How would UConn fare if the Huskies were in the Big 12 this season?

The Connecticut Huskies enter the 2024-25 season with a chance at history, seeking a third consecutive national champion. What if they were doing so as a member of the best conference in college basketball?

That's not going to happen this year, but in the future, UConn could find itself a member of the Big 12, a league that has distinguished itself for the product it puts on the hardwood every season. Sources confirmed to ESPN last week that the school is in early talks to join the conference.

The Big East is no slouch. In fact, the Big East still exists largely because the Huskies propped it up when conference alignment started en masse a decade ago. But the Big 12 has simply been the better conference in recent years, made even more elite by the arrivals of Houston and BYU (not to mention Arizona this year).

As the defending champs, UConn enters the 2024-25 campaign as the Big East favorites. Creighton, Marquette, and St. John's could cause some stress, but the Huskies are the alpha. Would that be the case in Big 12 country?

How would the UConn Huskies do if they were playing in the Big 12 in 2024-25, rather than the Big East?

There are probably four teams that enter the season better than the Huskies in the Big 12. Kansas is arguably the top team in the nation, while Houston and Iowa State also have legitimate claims to a top five slot. With the return of Caleb Love, Big 12 newcomer Arizona belongs in that conversation, too.

UConn is probably on somewhat even footing with Baylor to start the year, but the Huskies can get the benefit of the doubt as the two-time defending champion. Besides, they probably have the higher ceiling between the two.

An advantage to the Big 12 is that there are too many teams to play each one twice during one regular season. In the Big East, UConn is stuck playing Creighton and St. John's and everyone twice. Of course, that works both ways - they get DePaul and Georgetown twice, too.

If the Huskies are the top dog in the Big East, that pretty much guarantees the team a top-three seed in the NCAA Tournament. Let's say it lands at No. 2, right in the middle.

That's probably a seed higher than UConn would get as a member of the Big 12. The league is stacked enough that if the Huskies finished fifth, they would still be deserving of a seed between two and four. Three is smack in the middle of that range.

Last year, UConn rolled through the NCAA Tournament as a No. 1 seed. The year before, the program demolished all comers as a No. 4 seed in the Big Dance. They've also won it all as a 1, 2, 3, and 7 seed, so the Huskies shouldn't be daunted by any seeding.

If anything, being in the loaded Big 12 should make the Huskies more battle-tested come the Big Dance. There are games this team could sleepwalk through in the Big East (though Dan Hurley certainly wouldn't let them). That's not really the case in the Big 12, where even the worst teams (Colorado? Utah? Oklahoma State?) could present challenges.

It may be oversimplistic, but UConn would probably fare about the same in the Big 12 as the Big East this season. They'd have a worse record in conference play, but their stature on the national stage would be the same.

In a few years, we may have the chance to see how the UConn Huskies would actually do if they were in the Big 12.