CBS Sports college basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander spent a month surveying 100-plus Division I men’s basketball coaches for our annual Candid Coaches series. They polled across the sport’s landscape: some of the biggest names in college basketball, but also small-school assistants in low-major leagues. Coaches agreed to share unfiltered opinions in exchange for anonymity. We asked 10 questions and are posting the results over a three-week span.
UConn made history last season by becoming the first back-to-back national champion in Division I men’s basketball since Florida did it in 2006 and 2007. It was an awesome achievement for lots of reasons, among them the fact that Dan Hurley accomplished it after losing three of his top six scorers from the previous season. That’s why few folks were giving the Huskies a real chance to win a second straight national title this time last year — because they’d lost so much. Regardless, UConn proved any and all skeptics wrong by rolling to a 37-3 record while winning their six games in the 2024 NCAA Tournament by an average of 23.3 points.
The Huskies were incredible.
Now, they’re dealing with major personnel losses again — specifically the departures of Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer, Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle., i.e., four the top five scorers from last season’s team, each of whom was selected in June’s NBA Draft. That’s a lot to overcome, obviously. Even so, perhaps surprisingly, Hurley’s Huskies remain the favorite to win the 2025 NCAA Tournament at +900. With that in mind, we decided to continue our annual Candid Coaches series by asking more than 100 college basketball coaches from all levels of the sport the following question:
Will UConn at least make a third straight Final Four this season?
Quotes that stood out
Coaches who answered ‘Yes’
“I’m not betting against UConn — although Hurley would probably like that, to use it as…..
