The freshman’s shot secured an improbable 73-72 victory over Duke, advancing UConn men’s basketball to next weekend’s Final Four. A few hours earlier, the UConn women’s basketball program had punched its own ticket to the national semifinals, opting instead for a more relaxed finish as Geno Auriemma’s bunch wrapped up a 70-52 win against Notre Dame.
It’s the sixth time that both the UConn men’s and women’s teams have earned a trip to the Final Four in the same season, the only program in college basketball to do so more than once. This feat has been accomplished 16 times since the women’s NCAA Tournament began in 1982, according to ESPN.
Georgia completed this feat during the second year of coinciding men’s and women’s tournaments. The men’s team fell short in the semifinals, making way for NC State and Jim Valvano to complete a legendary upset over Houston, while Kim Mulkey’s Louisiana Tech squad knocked out Georgia on the women’s side.
UConn is also the only school to claim a championship for both genders during the same March Madness.
UConn’s first shared Final Four run came in 2004, as Auriemma and Jim Calhoun’s dynastic runs in Storrs finally started to converge. 2004 also marked the first time that any school won the men’s and women’s championships in the same year, as Calhoun downed Georgia Tech while Auriemma defeated Minnesota. A decade later, the women’s team cruised to the 2014 national championship, the second of four-straight titles for Breanna Stewart and company, while Kevin Ollie’s No. 7 seed Huskies completed a Cinderella run.
In 2024, both NC State and UConn reached the men’s and women’s Final Four, the only time that multiple schools had completed the feat in the same season.