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RALEIGH, N.C. — One of the great NCAA Tournament runs of the modern era came to a close on Sunday with UConn’s 77-75 loss to Florida in the second round of the West Region. The Huskies went down not with a whimper but throwing punches, even down the final moment with Liam McNeeley hitting a deep shot as time expired to narrow the final margin by three points. Dan Hurley spoke frequently through the weekend about the honor this program felt being able to make the tournament and defend their championship on the floor. And though UConn officially “gave up the belt” in the loss to Florida, the Huskies were able to tap into the championship DNA that allowed for such a memorable run in the first place.
“I think this just historic run that these guys have been on and the guys that have worn the uniform the past couple years, if it’s going to come to an end for us, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be in a game where we lost to a lower seed. There’s some honor, I guess, in the way that this went down,” a visibly weepy Hurley said after the game.
In total, the stats are gaudy. UConn won 13 consecutive NCAA Tournament games, tied for the second-most in tournament history. The first 12 of those consecutive victories were all by double-digits, something that had never been done before, and one of the team’s goals heading into this season was to become the first program since the tournament expanded to win three straight national championships.
What the expanded tournament has taught is that even repeating, much less pulling off three titles in a row, is extremely difficult, and the fact is UConn went out in more glory than either of the previous two programs on their three-peat quest. The 2008 Florida team that followed the back-to-back titles with Billy Donovan did not even make the NCAA Tournament. The 1993 Duke team fell short of tournament expectations — being upset by No. 6 seed Cal as a No. 3 seed after being ranked in the top 10 for most of the season.
To Hurley’s point, the Huskies were challenged by one of the best and hottest teams in the country and raised their level to push the Gators to the limit. UConn led by as many as six points in the second half and by two with 3:28 left to play.
Hurley appreciates the rarified air that this run will have in NCAA Tournament history and how his team competed against one of the best teams in the country after a season where UConn had to battle to even guarantee a spot in the bracket. But it still stings to know how close the Huskies were to not only making the second weekend but doing so in a West Region that would have been without at least its top two seeds.
“When I was asked about the 13 in a row, you have no idea the company and what we’ve accomplished,” Hurley explained. “So we can take some solace in that. But today was — to be that close to getting to a Sweet 16 and knowing that the 2 seed [St. John’s] lost yesterday, this bracket could have really opened up for us, and we knew that going in.”
The list of “what-ifs” for UConn is fairly simple. The inability to corral missed Florida free throws, what Hurley believes was a no-call on an Alex Karaban drive when the Huskies led by one point in the final minutes and then being on the other end of some absolutely absurd shot-making by Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr..
“Credit Clayton. He made some NBA level 3s off the dribble to beat us,” Hurley said. “It took that for somebody to put us down in this tournament after winning obviously a bunch in a row here.”
Clayton was mostly kept in check during the first half as UConn appeared to have Florida headed towards one of its least-productive offensive games of the year. That didn’t come as a surprise to the Gators, who were well-prepared to get the best shot from a proud program fighting to keep its historic run going.
“We knew this game wasn’t going to be easy,” Clayton said. “They’ve got a championship pedigree, back-to-back champions. That’s a great team. They had that experience. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
Florida coach Todd Golden described UConn’s 2025 squad as “a team that maybe wasn’t at the same level as they had been for the last two years but came into March Madness expecting to win games.”
“I think [Alex] Karaban is an incredible winner, a guy that’s won so many games in college. They had a couple of those guys out there. [Hassan] Diarra has won a lot for them. Guys that are used to winning at this time,” Golden said. “As we said, they had won 13 games in a row, and they played like it. We got off to a good start. It didn’t bother them that much. I thought they played really composed. They ran a really good offense. They bothered us a lot that way all the game.”
It’s been 1,102 days between NCAA Tournament losses for UConn, but the aftermath of this loss is much different than the defeat to New Mexico State in the First Round back in 2022. Hurley used to warn the sport about what was about to happen when he got his program rolling, and three years later, we know that it’s not just bluster. UConn’s last loss in the NCAA Tournament was a disappointment, falling as a No. 5 seed on the very first day of the tournament. Here, UConn went toe-to-toe with a Florida team that many believe will be the next national champion, and the Huskies made the Gators earn every bit of the glory that comes with a Sweet 16 appearance.
The UConn staff has spent time through the week preparing for the beginning of the offseason, which in the modern college basketball calendar starts Monday with the opening of the transfer portal. Hurley told CBS News earlier this season that half of his roster was considering the transfer portal “or already had an idea” of where they might be headed. The Huskies will be back in the NCAA Tournament, presumably with a much different roster but still carrying the championship pedigree that powered two straight title runs and on Sunday gave them a chance to keep the three-peat dream alive.
Winning the first national championship might have seemed like another case of UConn being UConn, with the same program that won titles under the previous two head coaches reaching the top of the mountain again. But this run has been more than UConn being UConn — it’s been transformational as Hurley has guided the program into the modern era. He’s evaluated and recruited the transfer portal at a high level, finding the right combination of pieces when it comes to roster construction. This year’s team might have been a step back from what the 2023 and 2024 teams looked like on the floor, but when the money was on the table in the NCAA Tournament, they looked every bit the worthy competitor against a true title contender.
And while UConn was not ready for this run to end on Sunday, there is going to be much-needed downtime for a coach and program that have been running hot for hundreds of days. Hurley won’t be throwing out first pitches at baseball games or ringing any stock market bells; instead it will be time to “just focus on the upcoming season and make better decisions with all aspects of coaching.”
“There’s a lot of rewiring and things I’ve got to do in the off-season because you just get caught up in this tidal wave of success that we’ve had. You lose perspective,” Hurley said. “You struggle with the ego at times because you’ve been on this incredible run.”
Since the transfer portal opens Monday, there won’t be that much downtime for Hurley as he reloads UConn for what will surely be another season of expectations to compete for championships. Because, in the last 1,102 days, Hurley has transformed the Huskies from a program looking to reclaim former glory to a modern champion that expects to win games on the sport’s biggest stage. UConn gave up the belt on Sunday, but it went down swinging with a performance that honored the 13 previous wins and what is one of the all-time runs in NCAA Tournament history.
