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Second Men’s Soccer Tournament for the Huskies
The 2000 NCAA Division I Men’s Soccer Tournament was the 41st organized men’s college soccer tournament by the National Collegiate Athletic Association, to determine the top college soccer team in the United States. The Connecticut Huskies won their second national title by defeating the Creighton Blue Jays in the championship game, 2–0. The final match was played on December 10, 2000, in Charlotte, North Carolina at Ericsson Stadium for the second straight year. All other games were played at the home field of the higher-seeded team.
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#4 NCAA Final Four Champs – UConn Huskies
In 2014 led by American Athletic Conference Player of the Year Shabazz Napier, UConn became the first #7 seed to win the NCAA Championship, getting past No. 1 seed Florida, No. 2 seed Villanova, No. 3 seed Iowa State, and No. 4 seed Michigan State, before defeating the Kentucky Wildcats 60–54 in the championship game in Arlington, Texas. UConn is undefeated in the state of Texas in the Final Four (6–0).
As in 2004, the UConn women’s basketball team also won a national title, making UConn the first and only school in NCAA Division I history to have its men’s and women’s basketball programs win a national championship in the same season twice.
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Undefeated Season and 16th Championship Lady Huskies
In 2015 UConn landed another top recruit in #1 High School prospect Katie Lou Samuelson; she quickly earned a spot in the starting five alongside sophomore Kia Nurse and seniors Breanna Stewart, Moriah Jefferson, and Morgan Tuck. The team was unstoppable all season long, beating every opponent by an average of 39.7 points, and easily winning conference regular season and tournament. While other #1 seeds Notre Dame, South Carolina, and Baylor suffered early upsets in the NCAA Tournament, UConn easily advanced to the Final Four where they defeated Oregon State 80–51 and then old Big East rival Syracuse 82–51 in the Championship Game. UConn completed their sixth undefeated season winning the 11th overall Championship (all-time record for both men’s and women’s college basketball) and 4th in a row (also a record for women’s college basketball). Geno Auriemma is now the only coach in college basketball to have won 11 titles, passing UCLA legend John Wooden (who has 10) and reaching former NBA coach Phil Jackson.
Senior Breanna Stewart was named Final Four Most Outstanding Player for a record 4th straight time; she also performed a back-to-back sweep of all individual honors, winning her 2nd straight Wade Trophy, a record 3rd Associated Press Women’s College Basketball Player of the Year award, a record 3rd USBWA Women’s National Player of the Year award, a record 3rd Naismith College Player of the Year award and her 2nd straight John R. Wooden Award. Stewart finished with 2,676 points (2nd Husky ever), 1,179 rebounds (4th Husky ever), 426 assists, and 414 blocked shots (1st Husky ever), and was a #1 pick in the 2016 WNBA draft. Moriah Jefferson finished with a program-record 659 assists and a back-to-back Nancy Lieberman Award as the best point guard in the nation. The trio of Stewart-Jefferson-Tuck ended its college career with a 151–5 record, the most victories for college basketball players; they are the only 4-time winners in college basketball history (freshmen were not eligible to play during UCLA men’s streak). With their eleventh championship win in 2016, the UConn Huskies have tied the UCLA Bruins men’s team for most college basketball championships and became the first Division I women’s basketball team to win four straight national championships.
Luigi “Geno” Auriemma (born March 23, 1954) is an Italian-born American college basketball coach and the head coach of the University of Connecticut Huskies women’s basketball team. He has led UConn to eleven NCAA Division I national championships, the most in women’s college basketball history, and has won eight national Naismith College Coach of the Year awards. Auriemma was the head coach of the United States women’s national basketball team from 2009 through 2016, during which time his teams won the 2010 and 2014 World Championships, and gold medals at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, going undefeated in all four tournaments. Auriemma was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.
College Sports Established
1903
Location
Storrs, Connecticut
College Name
University of Connecticut
Collegiate History
1973 – Present / NCAA Division 1
1921 – 1973 / University Division of the NCAA
1907 – 1921 / Athletic Association of the United States
Conference History
2020 – Present / Big East Conference
2013 – 2019 / American Athletic Conference
1979 – 2013 / Big East Conference
1946 – 1979 / Yankee Conference
1903 – 1946 / Independent
Nickname
Huskies – The university’s teams are nicknamed “Huskies”, a name adopted following a student poll in The Connecticut Campus in 1934 after the school’s name changed from Connecticut Agricultural College to Connecticut State College in 1933; before then, the teams were referred to as the Aggies. Although there is a homophonic relationship between “UConn” and the Yukon, where Huskies are native, the “Huskies” nickname predates the school’s 1939 name change to the University of Connecticut; the first recorded use of “UConn” (as “U-Conn”, both separately and with “Huskies”) was later in 1939. The university and its athletics officially rebranded to UConn in the spring of 2013.
UConn’s women’s teams are not known as the “Lady Huskies”, but simply as “UConn Huskies”, the same as the men’s teams.
NCAA Championships
Baseball 0
Men’s Basketball 4
2014, 2011, 2004, 1999
Women’s Basketball 16
2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2010, 2009, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2000, 1995
Football 0
Soccer 2
2000, 1981