ESPN has continued with the lack of love for head coach Dan
Hurley’s UConn
men’s basketball team.
The first bracketology predictions for the men’s NCAA
Tournament from ESPN came out five weeks ago, and the network issued its next
way-too-early bracket projections on Tuesday.
Again, bracketologist
Joe Lunardi put the Huskies on the No. 3 seed line, giving the No. 1 seeds
to Duke, Florida, Illinois and Arizona. Duke is listed as the No. 1 seed.
Anchoring the No. 2 lines are Michigan State, Texas,
defending champion Michigan and Louisville.
Why a 3 seed?
Lunardi didn’t detail his reasons for this
lower-than-expected projection, but we can surmise some reasons why.
- The Huskies finished the regular season and conference
tournament schedule in 2025-26 with a 29-5 record, 17-3 in the Big East. They
added a 5-1 record in the tournament, the loss coming to Michigan in the NCAA
title game.
They were a No. 2 seed.
If you called last season’s nonconference schedule hard, the
upcoming one is herculean. After a rematch with Michigan in the second game of
the season, the Huskies face the gauntlet of Arizona, Duke and Illinois in
successive games – two of the three outside Connecticut.
And three of the four projected No. 1 seeds.
- The retooled roster. Alex
Karaban, the winner of two NCAA championships and the leader of the team
the past two seasons, is off to the NBA. So is Tarris Reed Jr., who led the
Huskies last season with 14.7 points and 9.0 rebounds per game. Another
championship winner, Solo Ball, will miss the season as he recovers from wrist
surgery. -
Inexperience. It’s also a young roster, with five
seniors, one junior, six sophomores and three freshmen – and few players who
have been through the rigors of a long run in the NCAA Tournament. That would
be seniors Silas Demary Jr. and Jayden Ross, along with sophomore Braylon
Mullins. Nik Khamenia, a transfer from Duke, was on the Blue Devils team that
was knocked out of the tournament by Mullins’ 3-point heroics to win the teams’
Elite Eight matchup.
Sophomore Jacob Ross, Jayden’s younger brother, was with the
Huskies last season but did not see game action.
Another elite region?
Last season, the NCAA Tournament selection committee put
UConn in the East Region, joined by Hall of Fame coaches and blue-blood programs.
No. 1 overall seed Duke, a five-time champion. UCLA, once
the king of the sport.
Tom Izzo and Michigan State. Bill Self and Kansas. Rick
Pitino and St. John’s.
Lunardi again slotted Duke as the top seed in the East for the upcoming season, and he
entered UConn as the No. 3 in this bracket, where the regional final will be
played in New York City.
Two Hall of Fame coaches and their teams show up in this
bracket – Izzo and Michigan State again, and John Calipari and Arkansas. Storied
programs Kentucky, Indiana Villanova and Providence also are in this group, as
is coach Matt Painter and Purdue.
Lunardi’s projection sends UConn to Minneapolis for the
first two rounds and lists Yale as the opening opponent. A win potentially would
pit the Huskies against Purdue, North Carolina State or Cincinnati, under this
scenario.
We’ve got a long time to figure this all out. The opening
round (play-in) games will be played March 16 and 17, with the first round scheduled
to start March 18.
The Final Four games are set for April 3 and 5 at Ford Field
in Detroit.