3 reasons why we have to rethink our chances to 3 peat | Page 3 | The Boneyard

3 reasons why we have to rethink our chances to 3 peat

TheChamps990411 said:
Not sure about you but i remember when March came both 2023 and 2024 teams were clicking and playing at a very high level especially 2024. That team was an absolute buzzsaw from wire to wire and i had no doubt about a repeat by the time the tourney started. Sure 2023 lost in the BET but you could see they had turned it around from the January struggles and while i wasnt sure about winning it all i knew they were playing well enough that theyd be a very tough out. This years team looks very beatable.
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Almost as if repeating is really difficult, and 3-peating in the modern college era is sublimely absurd.
 
Deepster said:
We didn’t technically have the best team in 1999. Duke was #1 more of the year and the top seed overall. And we were, I believe almost double digit underdogs that game.
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We lost two games. There were two teams head and shoulders above everyone else. We won, therefore we were the best team. The only other time I recall feeling like two teams were locks for the final was 2021, with Baylor and Gonzaga. Nobody was close to those two that year. Guessing which is best that's the hard part.
 
Deepster said:
We didn’t technically have the best team in 1999. Duke was #1 more of the year and the top seed overall. And we were, I believe almost double digit underdogs that game.
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That's certainly the perception and UConn was +9.5 in the Final.

OTOH, UConn was older, deeper, more experienced, and played a more difficult schedule. '98-'99 was an overall down year for the ACC. They only had 3 teams in The Dance. The Big East sent 5.
 
Hans Sprungfeld said:
I doubt this is true

What value is there in emphasizing being realistic if it runs counter to the optimism you claim?

So what?

So what?

Why is this your priority & focus for discussion in advance of a game? Who benefits from your observations & opinions?

Why not, instead, pray that the coaches and players prepare and do their best for Friday's game, and do the same for any game that may thereafter arise?

Your "guess" reveals a limited vision that suggests you only see one possibility and regard it with skepticism.

What would you like?
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For you to put me on ignore.
 
Deepster said:
We didn’t technically have the best team in 1999. Duke was #1 more of the year and the top seed overall. And we were, I believe almost double digit underdogs that game.
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YF-Wrong.gif
 
Deepster said:
We didn’t technically have the best team in 1999. Duke was #1 more of the year and the top seed overall. And we were, I believe almost double digit underdogs that game.
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We had one common opponent and, while we beat St. Johns by four in regulation at MSG, Duke had to go to OT in MSG to beat them by four.

Otherwise Duke only lost to Cincinnati while we lost two games. One at Syracuse while Voskuhl and Hamilton were out with injuries, while the other was an inexplicable loss at home to Miami. If I recall correctly we missed a lot of easy shots and layups in a game we should not have lost.

Duke was the big favorite and I remember listening to ESPN experts the day of the semi-finals saying things like, "Duke's second team could probably win this year". I guess that's why it's not a coronation and why they play the games.
 
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SoFla Steve said:
I've got no dog in this fight, but Cooper's father commented on the recruitment:

When the speculation was finally put to rest on Monday that the 6-foot-9 forward would wear the blue and white of the Blue Devils next season Ralph Flagg, Cooper’s father, took to social media to explain how tight the race was between Duke and UConn.​
​
“I don’t think people will truly ever understand how close it was,” Flagg posted.​

Duke basketball: Cooper Flagg’s father speaks on ‘close’ recruitment
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paying lip service by saying it was close is not the same as saying Flagg was going to pick UConn like that troll did.
 
HuskyHawk said:
We lost two games. There were two teams head and shoulders above everyone else. We won, therefore we were the best team. The only other time I recall feeling like two teams were locks for the final was 2021, with Baylor and Gonzaga. Nobody was close to those two that year. Guessing which is best that's the hard part.
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At the time, Duke was considered a machine. I was a sophomore at storrs in 99 and remember the feeling on campus was "well, at least we got here". Nobody considered uconn the better team.

