The University of Connecticut will try to become just the second school in the last 30-plus years to win back-to-back men’s NCAA titles in basketball on Monday night, but for those of us who still possess critical thinking skills and employ deductive reasoning, we have to wonder if the Huskies program is cheating again. After all, the situation definitely meets our establish criteria for raising suspicions as defined earlier.

Former UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun won 3 national titles between 1999 and 2011, but he “was cited by the NCAA for failing to create an atmosphere of compliance and suspended …” at the start of the 2011-2012 season when his team was the defending champion. In fact, “The school admitted that it had committed major NCAA violations.” So, can we assume that this cheating may have been occurring the whole time?

We know cheaters don’t change their behavior unless serious consequences are applied: this is basic animal psychology, as we have discussed in many places on this website. If an individual or an organization is not punished for illegal, immoral, or unethical behavior without suffering severe consequences, that entity will not change its behavioral decisions and patterns. Colloquially, tigers cannot change their stripes. Or Huskies.

This is basic organizational psychology, too, of course. And when Calhoun’s successor, Kevin Ollie, won another national title for UConn in 2014, should it have been no surprise when he, too, was busted by the NCAA (post de facto, of course, after the money had been made) for violating multiple regulations and rules. He left the program in shambles after reaching March Madness just once in his final 4 seasons as coach:

“Ollie was charged with three Level I violations stemming from the following: summer pick-up games that should have counted toward allowable team activities, a video coordinator engaging in impermissible coaching instruction and a booster providing extra benefits to student-athletes. The extra benefits were provided by a private trainer and included training, lodging, meals and local transportation.” Serious shit.

This brings us to current Head Coach Dan Hurley: we have no reason to think of him individually as someone without integrity. But the pattern at the school itself is clear, and the situation fits the established profile: it had been almost a decade since Ollie’s championship in 2014; a bandwagon fan base primed to spend its money after starving; and the Huskies going 8 seasons with just 1 single NCAA tourney win.

Boom.

Hurley took over a wrecked program in 2018, and his track record as a coach prior to this gig demonstrated solid success at Rhode Island, going 8-21 in his first season there and 26-8 in his sixth/final season before jumping to UConn. Again, we have no reason to doubt him as an individual—it’s the Huskies program, in general, that we do not trust … and the situation as described above. It’s a lot of suspect data, in connection.

Only time will tell, of course, if Hurley and these teams have been winning honestly, long after the money is made. But after Calhoun and Ollie, we’re keeping an eye on this random school’s basketball success which just doesn’t add up in historical context and present-day situation(s).