In a video posted by Dugan Lloyd of FOX61, UConn Huskies coach Dan Hurley said his program and the Duke Blue Devils have separated themselves as the two biggest brands in college basketball.
Hurley stopped short of ranking the pair. Duke, Kentucky, North Carolina and UCLA were the programs he named as having pulled away before UConn’s run took off in the ’90s.
“When we’re traveling as a program, obviously, road arenas and places that maybe don’t always draw as well, we tend to draw for people,” Hurley said.
“You’ve had programs like Duke [and] Kentucky and maybe Carolina and somebody like the UCLAs, the Kentuckys that maybe had separated themselves, even though we started to have tremendous success in the ’90s and into the 2000s. We became obviously a championship-level program in men’s and women’s.”
“But it feels like in college basketball, at least for right now, for where we are right now, it feels like Duke and UConn have kind of separated themselves in terms of the biggest brands on the college side of the basketball side, in terms of just winning the most, putting players in the NBA,” Hurley continued.
“I think fans would probably recognize those as the two biggest programs. Obviously, both programs probably feel like they’re the best.”
Duke and UConn last met March 29 in the Elite Eight in Washington, a day after Hurley said the two had been the best men’s programs of the past 30 years.
Duke, the tournament’s top overall seed, led 44-25 late in the first half. Braylon Mullins hit a 35-foot 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left to give UConn a 73-72 win.
The Huskies beat Illinois 71-62 in the Final Four on April 4. Two nights later, Michigan beat them 69-63 in the national championship game in Indianapolis, ending UConn’s bid for a third title in four seasons.
Since Duke won its first national championship in 1991, UConn has won six and Duke has won five. The Huskies’ titles came under three coaches: Jim Calhoun in 1999, 2004 and 2011, Kevin Ollie in 2014 and Hurley in 2023 and 2024. The UConn women have won 12 titles under Geno Auriemma.
Duke opened second and UConn fourth in the Associated Press preseason poll released Oct. 19. Florida is first, with 47 first-place votes to Duke’s 10.
UConn opens the regular season Monday against Gardner-Webb. Its nonconference schedule includes all three of last season’s other Final Four teams: Michigan on Nov. 6 in Boston, Arizona on Nov. 18 in Tucson and Illinois on Dec. 4 in Chicago.
The Huskies’ sixth game is Nov. 25 against Duke in Las Vegas.
