After winning back-to-back national championships on Monday night, UConn men’s basketball coach Danny Hurley bragged on his program’s dominance.
“For the last 25-30 years, UConn’s been running college basketball,” Hurley said.
And, while Hurley’s chestiness annoys me, the numbers absolutely back his claim up. Since 1999 — so, the last 25 years — the UConn men have won six national championships (1999, 2004, 2011, 2014, 2023, 2024.)
No team in men’s basketball comes close to that mark. North Carolina has won 3 (2005, 2009 and 2017). Florida has won 2 (2006 and 2007). Ditto Villanova (2016 and 2018). And Kansas (2008 and 2022).
All of which raises a question: Where does UConn’s current basketball dynasty rank in the echelon of greatest runs by a single college program ever?
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The answer to that question has to start with the UCLA Bruins under John Wooden.
From 1964 to 1975, the Bruins — led by a parade of stars including Bill Walton, Lew Alcindor, Gail Goodrich and Sidney Wicks among many, many others — went 335-22, a stunning .938 winning percentage.
During that time, the team won 10(!) national championships — including 7(!!!!) in a row from 1968-1973. All told, UCLA has 11 national basketball championships — the most ever. (The team also won the natty in 1995 — thanks to Tyus Edney.)
In 2020, Bleacher Report named those Bruins teams of the 60s and 70s the best college teams ever, writing:
Ten national championships in 12 years is preposterous enough to blow one's mind, but let's home in on the especially absurd seven-year stretch in the middle.
Beginning with Lew Alcindor's sophomore year (freshmen weren't allowed to play) in 1966-67, UCLA went 30-0, 29-1, 29-1, 28-2, 29-1, 30-0 and 30-0, winning the national championship all seven years.
Most basketball fans know Wooden won 10 titles and led UCLA on an 88-game winning streak, but were you aware the Bruins went 205-5 (97.6 percent) during that seven-year stretch? To help put that in context, since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, No. 2 seeds are 132-8 (94.3 percent) in the opening round against No. 15 seeds.
Broadening the scope a little to include the final two years of this 12-year reign of terror, UCLA was ranked in the Top Five of the AP poll in every week for nine consecutive seasons, and it finished 11 out of the 12 years at either No. 1 or No. 2 in the AP poll.
Uh, yeah.
That 11 championships is the most ever by a men’s program. Kentucky is 2nd with 8 — although those championships are spread out from 1948 to 2012.
The best run Kentucky ever had — its dynasty moment — came in the mid 1990s when they won the championship in 1996 and then again in 1998. The 1996 team had a slew of stars — headline by Antoine Walker and Tony Delk. Two years later, the team was less well known but, led by coach Tubby Smith, beat Utah in the national championship game.
But even the most diehard Kentucky fan would admit that those mid 1990s teams couldn’t even hold a candle to what UCLA had.
Aside from the current UConn dynasty then, the one that comes closest to UCLA — although doesn’t eclipse it — is Duke under head coach Mike Krzyzewski.
Duke has won 5 national titles since 1991 (1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015) and remains the gold standard of men’s college basketball — although UConn can now at least make the case that they should be considered in that conversation. Duke has also lost in the national championship games six times, a testament to how good the program is year over year.
Again, Bleacher Report, which ranked the Blue Devils’ run from 1985-2020 as the second most successful program in college basketball history, is instructive here on just how dominant Duke has been over the past three decades:
The Blue Devils have been ranked No. 1 in the nation for at least one week in 20 of the last 35 years, including ending eight seasons at No. 1. They also earned 14 No. 1 seeds and were seeded No. 3 or better in 30 of the last 34 NCAA tournaments.
Of particular note were the runs from 1985-86 through 1993-94, as well as the five-year stretch from 1997-98 to 2001-02.
During that first span, Duke made it to the Final Four seven times in nine years, playing in five national championship games and winning two of them back-to-back in 1991 and 1992. The Blue Devils needed the Grant Hill-to-Christian Laettner miracle to make it out of the 1992 Elite Eight, but that was one heck of a memorable way to advance to their fifth consecutive Final Four.
The latter span was shorter but more dominant. Duke went 164-19 and finished four of those five seasons at No. 1 in the AP poll. In the other, the Blue Devils ended up at No. 3 and still earned a No. 1 seed. They won it all in 2001.
Which is good! Great even! But not UCLA level.
The truth is that if you want to make a credible case that UCLA isn’t the biggest and greatest dynasty that college basketball has ever produced, you have to head to the women’s side of the ledger.
Because while the UConn men are great, the UConn women are even greater.
The UConn women — led by coach Geno Auriemma — have, like UCLA, won 11 national championships: 1995, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. (Yes, that’s four STRAIGHT championships between 2013 and 2016.)
Even more remarkably, in 6(!!) of those seasons, the team was undefeated (1995, 2002, 2009, 2010, 2014 and 2016).
And perhaps even more remarkable is this fact: The UConn women have been in 15 out of the last 16 Final Fours (including this year’s). The only time the team missed the Final Four in the last 16 years was in 2023 — when they lost to Ohio State in the Sweet Sixteen.
(Sidebar: This USA Today piece runs through each UConn title team.)
The only other women’s program who comes close to that record of sustained success is the University of Tennessee under the late Pat Summitt.
From 1974 until she retired in 2012, Summit’s Volunteers won almost 1,100 games and 8 national championships — including three in a row from 1996 to 1998. (Summit was the first college basketball coach, male or female, to reach 1,000 career victories. Her lifetime record was an astonishing 1,098-208.) Under Summit, the Vols reached the Final Four an amazing 18 times.
Pretty, pretty good run.
Ok, so how should we rank these dynasties? Combining women and men, I would do it this way:
UCLA men (1964-1975)
UConn women (1995-present)
Duke men (1991-2015)
Tennessee women (1987-2008)
UConn men (1999-present)
Who did I leave out? Come on you Kentucky fans, I know you have opinions. And where are my Kansas people at? UNC?
Hey Chris….didn’t you mention an article about the history of One Shining Moment? Am I imagining this? Help! Can’t find it…
This is like my Detroit Red Wings (11 Stanley Cups) and our true main rival the Toronto Maple Leafs (13). I hope to see us catch up in my lifetime. These teams are like Duke and UConn. Then there are the Montreal Canadiens with 24 Cups. That's UCLA.