurley can scheme-and-scream up this team to win just one more game, a third national title in four years would validate outright dynasty status in American sports, not just college basketball. Especially when factoring in the opponent that awaits — Michigan, which mowed down Arizona in a stunning letdown of a semifinal — one more UConn conquest would cap off one of the greatest team and coaching accomplishments in any sport this century. This kind of thing is not supposed to happen anymore in men's college basketball. Not in this era, the one before it and even the one further back than that.

We haven't seen a school win three out of four since John Wooden was ruling the sport during a much different age at UCLA in the 1970s. Back when the tournament didn't have automatic bids and was far fewer than 68 or 64 teams and wasn't nearly as spread out with talent the way things are in the 21st century.

Force of personality has always played a prominent role in college athletics and in the success that can often come with it. Hurley's as much an embodiment of that sentiment as perhaps any coach ever. He's 199-74 at Connecticut, the 199th win on Saturday hardly being a work of art. But Hurley has always been way more Jackson Pollock than Pablo Picasso. He and his staff will throw everything at the canvas; that tapestry of sets and Xs and Os can be as beautiful as it is unpredictable.

Illinois, which entered this Final Four as the No. 1 offense in college basketball, played 37 games this season. The only two times it didn't score at least 65 points came against the same team: Nov. 28 against at Madison Square Garden and April 4 against at Lucas Oil Stadium against the Connecticut Huskies.

Making it even more unbearable for the guys in orange, Illinois' only other loss draped in infamy and anemia in recent seasons came against Hurley's guys in the 2024 Elite Eight, a 77-52 loss that featured one of the most dominant in-game runs in NCAA history: UConn buried that Illini team with a 30-0 avalanche to secure a Final Four trip.

I won't overstate it and say UConn was overlooked coming into this Final Four. That can't happen with that coach, those uniforms, that nonpareil status in the sport.

But the Huskies were an underdog going into Saturday. Even with the miracle 3-pointer from Braylon Mullins that vaulted UConn over No. 1 overall seed Duke in an instant classic East Regional final, the Huskies had less glitz and hype attached to them in this year's Final Four than the two most recent runs.

Despite the 13-point win over the Illini the day after Thanksgiving — and five more wins than Illinois overall — the Huskies were not the favored side. On Saturday, UConn held an Illini team that averaged almost 15 assists per game to just three. Illinois scored just .98 points per possession and only had two players in double figures, led by Keaton Wagler's 20 in the final game of his fabulous freshman season.

The Huskies got just enough from Mullins: 15 points, including four 3s, the la