Long story short-- and maybe Castro can back me up on this-- UConn was an absolute juggernaut to start the year. I saw them in person completely crush Alabama.

When they got to conference play, they had a tough stretch of schedule where they lost 6 of 8-- they were struggling to adjust to what more familiar conference foes were scheming against them. (Some of these were also road games against coaches like Sean Miller, Ed Cooley, Shaka Smart.)

Then, they adjusted, figured things out. They've lost twice since the start of February by a combined 5 points. Again, some of that was getting the hard part of the schedule out of the way-- but some of it was also the adjustment period. They had two heavy minute starters return, a mega-talented guy in Hawkins who'd only played, like, 16 MPG the season before, a freshman, and a transfer PG. Teams like that are bound to hit speed bumps.

But now they're crushing teams again. And, IIRC, this UConn team is *undefeated* against the spread against non-conference foes this year. Which is *crazy* to think about.

So yeah, even though they had eight losses going into the Dance, they were *fourth* in KenPom. Meaning fourth *overall.* KenPom absolutely graded them as the equivalent of a 1 or 2 seed in terms of actual quality of play over the course of the season. And I think that projection has clearly revealed itself to have merit.