Head coach Geno Auriemma has led his UConn women's basketball team into the NCAA Tournament 36 times in a row and walked away with 12 national titles, including last season's, so he's become an expert at knowing what it'll take to cut down the nets in April. His current 2025-26 UConn squad just wrapped up an undefeated campaign in the Big East, which some have criticized as having a lower caliber of competition. Auriemma is setting the record straight, however, shutting down any doubts surrounding his team's ability to take on its March Madness opponents.

“Whatever league we're in, if we win the national championship, it won't matter. If we don't win it, it won't be because of what league we play in,” Auriemma said. “We have more national championships than the Big Ten and the Big 12 combined. And the ACC. So what does playing in those leagues get for those guys?

“We have more national championships, 13, than all those leagues combined. So just because you play in those leagues doesn't make you a championship team. You still have to go out and prove it on the court.”

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Auriemma and the reigning-champion Huskies were unsurprisingly named the top seed on Selection Sunday. the other Final Four teams from last year, UCLA, Texas, and South Carolina, were also chosen as No. 1 seeds, setting up potential rematches in this year's tournament. But the legendary coach made it clear that he remains unfazed by the Big Ten and SEC foes.

“UCLA's biggest win was against Michigan. Well, we beat Michigan. And we beat Ohio State, they beat Ohio State. We beat Iowa, we beat Louisville, they're pretty good,” Auriemma said. “You know, so we won a lot of games against the Big Ten. It's not like we didn't have games against really, really good teams, we just happened to play really, really well.”

Auriemma and UConn are the likely favorites to take home the title again in 2026, and he knows that coming from the Big East conference won't damper the team's chances.

“Will it matter, going into the tournament? No. We were in the American Athletic Conference for seven years when we had Stewie and those guys, and that conference was worse than this one that we're in right now that people say is not a good conference, and we won four straight national championships. So I think if you have the right team, it really doesn't matter where you play,” Auriemma added. “If you're good, you're good.”