For the ninth time in program history, UConn women’s basketball has arrived at the Final Four with an undefeated record. Six times, the Huskies have finished without a blemish.
In 1995, UConn captured its first-ever national championship with a perfect season. In 2002, the greatest team in program history — which featured three Hall of Famers — won all 39 games they played. In 2009 and 2010, Maya Moore and Tina Charles led the Huskies to more history, becoming the first team ever to stack together
back-to-back unbeaten seasons. Breanna Stewart is responsible for two undefeated runs — first in 2014, then in 2016 to cap off her fourth national championship in as many years.
Only twice has UConn come up short: 2017 and 2018. Both times, the Huskies were 36-0, only to suffer their first loss on a buzzer-beater in the national semifinal.
This weekend, the 2025-26 team will try to join the former group and avoid the fate of the latter. UConn is 38-0, winning all but one game by double-digits. It’s looking to repeat as national champions after dominating the Final Four a year ago with the second-largest margin of victory ever across the two games. The Huskies have the soon-to-be consensus National Player of the Year in Sarah Strong, a four-time First Team All-American in Azzi Fudd and a deep, talented surrounding cast.
Despite all that, Geno Auriemma doesn’t believe his current team is on the same level as past undefeated squads.
“They’re not good enough to be doing this in a sense,” he said. “We have three high-level scorers. Then we have a bunch of guys who do their little part, then it all comes together and we win. But for them to carry an undefeated record up to this point, whose personality on that team makes you think, ‘Look at them. They walk around like they own the place.’ Nobody.”
Some years, Auriemma knew the Huskies would be hard to beat. But after losing Paige Bueckers to the WNBA, he didn’t expect UConn to seemingly take a step forward without her. The coach has readily admitted that the regular season went “way better” than expected and has already declared that he doesn’t believe the current team is better than last year’s.
“There are some teams that when the season starts, if we just stay healthy and finish the season, we’re going to go to the Final Four,” Auriemma said. “I don’t know that anybody was talking about that (this year).”
After the Huskies advanced to Phoenix with a gritty win over Notre Dame in the Elite Eight, the coach couldn’t help but let his emotions pour out as the team celebrated at center court of Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to take a team to the Final Four than this group,” he told the crowd.
Afterwards, Auriemma expanded on the message.
“This group, they don’t have that kind of swagger, trash-talking mentality,” he said. “It’s not the kind of team that I’ve had in the past that has gone this far undefeated. It’s not. They don’t have that kind of mentality off the court, on the court. They’re just a bunch of really nice kids that play hard for each other.”
Instead, UConn stays true to itself. The players routinely say this is the closest team they’ve ever been on — a particularly high bar in Storrs where chemistry is rarely a problem. These Huskies may not resemble some of the program’s past undefeated teams, but they find the same success by doing it their own way.
“It’s fun because you watch how much fun they’re having and you can’t help getting caught up in it. Even in the midst of all the pressure that goes with playing in these games, they are finding ways to have fun.” Auriemma said. “On the bus on the way to the arena, somebody was blasting some song over the speakers — and I know it didn’t come from the bus driver. That never happened. That’s never happened in 25 years. Usually, they’re sitting there and they’re thinking about the game. These guys, they just enjoy the whole thing, all of it.”
If there is one knock on this UConn team, it’s that it hasn’t played elite competition yet. The Huskies beat eight other teams that made the NCAA Tournament but never squared off against a fellow 1-seed — South Carolina, UCLA or Texas — which fill out the rest of the Final Four. That’ll change on Friday night when UConn battles the Gamecocks in the national semifinal.
UConn might be an outlier compared to some of the program’s previous undefeated teams. But if the Huskies can win two more games, they’ll reach immortality all the same.
