Perhaps it never left, but the Connecticut basketball dynasty is officially back. Last season’s national champions have won 50 straight games and are an overwhelming -265 favorite to win their 13th national championship. After this season’s 34-0 regular season, Geno Auriemma now has a career 1284-165 record, easily the highest winning percentage by any high-level basketball coach.
The Huskies will begin their 2026 tournament with a 3 p.m. ET matchup this afternoon against No. 16 UTSA. The Roadrunners are making their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2009.
Connecticut is a 54.5-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook, with the point total set to 123.5. Below, I’ll break down this first-round matchup and offer a prediction.
UTSA Roadrunners at UConn Huskies (3:00 p.m. ET)
UTSA wouldn’t have been in the field prior to the conference tournament, but it timed its run well, beating Temple, South Florida, East Carolina, and Rice to sneak into March Madness despite going just 9-9 in American Conference play throughout the regular season. However, it’s worth noting that the Roadrunners aren’t the worst team in the field; at 114th in NET Rankings, they’re ahead of several teams, and they also recorded two Quad 2 wins, the only No. 16 seed to do so. They’re capable of solid defensive performances, holding Rice to just 40 points in the American Conference championship game.
UTSA has experience on its side, as its two leading scorers are both seniors. Cheyenne Rowe, a Canadian forward averaging 14.0 points and 8.8 rebounds per game this season, leads the way, and point guard Ereauna Hardaway contributes 11.3 points and 4.7 assists per game of her own while shooting 42.4% from beyond the arc. However, the Roadrunners don’t have much shooting besides Hardaway, connecting on their threes at less than a 30% clip, but they can certainly clean up the glass, ranking 38th in rebound margin.
The Huskies need no introduction. UConn didn’t play the most difficult schedule, facing only nine Quad 1 teams, but the fact remains that the Huskies doubled their opponents’ score more times (11) than they won by fewer than 30 (six). In fact, in the Big East tournament, each of their wins came by at least 39 points, and the lone time they failed to win by double digits, they shot an anomalously poor 38% from the field in a three-point home win against Michigan — a fellow top seed that ended up finishing sixth in NET rankings.
The names on Connecticut’s roster speak for themselves: sophomore forward Sarah Strong was the No. 1 player in the 2024 recruiting class, and she’s more than lived up to the hype with the Huskies, leading the team in points (18.5), rebounds (7.6), steals (3.4), and blocks (1.6) per game on 60-43-87 shooting splits. She’s hardly alone, though; Azzi Fudd projects to be a top-five pick in next summer’s WNBA Draft, and she’s averaging 17.7 points per game on 49-45-95 shooting splits. All in all, the Huskies rank second in points per game and first in both points and steals, shooting the best percentages from the field and from beyond the arc.
In theory, UTSA’s rebounding could be enough for it to cover the spread, and its three-point and field goal percentage defense is good enough that holding UConn under 89.5 points is feasible. But the Huskies are a dynasty for a reason, and their interior defense is by far the best in the country, forcing the Roadrunners to shoot when that’s one of their major weaknesses. I’ll take UTSA to score fewer than 34.5 points…and Connecticut to more than double that total.
