Candid Coaches: Will UConn at least make a third straight Final Four this season?

CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked 10 questions and are posting the results over a three-week span.

UConn made history last season by becoming the first back-to-back national champion in Division I men’s basketball since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007. It was an awesome achievement for lots of reasons, among them the fact that Dan Hurley accomplished it after losing three of his top six scorers from the previous season. That’s why few folks were giving the Huskies a real chance to win a second straight national title this time last year — because they’d lost so much. Regardless, UConn proved any and all skeptics wrong by rolling to a 37-3 record while winning their six games in the 2024 NCAA Tournament by an average of 23.3 points.

The Huskies were incredible.

Now, they’re dealing with major personnel losses again — specifically the departures of Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer, Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle., i.e., four the top five scorers from last season’s team, each of whom was selected in June’s NBA Draft. That’s a lot to overcome, obviously. Even so, perhaps surprisingly, Hurley’s Huskies remain the favorite to win the 2025 NCAA Tournament at +900. With that in mind, we decided to continue our annual Candid Coaches series by asking more than 100 college basketball coaches from all levels of the sport the following question:

Will UConn at least make a third straight Final Four this season?

Quotes that stood out

Coaches who answered ‘Yes’

• “I’m not betting against UConn — although Hurley would probably like that, to use it as motivation. Gotta knock them off the mountain first. He won back-to-back national championships with very different teams, yet were elite both offensively and defensively. Hard to do that. They have become so much better on the offensive end the last two years and they are always hard to score against and out-rebound.”
• “Give a roster that lost that much to any other coach, and I’d say no. But I’m not going to doubt Danny Hurley after what he’s done the past two years. He deserves the benefit of the doubt. He’s earned it.”
• “I absolutely see it. Obviously, Alex Karaban will get a huge bulk of the preseason hype (and it is well-deserved), along with the expectation of a sophomore jump from Solo Ball and Jaylin Stewart, and Liam McNeely could be a lottery pick. But I think the straw that will stir the drink here is having a veteran like Hassan Diarra leading the way. I think he is an absolute unsung hero that could find himself on the Cousy finalist list if the season goes as well for UConn as everyone expects it to. I think the Big East will be more than winnable again, and they should walk into the tournament with a top-2 seed.”
• “You can’t bet against them right now.”
• ” I believe they will because of the culture that Hurley has created. The older players will police the newcomers.”
• “Hard to imagine this but I am going to say yes. Think their culture and belief are that strong in what they are doing. Love their additions — and they have enough returners who have that championship DNA.”
• “Love UConn’s roster. However, I know how hard it is to be flawless in March — even with an excellent group of bought-in young men. You have to be able to withstand a night or two where the opposition (Oakland, Princeton, VCU) goes on a magical run or has the night of a lifetime. Even if you play well they could still get you on a given night. That being said, if there were ever a time to bet, I’d put my money on Hurley seven days a week and two times on Sunday! UConn goes back to the Final Four, baby!”

Coaches who answered ‘No’

• “They lost four starters from last year’s dominant national championship team — with two of those starters (Castle and Clingan) being lottery picks and arguably the two most dominant defensive players in the country, the other (Newton) being a First Team All-American … and the [fourth] starter (Spencer) being the most efficient player in the country, according to KenPom, and the perfect complement to the other three. While the first national championship team (under Hurley) lost three outstanding players in Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson and Adama Sanogo, they were able to replace them with three players in Spencer, Castle and Clingan that, in my opinion, were better college players. The odds of them being able to hit on their incoming players to that level again are very difficult.”
• “I shouldn’t pick against Hurley — but the odds are too much against it.”
• This is like when people used to say, ‘Are you taking Tiger (Woods) or the field? You could argue that’s where Hurley’s at now.”
• “I think they come back to the pack. Not a great roster.”
• “It’s just so hard to do — and now you look at their team. Two years ago, you know, a pro, a pro, a pro. The next year: a pro, a pro, a pro. This year, do you see that?”
• “UConn will not make the Final Four. People have no idea how hard it is to do what they have done.
• “I don’t see it. At a certain point, the body count adds up. … They won’t fall far, though.”