If Duke won and Battier yelled "we shocked the world" we'd all say- "who are you kidding?"
 
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The problem was the preseason and early season expectations. It is not all on Hurley. Preseason rankings had UConn in the top five?

they lost four starters from the previous year. No one in their right mind should've been predicting 3 peat.
 
temery said:
The problem was the preseason and early season expectations. It is not all on Hurley. Preseason rankings had UConn in the top five?

they lost four starters from the previous year. No one in their right mind should've been predicting 3 peat.
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Do you actually believe that there are any of us in our right mind?
 
Husky25 said:
Almost as if repeating is really difficult, and 3-peating in the modern college era is sublimely absurd.
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Yes it is and nowhere in my comment did i say or infer it wasnt supposed to be. What im saying is this team doesnt have the feel of either of those teams going into the tourney.
 
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SoFla Steve said:
I've got no dog in this fight, but Cooper's father commented on the recruitment:

When the speculation was finally put to rest on Monday that the 6-foot-9 forward would wear the blue and white of the Blue Devils next season Ralph Flagg, Cooper’s father, took to social media to explain how tight the race was between Duke and UConn.​
​
“I don’t think people will truly ever understand how close it was,” Flagg posted.​

Duke basketball: Cooper Flagg’s father speaks on ‘close’ recruitment
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So Cooper’s Dad confirmed what is true that we don’t understand that it was close and never will.

Also this is easy to say after the fact and ambiguous, like the SNL skit; “you can never put too much water in a nuclear reactor.”
 
All I know is they are going have to consistently play their A game to have a chance.
 
Scrutineer said:
For you to put me on ignore.
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No such luck for you.

I'd rather criticize such a post, and I'd overall bet against your continuing at a pace that would make me or anyone bother to put you on ignore. You're too good a fan for that, and simply misguided to post a cold splash of water in a thread like this.

I take your silence on all the other questions I posted as awareness that your post offered no unique insight, and held no positive value as a statement of support for your favored team.
Scrutineer said:
We had one common opponent and, while we beat St. Johns by four in regulation at MSG, Duke had to go to OT in MSG to beat them by four.
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UConn and Duke had 4 common opponents in the 1998-1999 season: Fairfield, Notre Dame, St. John's, and Michigan State.

While there is nothing definitive about measuring teams by their performance against common opponents, UConn had a greater margin of victory in games against every common opponent, except for St. John's where you correctly noted the 4 point margin in both games.

Duke did defeat Michigan State two times, by 4 points and by 6 points. UConn defeated Michigan the one time they played, by 14 points.

I rooted for UConn to win, and UConn won. I was informed enough to know that UConn was a heavy underdog, but I did not feel shocked by the outcome, so much as I felt elated.

For sure, it was a close game that Duke continually treated to win. They believed they would win...but they did not.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
At the time, Duke was considered a machine. I was a sophomore at storrs in 99 and remember the feeling on campus was "well, at least we got here". Nobody considered uconn the better team.

If Duke won and Battier yelled "we shocked the world" we'd all say- "who are you kidding?"
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I still remember that year vividly. On a different thread there was a discussion yesterday about the regional finals in Greensboro against UNC in 1998. After that game I was convinced that we would win it all in 1999 and never wavered.

We were either one or two for the bulk of the year, and while Duke was also one or two, there wasn't any talk through a lot of the season that they were clearly better. In mid-February, due to personal reasons that I don't need to get into, I had to stop following pretty much everything going on in the world (outside of my specific personal sphere) for a couple weeks and when I was able to get involved again (around the start of the BET, which I had tickets to that went to waste), somehow Duke was allegedly the clear number one, among the best teams ever assembled and we were likely behind Michigan St (who we happened to have beaten handily that season). I have no clue what caused that but at the time I felt it was merely propaganda and to this day I still believe the same.

