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The UConn women’s basketball team is the clear favorite to win the 2026 NCAA championship, but FOX Sports commentator Gus Johnson made perhaps an outlandish claim that the program’s dominance could go beyond the college level.
While calling the UConn men’s 93-68 win over Xavier in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday, Johnson argued that the undefeated No. 1 UConn women could be a playoff team if their roster competed in the WNBA.
“The University of Connecticut is literally the cradle for champions with the men and the women,” Johnson said during the broadcast. “The women’s, it’s not even fair. They should put that women’s team in the WNBA, and I bet you they’d go to the playoffs. They might even win it.”
While the statement is clearly absurd, the Huskies do have multiple players on their current roster who will be WNBA players in the future. Star guard Azzi Fudd is a projected lottery pick in the 2026 WNBA Draft, and coach Geno Auriemma joked after his team won the women’s Big East Tournament that sophomore phenom Sarah Strong could have been a first-round pick in last year’s draft if she was eligible to declare after her spectacular freshman season.
But though the Huskies are headed into the NCAA Tournament unbeaten looking to win back-to-back national titles, Auriemma doesn’t even believe that this year’s team is better than last year’s, much less better than a roster of seasoned professionals in the WNBA.
“I don’t know that you take one of the top five players in the WNBA off your team and say you’re better. I don’t know how I can justify saying that,” Auriemma said at the end of the regular season referring to former Huskies star Paige Bueckers, the No. 1 pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft. “There are a lot of times when I watch us play and I say, that wouldn’t have happened if we had Paige … We’re a much different team than we were last year, correct. But to say that we’re a better team than we were last year? I don’t buy that.”
Is unbeaten UConn women’s basketball better than 2025 title team? Geno Auriemma doesn’t think so
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