The takeaway

Like multiple coaches we communicated with noted, it’s actually a testament to what Hurley and his staff have built, a testament to the culture of winning they’ve created, that 32% of the coaches we asked believe that, despite losing four starters from last season’s team, UConn will indeed become the first program to make three straight Final Fours since Ben Howland’s UCLA Bruins did it in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

The benefit of the doubt is strong.

Will Hurley take offense that only 32% voted that way? Perhaps. That’s part of what makes him great. But I really do think we’ve reached the point where no staff in college basketball is as respected and admired for what they’ve been able to build and accomplish as much as Hurley and his staff are respected and admired for what they’ve been able to build and accomplish since taking over in March 2018.

Again, it’s not like UConn won a national championship in 2023 and then just ran in back in 2024. That’s more or less what Billy Donovan’s Florida Gators did in 2006 and 2007 with a core of Taurean Green, Lee Humphrey, Corey Brewer, Al Horford and Joakim Noah. At UConn though, the core changed dramatically after the 2023 NCAA Tournament. Now, it has changed dramatically again. And yet roughly one out of every three coaches Matt Norlander and I asked still told us they remain unwilling to bet against a man who has won 12 straight games in the NCAA Tournament, each of them decided by at least 13 points.

But coaches aren’t stupid.

They, better than most, also understand how difficult it is, regardless of how good or great of a team you might have, to make the Final Four of a 68-team single-elimination tournament where there’s always a Fairleigh Dickinson, Oakland, Yale or Saint Peter’s waiting to knock off a big boy, not to mention high-major powers good enough to just get you on any given day. For instance, Houston and North Carolina both received No. 1 seeds in the 2024 NCAA Tournament — but neither even made the Elite Eight. One year earlier, Houston, Alabama, Purdue and Kansas all received No. 1 seeds in the 2023 NCAA Tournament — but none of them even made the Elite Eight. One year before that, Gonzaga, Baylor and Arizona all received No. 1 seeds in the 2022 NCAA Tournament — but none of them even made the Elite Eight.

I could go on and on — but you get the point.

Even when a team proves to be one of the sport’s four best, or at least one of the sport’s four most-accomplished, over a span of several months that includes the regular season and all conference tournaments, history suggests most are still unlikely to make the Final Four. That’s why, since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, only once have all four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four. That’s why, despite having earned an immense of amount of respect from his peers by rebuilding UConn’s proud program into college basketball’s best, 68% of the coaches we polled simply said they’ll play the odds.

Bottom line, the Final Four is a hard place to get. Great teams fall short every year. So I understand coaches playing the odds. For a variety of reasons, that’s the smart bet. But, as I wrote in a previous Candid Coaches question, count UConn out at your own risk. The Huskies have spent the past two seasons proving all skeptics wrong. It would be foolish to insist there’s no way they’ll do it again. And if they do do it again — and by “do it again,” I mean not only make a third straight Final Four but also win a third straight NCAA Tournament — I’d be comfortable calling it the greatest achievement in the history of men’s college basketball considering how much the roster has changed from one year to the next.

That’s among the reasons Hurley turned down the Lakers this offseason.

He didn’t want to pass on the chance to make history.

And now I, for one, can’t wait to watch him try.

Previously in Candid Coaches …

• Who will be this season’s best team?
• Who will be this season’s best player?
• Who was the best coaching hire this offseason?
• What is the most amount of NIL money somebody has asked you or your staff to pay for a player?  
• Which programs do you believe have the best NIL situations?
• Should players who don’t transfer receive a bonus year of eligibility?
• Will a woman coach a D-I men’s team by 2030?
• Who’ll be more successful in next five years, Kentucky’s Mark Pope or Louisville’s Pat Kelsey?