Big 12 Basketball: 3 schools that should be added with Gonzaga

UConn

Current conference: Big East

For a good while now, I’ve thought that an intriguing addition to the Big 12 from a basketball perspective out of the Big East would be the UConn Huskies.

Head coach Dan Hurley seems to have this UConn men’s basketball program back on track on a consistent basis in recent years.

Since former UConn head coach Kevin Ollie and the Huskies won the National Championship for the 2013-14 season, this team missed out on the NCAA Tournament in six of seven campaigns. Granted, one of those was during the shortened 2019-20 campaign due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Yet, UConn was already a bubble team for the NCAA Tournament in 2020, so there was no guarantee it was making it in that season either.

In the last two seasons, Hurley and the Huskies have made the NCAA Tournament as a mid-single-digit seed. And while both NCAA Tournament appearances resulted in Round of 64 exits, it does look like the talent and regular season performances are picking up in the last couple of seasons.

I would imagine that, given its plethora of resources for the college hoops program, UConn stays relevant under Hurley for the foreseeable future.

It’s also worth noting that there is a good amount of potential in the UConn athletic program as a whole. UConn could be a decent football program if it continues to build in the right direction under new head coach Jim Mora Jr.

And there is an interesting possible rivalry in the northeast in hoops and football with the Big 12 also adding the Cincinnati Bearcats out of the AAC, taking effect in 2023.