UConn's Strong Prospects for Another National Championship
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00:00 So John, as we look at their odds in the outlook, the favorites to win a second consecutive
00:05 national championship this time around.
00:08 In odds on favorite, in minus money now to reach the final four.
00:12 I ask you this question, is this year's UConn team better than last year's?
00:18 Well, I can add insight from this on somebody who has coached against this team and that's
00:24 Shaka Smart who is my guest on the College Hoops Today podcast this week, the only college
00:28 basketball podcast coming to you 52 weeks out of the calendar year.
00:32 And Shaka Smart said without hesitation that the UConn team that Marquette played on Saturday
00:38 was definitely the best UConn team that Marquette has played since Shaka Smart has been the
00:43 head coach of Milwaukee.
00:44 And here's the interesting thing, Ben, that I took away from my talk with Shaka regarding
00:49 UConn.
00:50 The biggest thing that stood out to him after playing UConn on Saturday was the connectivity
00:56 of the players on the roster, not caring at all who gets the credit, not caring at all
01:01 who gets how many minutes, not caring at all who's getting the shot.
01:05 They are completely and solely focused on winning and they're winning right now at an
01:11 incredible rate.
01:12 And I want to remind people right now that UConn's average margin of victory in last
01:17 year's NCAA tournament was 20 points per game.
01:20 And these Huskies right now putting themselves in a position to go into the NCAA tournament
01:26 this year with a significantly higher seed.
01:29 UConn was a four seed last year.
01:31 And Ben, I can't speak enough about this because I think it's a critical, critical component
01:35 to make sure that we're constantly discussing between now and Selection Sunday.
01:40 If UConn is the one seed in the East, their path to get back to the Final Four is two
01:45 games in Brooklyn, two games in Boston, and then obviously the Final Four in Arizona.
01:50 But that means if you are a two, three or four seed in the East region and you play
01:55 UConn at any time, you are playing a road game because we know the Barclays Center and
02:00 TD Garden in Boston will be full of UConn fans.