Having watched a lot of basketball from late November to early February, I was convinced that we would not only beat Duke, but that we would surprise them as we were both faster and deeper than they were, two things they would have thought impossible goinig in to the game. The only advantage that I saw them having was that with Elton Brand, if it became an entirely half court, slow down game, they could score from down low a lot more effectively than we could.

Going into the final four, I became furious when many talking heads were claiming that the tournament should reseed for the final four as it wasn't fair that the two best teams (Duke and Mich St in their eyes) had to meet in the semifinals.

Yes, the press going in had this as a bigger mismatch than Tyson-Spinks and afterwards as a greater upset than USA-USSR in the 1980 Winter Olympics, but they were wrong on both counts. We were the better team. In an extended series (best of five, best of seven, whatever) we would have some out on top. I will go to my grave believing this (and even told that to Jim Calhoun, face to face once).
 
FfldCntyFan said:
I still remember that year vividly. On a different thread there was a discussion yesterday about the regional finals in Greensboro against UNC in 1998. After that game I was convinced that we would win it all in 1999 and never wavered.

We were either one or two for the bulk of the year, and while Duke was also one or two, there wasn't any talk through a lot of the season that they were clearly better. In mid-February, due to personal reasons that I don't need to get into, I had to stop following pretty much everything going on in the world (outside of my specific personal sphere) for a couple weeks and when I was able to get involved again (around the start of the BET, which I had tickets to that went to waste), somehow Duke was allegedly the clear number one, among the best teams ever assembled and we were likely behind Michigan St (who we happened to have beaten handily that season). I have no clue what caused that but at the time I felt it was merely propaganda and to this day I still believe the same.

Having watched a lot of basketball from late November to early February, I was convinced that we would not only beat Duke, but that we would surprise them as we were both faster and deeper than they were, two things they would have thought impossible goinig in to the game. The only advantage that I saw them having was that with Elton Brand, if it became an entirely half court, slow down game, they could score from down low a lot more effectively than we could.

Going into the final four, I became furious when many talking heads were claiming that the tournament should reseed for the final four as it wasn't fair that the two best teams (Duke and Mich St in their eyes) had to meet in the semifinals.

Yes, the press going in had this as a bigger mismatch than Tyson-Spinks and afterwards as a greater upset than USA-USSR in the 1980 Winter Olympics, but they were wrong on both counts. We were the better team. In an extended series (best of five, best of seven, whatever) we would have some out on top. I will go to my grave believing this (and even told that to Jim Calhoun, face to face once).
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I felt the same. I thought KEA and RIP were the 2 best players in the country and that we were super specialized and deep. But I thought that I was just being a homer because all the talk was about Elton and how unstoppable this Duke team was. So I told myself well it's just husky goggles.

I feel the same way about this year's team. I think we're just as talented as anybody.
 
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Jaydumo20 said:
Here are the 3 reasons why we shouldn't trust our doubt about this team. Spoiler: It's all about the coaching.

1. We weren't gonna shut down purdue's 3 point shooting. They're gonna get theirs.

- they didn't get theirs. At all. Nobody thought we'd let Edey score as much as he did either. Unorthodox game plan. Big results

2. The Gonzaga game- how are we gonna stop Timme? This is a bad matchup for us.
- we stopped Timme. We torched the best team in our region. Torched. Not beat. Torched. Against a great coach. He was baffled. They were baffled.

3. My biggest one- T Shannon and Illinois.

- a great coach and a superstar were outsmarted. Remember, this was a bad matchup for us. I want to focus on this for a bit.
We were all so very wrong. We based our thoughts on this game based on things we were so certain of- Shannon is gonna get his and they are soooo well coached.
They took the biggest beating of all time. After the game Underwood was confused. He had no idea what hit him.

All these things that every talking head was so sure of. We were so sure of. This year, we are so sure we can't hang. It's not like our staff is one of the ten best staffs in the country. They are the best. Why wouldn't we still believe this? Kelvin, Nate, Bruce, Barnes... these guys have been around for a minute and had the chances and resources to do what we've done. They haven't. Plain and simple. The last 2 years in the tourney the best coaches in the league were flumoxed by this staff.
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Way hindsight.

