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Connecticut opened the season with uncertainty about how well the Huskies would replace major pieces from last year's run to the national championship.
Any questions have been answered.
The second-ranked Huskies (31-3) entered the NCAA Tournament as the overall No. 1 seed, headlining the East Region bracket that runs close to home. And they've spent long stretches of this season looking like a runaway train in overpowering opponents and chasing college basketball's first repeat title in 17 years.
They'll start with their first top regional seed since a Final Four run in 2009 and a sixth time overall. The five-time champions open play Friday against 16th-seeded Stetson in Brooklyn, New York.
UConn headlines a bracket that features seventh-ranked Iowa State as the 2-seed, No. 13 Illinois as the 3 and No. 12 Auburn as the 4. That's a stiff challenge considering the Cyclones (Big 12), Illini (Big Ten) and Tigers (Southeastern Conference) all won their league tournaments this week.
“I know we've never gotten a No. 1 overall seed in program history,” coach Dan Hurley said after the Huskies won their first Big East Tournament title since 2011 on Saturday night, “so this is a group that seems to be making history in a place that it's hard to make history.”
Hurley's analysis went a step further, adding that UConn has “clearly been the best program in the country this year.”
It's hard to argue otherwise.
UConn leads the country in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency rankings entering Sunday’s final pre-tournament games, averaging 126.6 points per 100 possessions for the best output since 2018 champ Villanova (127.8). The Huskies also rank in adjusted defensive efficiency (94.4), joining Arizona and Auburn as the only teams to rank in the top 15 of both categories.
The bracket includes three teams from last year's surprise Final Four quartet, with national runner-up San Diego State as the No. 5 seed and Florida Atlantic checking in as the No. 8.
The rest of the bracket includes BYU as the No. 6 seed, Washington State as the No. 7, Northwestern as the No. 9 and Drake as the No. 10. Duquesne checked in as the 11-seed after winning the Atlantic 10 Tournament, followed by UAB, Yale, Morehead State, South Dakota State and Stetson.
The regionals will be held in Boston, about 85 miles to the southwest of the Huskies’ Storrs campus.
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AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness