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This weekend in Minneapolis, the Auburn Tigers and Texas Tech Red Raiders will attempt something that hasn't been achieved in this millennium: win a national title in their first Final Four appearance.
The 1999 UConn Huskies were the most recent to achieve the feat. With the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, it seems a no-brainer than UConn would go on to become both a Final Four perennial and repeat national champion (2004, 2011, 2014). But those labels were far less certain for a team that entered the 1999 national title game against Duke as a 9.5-point underdog. It remains the biggest title-game spread of the past 20-plus years. (The Huskies covered it, and then some, with their 77-74 victory against the 37-1 Blue Devils.)
Here is the story of how UConn pulled off what many thought impossible, told by some of those who lived it.
Twenty years later, UConn's upset of Duke still reverberates
The 1999 UConn Huskies were the most recent to achieve the feat. With the benefit of 20 years of hindsight, it seems a no-brainer than UConn would go on to become both a Final Four perennial and repeat national champion (2004, 2011, 2014). But those labels were far less certain for a team that entered the 1999 national title game against Duke as a 9.5-point underdog. It remains the biggest title-game spread of the past 20-plus years. (The Huskies covered it, and then some, with their 77-74 victory against the 37-1 Blue Devils.)
Here is the story of how UConn pulled off what many thought impossible, told by some of those who lived it.
Twenty years later, UConn's upset of Duke still reverberates