The UConn Huskies skillfully destroyed the Notre Dame Fighting Irish Monday in a match that served as a stark reminder of two truths: the Huskies don't need to play in a tough conference to prove they can devour your favorite team, and this year's college basketball season is shaping up to be a race to find out who will have the honor of coming in second in April.
There was a fair bit of hype heading into Monday night's game, even if it was largely lukewarm at best. Notre Dame entered the game having bested the Huskies the last three times the two teams have met, and there was hope Hannah Hidalgo would be able to put on a show and extend the program's record to four. But, alas, it's becoming a little too clear that though Hidalgo is enormously talented, she can't do it all on her own — and her teammates are struggling to fill in the gaps.
The Huskies don't have that problem. This year's team is so good that even when their offense isn't top-tier they manage to win with their defense. This year's team is so good because they're playing whole-team basketball, capable of picking up the slack when one player isn't having their best night, and know exactly how much discipline and flat-out gumption it takes to win.
If that sounds familiar, it's because those words are similar to the ones being used to describe the Vanderbilt Commodores this season. The Commodores are being led by Shea Ralph, who won championships at UConn as both a player and a coach. They say a lot about apples and trees, and it's starting to feel like Ralph has taken the best of what she learned with the Huskies and adapted it to create her own unique program in Nashville.
In fact, there's a distinct possibility this year's Final Four — maybe even the Championship game — could bit student and teacher (now colleagues) against one another.
Calls for UConn to change conferences are unfounded
Both teams still have quite the season to get through. That's especially true for the Commodores, who play in the SEC and have a pretty significant slate of games ahead of them: they'll host Auburn on Thursday before traveling to South Carolina to meet the Gamecocks. February will see Vanderbilt going up against Ole Miss, Kentucky, and Texas, and the team closes out the season with a March 1 game against Tennessee.
In contrast, apart from a February 1 game against the Lady Vols, the Huskies aren't facing a significantly difficult conference schedule, and it's likely the team will finish this season undefeated. But that doesn't mean that calls for UConn to change conferences are entirely founded; as the team proved last night (and in other non-conference games this season, as well as throughout the 2024-25 season), they don't need to play a tough conference to beat anyone. They just need to show up.
That's a tough truth to swallow for some basketball fans, but it's medicine they may want to start taking now. If the Huskies keep playing like this — and it's very likely they will — this season is theirs in its entirety.