Women’s basketball fans in Connecticut got good news during a second-quarter timeout in the 2026 Big East Tournament championship game on Monday.
In front of a sold-out crowd in Uncasville, the Big East announced a three-year contract extension with Mohegan Sun Arena to continue hosting the women’s tournament through at least 2029. The statement over the arena’s PA system was nearly drowned out by a raucous cheer, and the energy in the building never faded until the UConn women’s basketball team was holding its Big East championship trophy under a rainbow shower of confetti.
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“When you have that many people coming out year after year, when you have people here at 11:30 at night watching the games, I think the people here at Mohegan know how to run events,” coach Geno Auriemma said after the Huskies’ 90-51 win over Villanova in the title game. “It’s a fantastic facility, a great place, and it’s a destination place for people for a weekend.”
Mohegan Sun began hosting the tournament when UConn returned to the Big East in 2020-21, and its first three-year extension of that deal concluded with the 2026 tournament. The new three-year extension will make Mohegan Sun the second longest-running host site in the tournament’s history. The only other site to host more than three consecutive seasons was PeoplesBank Arena in Hartford, which served as the tournament’s home for a decade from 2004-2013.
According to the Big East, the women’s tournament has seen a nearly 30% increase in attendance over the last four years at Mohegan Sun. The arena holds approximately 10,000 fans at capacity.
“Our tournament is supported at a very high level by fans in the state of Connecticut, and Mohegan Sun’s world-class facility and amenities offer our coaches, student-athletes, and fans an unrivaled championship environment,” Big East commissioner Val Ackerman said in a release. “We are very excited to continue this partnership and to call Uncasville the home of Big East women’s basketball for years to come.”
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Over four decades leading UConn, Auriemma has witnessed a major evolution in the scale of the Big East Tournament. Auriemma won his first conference championship in 1989 over Providence at Walsh Gymnasium, a 1,316-seat arena on Seton Hall’s campus, and he brought home his second in 1991 at McDonough Gymnasium in Washington, D.C. with a slightly higher capacity of 2,200.
Gampel Pavilion hosted the tournament seven times between 1990-2003, and it also spent stints at Providence’s Alumni Hall and the Louis Brown Athletic Center (now known as Jersey Mike’s Arena) in Piscataway, New Jersey during that period.
Since UConn returned to the Big East following seven years in the American Athletic Conference from 2013-20, the program is undefeated in six straight tournaments at Mohegan Sun. Of the Huskies’ 24 Big East tournament championships, they’ve won 18 in the state of Connecticut.
Auriemma feels the fans in Connecticut have consistently made Uncasville feel like the ‘Basketball Capital of the World,’ and he believes the tournament belongs in the state for the foreseeable future.
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“Nobody cares more about basketball, women’s college basketball and basketball in general than the people here in this area,” Auriemma said. “I can’t imagine it being anywhere else, to be honest with you.”
