Should UConn be the runaway favorite to win the National Championship? | College Basketball Enquirer
Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde and Ross Dellenger discuss which team in the Final Four they believe will win the National Championship, and debate if any of the other teams can stop Connecticut’s impressive run.
Video Transcript
ROSS DELLENGER: --would win it all. By the way, just looking at, breezing over my bracket, what a disaster. My god.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm guessing everybody's looks fairly bad, but this is beyond. It's just terrible, man.
DAN WETZEL: Who's gonna win this thing at this point?
PAT FORDE: UConn. They're an absolute steamroller right now.
ROSS DELLENGER: I was gonna say the same.
PAT FORDE: They are rollin'. Iona, I think, maybe led them by 2 at the half or was behind by 2, and since then, they have laid to waste everyone. They end up beating Iona by 24. Beat Saint Mary's by 15, and that wasn't that close. Destroyed Arkansas by 23 and then beat Gonzaga into a bloody pulp by 28. So they are rolling.
It's funny. They are undefeated in non-conference play, and I believe they have won every non-conference game by double figures. They had some trouble early in the Big East schedule. They got that back together, and they have been an extremely good team most of the year. So they were on the verge of being ranked number one in late December, and then they started losing, but this has been a really good team all season, and they're on all cylinders right now.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, I would agree. That was gonna be my pick for those left that UConn would win it all. By the way, just looking at, breezing over my bracket, what a disaster. My God.
[LAUGHTER]
I'm guessing everybody's looks fairly bad, but this is beyond. It's just terrible, man. No teams in the Final Four. I got one team in the Elite Eight. This is just terrible.
PAT FORDE: Oh, yeah. I think everybody's crushed. Texas was my last Final Four team. They're out.
DAN WETZEL: I liked UConn all along, and I remember saying. I am right about this. I was wrong about the other three, believe me, and many, many other things. I thought Alabama would win the title. But I said all along, UConn can beat them. They beat 'em in the non-conference.
UConn had this weird stretch where they were just awful. They lose to Xavier. They lose to Providence. They beat Creighton, then they lose to Marquette, St. John's, Seton Hall. They beat Butler, and then they lose to Xavier. So what's that? They go 2 and 5.
So before that, they were exceptional, and then, after, they were exceptional. And I watched that Marquette game in the Big East semifinals, and a lot of times, the best thing to do is lose in the semis. I think that was the semis. Yeah, it was the semis. It was a fantastic game, and you're like, all right, that's actually what you want to do, is lose there.
So I did like UConn. I did like UConn. But what they did to Arkansas and Gonzaga this weekend-- and Saint Mary's is tricky, and they've not had an easy road. Iona, Saint Mary's, Arkansas, Gonzaga, and you have this great system-- Iona played an amazing first half of that game for a underseeded team. Saint Mary's is so difficult.
Then, all of a sudden, here comes Arkansas with so much talent and athletes, and then you have the veterans and the program that doesn't lose much. It's Gonzaga. And they took all different types of teams, and they beat 'em all.
ROSS DELLENGER: Yeah, it was incredible. Pat just went through the scores in the NCAA tournament from them, but I just went back to look again. It's the margins in which they obliterated teams.
And I kept watching that Gonzaga-UConn game, just going back to the score. And God, it was 10 points, 15 points, 20 points, and then it was 25. And I'm thinking, all right, well, I'm turning this off. But yeah, they're just mowing teams down, man. It's pretty crazy.