Here’s the latest Associated Press women’s college basketball rankings. Notice who’s 31-0 and No. 1.
Now here’s the latest men’s poll. Notice who’s 27-3 and No. 4.
Juggernaut for all genders, thy name is Connecticut.
Haven’t we seen this movie before? Oh, yes, several times. Put the men and women together and Storrs has spent a lot of time as the center of the college basketball universe. A coed colossus. The harder question for the 21st century is what school should be considered second.
Today, yesterday, it’s been pretty much the same at Connecticut. Since 1999, one of every three national championship trophies presented at either the men’s or women’s Final Four has been put into the hands of Huskies. The programs jointly own 18 titles. That’s a lot of victory net to cut down. Twice – 2004 and 2014 – they clinched championships on back-to-back nights. They’ve been to 31 Final Fours combined. You have to go way back to 2007 to find a March where at least one of them didn’t get that far.
The matter was brought to women’s coach Geno Auriemma 22 years ago, with both teams on the brink of winning the 2004 national championships.
“It’s just something that if you’re the average kid playing on the men’s basketball team or the women’s basketball team, I think there’s a sense of you wanting to be really, really good and every time you walk around in Gampel Pavilion, men’s players and women’s players walk around like we’re really good and they expect to be good,” he said at the time. “And there’s no room for coming in second or third or almost. I think that rubs off on each of them.”
31-0
the 11th undefeated regular season in program history – but we’re not done yet pic.twitter.com/uwndKjlHbm
— UConn Women’s Basketball (@UConnWBB) March 2, 2026
It still apparently does two decades later, seeing as their combined record at the moment is 58-3. Auriemma and Jim Calhoun, Auriemma and Kevin Ollie, Auriemma and Dan Hurley. The beat goes on.
Maybe the two sides haven’t always been close pals – Auriemma and Calhoun had their tensions – but they have a shared understanding of how to get to the award podium. Hurley has written that he was able to regroup after last season’s sideline meltdowns with the help of candid conversation from Auriemma. “A three-week Band-Aid,” he called it.
And what of the next few weeks? Another double title might be asking a lot. The women will be the unquestioned team to beat but the men have meanies named Duke, Arizona and Michigan in their way. Still, nobody should call it impossible. And it is entirely feasible that both men and women will get to the Final Four, which has already happened five times.
So Connecticut is still Connecticut. But when it comes to mixed-gender power, who’s No. 2?
This year consider Michigan, ranked No. 3 and 27-2 in the men and No 8 and 24-5 in the women. Or Duke, with the men No, 1 and 27-2, the women No. 13 and 22-8. Vanderbilt, Michigan State, North Carolina and Texas Tech are the other schools with both teams ranked this week.
And there’s also Miami Ohio. It’s common knowledge the RedHawk men are 30-0. Notice the women are 25-5.
The history book has no clear answer for No. 2 over the long haul. Only five schools have won titles for both – UConn, Stanford, Baylor, North Carolina and Maryland. Thirty-six schools have had both men and women advance to the Final Four.
You could make a case for North Carolina. Seven combined titles and 24 trips to the Final Four, with the men accounting for six and 21 of them. Duke has 22 Final Four trips split 18-4 between the men and women, but the women have no championship. UCLA has 11 titles and 20 Final Fours, with the men responsible for 11 and 19 .
On the other hand, three of Stanford’s four titles and 15 of the 17 Final Fours were compliments of the women. For true gender inequity in March, there’s Tennessee – 18 Final Fours, eight championships, and every last one of them the Lady Vols.
Maryland has its own unusual footnote. The Terrapins are the last current Big Ten team to win a men’s title, and also the last to win a women’s championship. Except they weren’t in the Big Ten at the time for either. So while it’s been 26 long years since Michigan State gave the league its last men’s trophy, it’s been an even longer 27 years for the women, back to Purdue.
The Big East has had no such drought issues. Not with Connecticut as a member. It’s March and the Huskies are in the hunt again. Both of ’em.
