Best UConn Center of All Time? | The Boneyard

Best UConn Center of All Time?

Who’s the GOAT UConn Center?

  • Okafor

  • Clingan

  • Thabeet

  • Sanogo

  • Other (Post Below)

Results are only viewable after voting.
Okafor was both a defensive and offensive force, so it's got to be him. Thabeet was purely defensive. Clingan was 80% a defensive force. Sanogo was more offense.

1. Emeka Okafor
2A. Donovan Clingan
2B. Hasheem Thabeet
4. Cliff Robinson
5A. Adama Sanogo
5B. Corny Thompson (if you consider him a center, which he played before Aleksinas's arrival)
7. Jake Voskuhl

I never saw Toby Kimball play. But based on his stats and NBA career, he's probably up there with Thabeet and Clingan.
 
That’s tough. Pretty hard to vote against an automatic bucket in Sanogo. Give him the ball, two points and the ball rarely touched the rim. He was always there to rescue us. I love guys like that.

Emeka was probably the best though. If I had to draft one for my college team, I’d agonize over it.
 
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Who was the best center of all time is a very different question from which player you would want to add to THIS year's team. I'd add Clingan to this year's team because its defense would benefit. Emeka changes both the offensive and defensive capabilities of ANY team, for a full 32-40 minutes.
 
Emeka starred all three years and won a national Championship
The whole dynamic of the team changed with his presence.
He was not only a lottery pick but won. Rookie of the Rear pretty much averaging a double .
If not for a chronic bad back he had the potential to be HOF
I love Clingan, Sanogo , Thabeet , Cliff , and Toby but Emeka is probably in with the 3-5 best basketball players in our history and I go back to the legendary Art Quimby
Who had over 1700 rebounds in his career averaging 20 a game .
 
Viet Vet said:
Who was the best center of all time is a very different question from which player you would want to add to THIS year's team. I'd add Clingan to this year's team because its defense would benefit. Emeka changes both the offensive and defensive capabilities of ANY team, for a full 32-40 minutes.
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To extrapolate that point, it’s like Clingan might be a more ideal addition to the championship Warriors teams, but Okafor was a better player to build a new franchise around.
 
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I would go with Okafor for this question.
If Clingan stayed another year and improved on his numbers a bit and made it to another Final Four, it would be a toss-up. Also, if he came back and took a few more 3s and hit at a decent mark, but he was in the NBA for what would have been his junior season.

Again, I'm choosing Okafor as the best center, but remember that Okafor didn't have a Sanogo in front of him his freshman year and it was a different system. Hurley knew his team was deep probably everywhere but PF, but had Karaban. He kind of wanted his guys to go out and go 100% until they were exhausted and subbed them out. Rinse and repeat.

Either way, I've been blessed to watch them and UConn has been blessed to have them because they are even better human beings than they are basketball players.
 
Okafor and Clingan for me is a toss-up at best. I could argue both sides pretty well.
Granted, even if Clingan played in 04, he wasn't getting drafted over Dwight Howard.
 
Clingan's sophomore season rate numbers are better than Oak's junior year, outside of minutes. Minutes are obviously a real factor in value, though. They had almost identical usages on offense and block rate and rebound rates and FT rates, but Clingan's assist to turnover is such a big disparity compared to Okafor's. Better finishing numbers, too. Hurley offense vs. early 2000s offense in a nutshell. I would've loved to see what Okafor could do on the 2024 team.

MNMJcNv.png
 
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Emeka, but if I had to pick one to slot into next year’s roster….. ;)
 
auror said:
Clingan's sophomore season rate numbers are better than Oak's junior year, outside of minutes. Minutes are obviously a real factor in volume, though. They had almost identical usages on offense and block rate and rebound rates and FT rates, but Clingan's assist to turnover is such a big disparity compared to Okafor's. Better finishing numbers, too. Hurley offense vs. early 2000s offense in a nutshell. I would've loved to see what Okafor could do on the 2024 team.

MNMJcNv.png
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Better finishing numbers because Okafor was pulling up from 6 ft out a TON and that team needed that in their offense. Wasn’t just layups and dunks, which were a result of the best cbb offensive scheme I’ve ever seen.
 
auror said:
Clingan's sophomore season rate numbers are better than Oak's junior year, outside of minutes. Minutes are obviously a real factor in volume, though. They had almost identical usages on offense and block rate and rebound rates and FT rates, but Clingan's assist to turnover is such a big disparity compared to Okafor's. Better finishing numbers, too. Hurley offense vs. early 2000s offense in a nutshell. I would've loved to see what Okafor could do on the 2024 team.

MNMJcNv.png
Expand ...
I wonder if Hurley would even use Okafor like Clingan though, wouldn’t he have a Sanogo type role?
 
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thekollieman said:
There’s a clear consensus here, but even just the first two minutes of this could help those who didn’t vote Okafor:

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If you watch this video and still answer Clingan either in this thread or the other, I’ve lost hope. Someone had the balls to mention ‘nostalgia bias’ :D
 
thekollieman said:
There’s a clear consensus here, but even just the first two minutes of this could help those who didn’t vote Okafor:

Expand ...

People seem to be sleeping on Clingan's offense because he didn't have a refined post game. Sophomore Clingan doesn't have the post polish junior Okafor had but Okafor also wasn't dictating offense at the top of the key, throwing dimes, handing off setting screens and rolling to the hoop. Clingan is an excellent passer and sets monster screens. So much of what we did on offense when he was on the court flowed through him.

So if we're comparing junior Okafor who was 1.5 years older than sophomore Clingan Okafor gets a clear nod as post scorer, Clingan gets a clear nod as facilitator. They were both unbelievable defensively and two of the three best college defenders I've ever seen I just think Clingan blew up even more of the opponents game plan than Okafor did.


 
superjohn said:
People seem to be sleeping on Clingan's offense because he didn't have a refined post game. Sophomore Clingan doesn't have the post polish junior Okafor had but Okafor also wasn't dictating offense at the top of the key, throwing dimes, handing off setting screens and rolling to the hoop. Clingan is an excellent passer and sets monster screens. So much of what we did on offense when he was on the court flowed through him.

So if we're comparing junior Okafor who was 1.5 years older than sophomore Clingan Okafor gets a clear nod as post scorer, Clingan gets a clear nod as facilitator. They were both unbelievable defensively and two of the three best college defenders I've ever seen I just think Clingan blew up even more of the opponents game plan than Okafor did.


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That also wasn’t part of our offense back then while it is a huge part now. Not saying Okafor would be the same facilitator, but he really wasn’t asked to be at all.

Okafor had incredible touch offensively and his drop step/post game off both shoulders was pretty significantly clear of DC. DC has good touch but his base is flawed and doesn’t move guys nearly as well as Emeka did.
 
CardiacAndre7 said:
That also wasn’t part of our offense back then while it is a huge part now. Not saying Okafor would be the same facilitator, but he really wasn’t asked to be at all.

Okafor had incredible touch offensively and his drop step/post game off both shoulders was pretty significantly clear of DC. DC has good touch but his base is flawed and doesn’t move guys nearly as well as Emeka did.
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Agree with the first paragraph and that's one of the major reasons why Clingan is such a no brainer for me if we could add any former player to this team. It's a huge maybe for Okafor considering we never saw it from him and he had a horrible assist to turnover ratio.

Agree with the second paragraph, Okafor clearly had a better more refined low post game even though Clingan was more efficient putting the ball in the basket.
 
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