Gus Johnson suggests UConn women can win WNBA title

The UConn Huskies women’s basketball team is really good, they’re championship good, they’re even dynasty good, but Gus Johnson thinks they might be Las Vegas Aces or New York Liberty good.

Johnson was calling the Big East men’s tournament game between UConn and Xavier alongside Bill Raftery Thursday night on FS1, when he began gushing over the Huskies basketball programs.

And there’s plenty to gush over, with both the men’s and women’s basketball teams racking up championships over the years.

Gus Johnson suggests the UConn women’s team would be a force in the WNBA.

“I bet you they’d go to the playoffs. They might even win it!” pic.twitter.com/Xwof1jznhk

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 13, 2026

“You would never think with the Dukes and the North Carolinas, those kind of teams out there, that the University of Connecticut is literally the cradle for champions with the men and the women,” Johnson said. “The women, it’s not even fair. It’s just not fair! They should put that women’s team in the WNBA. I bet you they’d go to the playoffs. They might even win it!”

The UConn women have 12 national championships and six perfect seasons under head coach Geno Auriemma. And they’re looking to make it 13 and seven this season, as they head to the tournament with a 34-0 record.

Surely, Gus Johnson meant this as a compliment to UConn, not a slight to the WNBA. But it is a slight to the WNBA to suggest UConn could beat every pro team. It’s one thing to debate whether the best college team could beat the worst pro team, and even that is a silly debate. But to claim the best college team could beat the best pro team is nonsense.

Every year, we see the best college players enter the WNBA and have to go through an adjustment period. For all the pomp and circumstance around Caitlin Clark, even she hasn’t dominated the WNBA the way she did in college basketball, and that’s with better teammates at the pro level.

The success of the UConn women’s team is unprecedented in the modern era of college basketball. You might react to something you’ve never seen before by claiming something else you’ve never seen before can happen. But as great as UConn is, and for as much praise as they deserve, the Huskies would struggle to win one game against WNBA teams, let alone a championship.