Connecticut men’s basketball recently completed an utterly dominant two-year stretch. Between the 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns, the Huskies won two National Championships, a Big East Regular Season title, a Big East Tournament title and racked up 12 double-digit victories in 12 NCAA Tournament games. Many would consider that the most accomplished two-season stretch in the college game this century, and there is certainly a case to be made. But that leaves out a program that may have achieved even more — Virginia men’s basketball in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
During those two seasons, Coach Tony Bennett’s team stormed the college basketball world. Led by four future NBA players who were key contributors on both teams — Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, De’Andre Hunter and Mamadi Diakite — the Cavaliers posted an outrageous 66-6 record that bests Connecticut’s 68-11 mark from the past two seasons. Losing just four of its 41 conference matchups including ACC Tournament play, Virginia cruised to two ACC Regular Season titles, an ACC Tournament title and a National Championship between 2017 and 2019.
But the Cavaliers did not just win in the course of this success — they stampeded their opponents. Virginia won 42 of its 72 contests by double digits, 24 of which were decided by 20 or more points. On a game-by-game basis throughout those two seasons, Bennett’s team was more than four times more likely to win a game by at least 20 points than they were to lose by any margin.
39 editions of the AP Poll were released between 2017-18 and 2018-19 — the Cavaliers earned a top-5 national ranking 29 times and were given a top-3 spot 18 times, both more than the Huskies have managed in the past two seasons. On only seven polls was Virginia not inside the top 10, as after a seven-week stretch without the honor to begin the 2017-18 season, the Cavaliers found themselves with a single-digit ranking for the next 32 installments through the end of the 2018-19 campaign. On the other hand, Connecticut was not a top-10 team on 11 different occasions.
Virginia’s dominance was due in large part to its No. 1 scoring defense in the nation both years. The team allowed just 54 and 56.1 points per game, respectively, and held opponents under 50 points an incredible 23 times — the Huskies did so just twice. Bennett’s style of basketball is geared towards defense, so when the offense began to flourish — the Cavaliers committed the fewest turnovers in the country in 2017-18 and ranked seventh nationally in three-point percentage in 2018-19 — the program took off.
Nearly every Virginia win was a statement during this period, and putting its NCAA Tournament victories in 2019 aside, a few spectacular performances stand out. The Cavaliers beat No. 18 Clemson by 25 points and then handed No. 4 Duke their only home loss of its season in back-to-back games in 2018. In the same season, they took down No. 12 North Carolina twice — the second time being in the ACC Championship.
The following year, Virginia beat 11 ranked opponents on its way to the national title. In a loaded ACC, Bennett’s team delivered an 81-59 blowout against No. 9 Virginia Tech, crushed No. 9 Florida State and won four more road games against top-25 ACC teams, consistently handling the country’s strongest outfits.
The Cavaliers’ mere six losses between 2017 and 2019 were split between the two seasons. Virginia’s 2017-18 defeats came by way of No. 18 West Virginia in a difficult road environment, a crushing one-point defeat to Virginia Tech and, of course, the NCAA Tournament Round of 64 defeat to UMBC that no Cavalier fan will ever forget.
A year later, Virginia fell only to top-2 Duke twice and No. 12 Florida State in the ACC Tournament. The loss to the Retrievers is the lone defeat to be ashamed of — the Cavaliers’ five other blemishes during a two-year period came to a slew of top-20 teams and a bitter rival in overtime
On the other hand, Connecticut’s last two seasons have been no stranger to puzzling defeats — five of the Huskies’ 11 losses came by double digits and four were to unranked foes. That includes an 11-point home defeat to struggling St. John’s two seasons ago and, more recently, a 15-point drubbing against Seton Hall and an 85-66 thrashing put down by No. 15 Creighton this season.
While the Cavaliers’ shocking loss to UMBC prevented them from winning a pair of national titles as Connecticut did, the program’s two-season run rivals — and arguably trumps — that of the Huskies in every other domain. Both teams won their conference tournament, but Virginia earned one more regular season title than Connecticut and lost fewer games during its run than the Huskies did in 2022-23 alone. The Cavaliers were the more consistent team, too — Virginia never lost consecutive games, but Connecticut endured a six-game stretch in 2022-23 in which it fell five times.
The Cavaliers’ accomplishments along their historic ride should not be overlooked — anyone writing the Huskies’ name into the history books for their accomplishments in the past two seasons has to also make space for Virginia.
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