What??
 
Marat said:
We're still the CHAMPS....... until we're not !
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This is the right take.

I thought Oklahoma was going to win. I then realized there is an unrealized notion that we have about us… it’s the name, hardware, and the coach.

We are still a boogie man that teams fear until we are no longer the champs. If Florida is as good as advertised this year, good for them. Preconceived notions may help us. There’s another side of me that thinks we played a certain way tonight with the hope that we have different style/gameplan for Florida. Going into the game Hurley said he thought it would be a low scoring game 59-58. I think won the way he wanted to win. Such a sicko playing with our emotions.

Alas, if this is it, I hope we go out to a nice tune. Until that happens we’re still the champs baby!
 
Is McNeeley gonna have any impact as a college player or just cruise into the lottery?
 
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FLDawg16 said:
Without Liam we most certainly wouldn’t have even made the tourney
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How do you figure that? He looked great early, but since the injury, he's been abysmal on D and he can't shoot.
 
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Jaydumo20 said:
Here are the 3 reasons why we shouldn't trust our doubt about this team. Spoiler: It's all about the coaching.

1. We weren't gonna shut down purdue's 3 point shooting. They're gonna get theirs.

- they didn't get theirs. At all. Nobody thought we'd let Edey score as much as he did either. Unorthodox game plan. Big results

2. The Gonzaga game- how are we gonna stop Timme? This is a bad matchup for us.
- we stopped Timme. We torched the best team in our region. Torched. Not beat. Torched. Against a great coach. He was baffled. They were baffled.

3. My biggest one- T Shannon and Illinois.

- a great coach and a superstar were outsmarted. Remember, this was a bad matchup for us. I want to focus on this for a bit.
We were all so very wrong. We based our thoughts on this game based on things we were so certain of- Shannon is gonna get his and they are soooo well coached.
They took the biggest beating of all time. After the game Underwood was confused. He had no idea what hit him.

All these things that every talking head was so sure of. We were so sure of. This year, we are so sure we can't hang. It's not like our staff is one of the ten best staffs in the country. They are the best. Why wouldn't we still believe this? Kelvin, Nate, Bruce, Barnes... these guys have been around for a minute and had the chances and resources to do what we've done. They haven't. Plain and simple. The last 2 years in the tourney the best coaches in the league were flumoxed by this staff.
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Enjoy the ride. There would take a miracle for Uconn to beat Florida on Saturday. Danny Hurley has provided all of us with great players and people to root forever the last three years. They won two NCAA titles. This year has already been a success. They will be great again soon.
 
Austin316 said:
This is the right take.

I thought Oklahoma was going to win. I then realized there is an unrealized notion that we have about us… it’s the name, hardware, and the coach.

We are still a boogie man that teams fear until we are no longer the champs. If Florida is as good as advertised this year, good for them. Preconceived notions may help us. There’s another side of me that thinks we played a certain way tonight with the hope that we have different style/gameplan for Florida. Going into the game Hurley said he thought it would be a low scoring game 59-58. I think won the way he wanted to win. Such a sicko playing with our emotions.

Alas, if this is it, I hope we go out to a nice tune. Until that happens we’re still the champs baby!
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He definitely has a plan for Florida.
we may lose, but we will be in the game the whole way. We shot terribly last night.

They lost to Georgia and Missouri in 2025

Did you see Georgia and Missouri?????
 
Husky25 said:
Also I'm still waiting for the Arro6ant and Spo11ed" merch.
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Great for Geno. Great for Paige (gonna miss her). Great for UConn. Great for the state of Connecticut.

More importantly, how the Kruk do we do "Arrogant and Spoiled" merch with 6 and 12?

Maybe make the "e" in spoiled look like a 2, perhaps?

"Arro6ant & Spoi12d."

Get it done!!!
 
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