HOUSTON — The UConn Huskies are having a dominant NCAA Tournament run by any standard. Their average margin of victory in tournament games is a remarkable 20.6 points per game. That is good for third all-time since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985. Kentucky had an average MOV of 21.5 ppg in 1999, but won both games at the Final Four by single-digit margins.
In 2016, the last time the Final Four was in Houston, Villanova's average margin of victory was 20.7 ppg, which was helped considerably by a 44-point blowout of Oklahoma in the national semifinal. The Wildcats also had two single-digit wins, including the buzzer-beating three-point win over North Carolina in the championship game.
There have been four teams to win the championship since expansion with double-digit margins in all of its games: 2018 Villanova, 2009 UNC, 2001 Duke and 2000 Michigan State.
Those four teams were all No. 1 seeds in the NCAA Tournament, so it is not a big surprise that such a team would be capable of a run like that.
You might not expect that from a team that is only a No. 4 seed, however, this is not the first time this season the Huskies have looked dominant. They started off 14-0, which included a 15-point win over overall No. 1 seed Alabama in November's Phil Knight Invitational. Only Purdue kept them from becoming the No. 1 team in the polls at that point of the season.
Once conference play started though, UConn struggled, losing six of its first eight. Among those losses were games at Marquette and Providence and a sweep by Xavier.
The Huskies seemed to regain their earlier form after that, winning nine of ten before losing to Marquette in the semifinal of the Big East Tournament.
However, that midseason swoon cost UConn in terms of NCAA Tournament seeding. The Huskies ended up the No. 13 overall seed, which is the top of the No. 4 seed line. The team right ahead of them was Xavier and the fact that the Musketeers beat them twice was surely the difference between a No. 4 seed and a No. 3 seed.
Had the selection committee switched UConn and Xavier, the Huskies could have faced Miami in the Elite Eight and Gonzaga in the Final Four. It would have been a different path to get to Miami though, which would have included Texas.
Not surprisingly, not many people saw this UConn run through the tournament coming. The Huskies had 15-1 odds to win the NCAA Tournament right after Selection Sunday and were only picked by 1.89% of people in the CBS Sports Bracket Challenge.
But UConn has shown this high level of capability at times this season and with a trip to the NCAA Tournament title game Monday, has picked the right time to show it again.
