Win margin in the Tournament for National Champions since 2010:

10: 12.8 (Duke)
11: 10.3 (UConn)
12: 11.8 (UK)
13: 16.2 (UL)
14: 7.8 (UConn)
15: 15.5 (Duke)
16: 21 (Nova)
17: 11.2 (UNC)
18: 17.7 (Nova)
19: 7.5 (UVA)
21: 15.3 (Baylor)
22: 15.7 (Kansas)

2023 UConn* sits at 20.6 pic.twitter.com/NVtXCNbzNE

— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) April 3, 2023

This UConn team is really good. It's the only team in America that has sustained an elite level play for longer than about 12 games, and it's done it twice.

I know the perception is that there are no elite teams in America this year, but if UConn finishes this run off, it deserves to be talked about among the other great teams of the past 10-15 years.

To be considered a great team you have to beat really good teams. Their "run" through the Tournament didn't include facing a single really good team. A 5 seed as an opponent in the Final Four and again in the Championship Game has never happened. And great teams don't fall apart in January like this team did.

BUCANDOIT82 said:

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To be considered a great team you have to beat really good teams. Their "run" through the Tournament didn't include facing a single really good team. A 5 seed as an opponent in the Final Four and again in the Championship Game has never happened. And great teams don't fall apart in January like this team did.

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This.

UConn beat a 13, 5, 8, 3, 5 and 5 seed to win. Not exactly 1997 Arizona beating 1 seeds KU, UNC and UK to win.

Interestingly, when UConn won it in 2011 (also in Houston) as a 3 seed, they beat a 14, 6, 2, 5, 4 and 8. And the highest seed team they beat that year was 2 seed San Diego St.

UConn could only beat the teams in front of it, and it did so convincingly.

No one else in the country played even remotely close to as well as UConn did this March. That team deserves respect.

To me it's not necessary who they played but how they played them. They made a white-hot Miami team look like they forgot how to play the game. They handed a good/not great Gonzaga team their worst tourney loss ever. They kneecapped an Arkansas team coming off a win over a 1-seed.

Nobody got within 100 feet of beating them. I think there have been more impressive runs, but don't let the seed #'s fool you into thinking this wasn't up there on the list.

Let's cut to the chase. There is no such thing as an historically great 4 seed.