After a grueling three weeks, Lance Madness officially has a champion; congratulations to Ms. Luby–but, according to her, all the credit goes to her husband for making the bracket. The UConn Huskies pulled Ms. Luby on their figurative Alaskan dog sled to a blowout victory over Purdue. The Huskies had no trouble with Zach Edey and the Boilermakers who ran out of steam and stalled on the tracks.

On Monday, April 8, UConn strengthened its case to be called a dynasty and cemented itself as one of the most dominant forces of twenty-first-century sports thus far. UConn has now won five of their six National Championships in the 2000s (with the other one coming in 1999). Now tied with UNC for third all-time in titles, UConn is the sport’s first back-to-back champion since Florida in 2006-2007.

With 1460 total points, Ms. Luby ranked 79,385 out of 22.6 million on ESPN’s bracket challenge. Perfect Final Four and perfect National Championship predictions solidified Luby’s immense 50-point lead over the second-best bracket. “Ms. MacRae came in 2nd, so if I had to lose to her I’m ok with that,” Ms. Luby said. The 47 people who correctly picked the UConn Huskies to win the title represent 30.72% of NVOT’s total entries. 

Ms. Luby has cherished the spotlight that’s come along with this major accomplishment. “I Love seeing my name on the TVs and kids yelling ‘congrats’ to me in the hallway,” she said. She’s already looking towards defending her title in 2025, however, she said “It’s ok if someone else takes the title next year.”

Our champion had some final remarks to share with the field: “Good luck to future winners, but remember who was the 1st ever Lance Madness Winner – me!”