Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00It's Dan Hurley's Huskies, the two-time reigning national
00:06champs in college basketball, looking to make history, trying
00:09to become the first three-time national champion back to back
00:14to back since the John Wooden days in the early 70s at UCLA.
00:18What will it take, John, for this Connecticut team to make
00:21history this season? Well, there are two elements that I'm
00:26closely at right now for UConn. One is a big part of these
00:30back-to-back runs for UConn to win the national championship
00:33in 23 and 24 in convincing fashion was the two-headed
00:37monster at center, Sunogo and Klingin, and then Klingin and
00:40Samson Johnson. Samson Johnson and Terrace Reed have to be
00:45dominant together for 40 minutes at the five spot, and
00:48then the perimeter for UConn has to be in a situation where
00:52it takes a major step forward, and that's directly correlated
00:56to St. Mary's transfer, Aiden Mahaney. Dan Hurley told me
00:59when I spoke to him last week that Aiden Mahaney has to be
01:02somewhere in between what Tristan Newton was in his first
01:06year in UConn's program in 2023 and what Cam Spencer was in
01:11UConn's program in 2024. They need Aiden Mahaney to be close
01:15to an all-Big East caliber player if UConn's going to have
01:19a chance to three-peat, but I want to point this out, Ben.
01:22UConn in the last two years has won 12 NCAA tournament games by
01:27an average of 21.7 points per game, so the Huskies don't have
01:33to be nearly as good as they've been to win it all once again.
01:37If UConn was 15 points worse than it was the last two years
01:41combined, it would still be beating opponents by almost
01:45seven points per contest.