Best UConn comebacks? | The Boneyard

Best UConn comebacks?

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Other than Duke in '04, the most memorable comeback since I started following UConn bball in the late 70s was against Pitt in the BET championship game in '04. This may have been the downtown 3 by Taliek Brown game. UConn was down by 11 at the 10 minute mark in a rock fight, where it seemed 11 points down was more like 25 points down. When you've only scored 40 points and you're down 11, you must think it's going to be very difficult.

I was sitting in the 2nd level at MSG when a Pitt fan started talking smack 3 rows below us. A lunatic UConn fan stood up when UConn was down 11 and challenged the Pitt fan to a bet. UConn would win, $200 bet. The Pitt fan took him up on it, they got a neutral party fan (maybe of some other team) to hold the cash while the game went on. The entire section knew what had gone down, and it was a whole other drama watching the Pitt fan and the UConn fan as the comeback unfolded.
 
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Palatine said:
We were down 24 at halftime versus Pitt (can't remember home or away). With ten minutes to go in the game we were ahead and pulling away.

The UMass comeback at Civic Center was a god one.
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As to the first paragraph, I remember a game at Pitt in the mid-90s where we came out flat and found ourselves down in the mid-20s well into the first half. But if we’re talking about the same game, I think we got it down to 17 or so by the half and that Pitt team was so inferior I never thought “no way we are going to win this.”
 
businesslawyer said:
As to the first paragraph, I remember a game at Pitt in the mid-90s where we came out flat and found ourselves down in the mid-20s well into the first half. But if we’re talking about the same game, I think we got it down to 17 or so by the half and that Pitt team was so inferior I never thought “no way we are going to win this.”
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That PITT road game was the one that Donny Marshall had to sit out after he "slapped" SJU's Minlend in the previous game.
 
upstater said:
Other than Duke in '04, the most memorable comeback since I started following UConn bball in the late 70s was against Pitt in the BET championship game in '04. This may have been the downtown 3 by Taliek Brown game. UConn was down by 11 at the 10 minute mark in a rock fight, where it seemed 11 points down was more like 25 points down. When you've only scored 40 points and you're down 11, you must think it's going to be very difficult.

I was sitting in the 2nd level at MSG when a Pitt fan started talking smack 3 rows below us. A lunatic UConn fan stood up when UConn was down 11 and challenged the Pitt fan to a bet. UConn would win, $200 bet. The Pitt fan took him up on it, they got a neutral party fan (maybe of some other team) to hold the cash while the game went on. The entire section knew what had gone down, and it was a whole other drama watching the Pitt fan and the UConn fan as the comeback unfolded.
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The Taliek chuck 3 was a different year. I was there in ‘04 as well. Classic rock fight, with Okafor at less than 100%. We did comeback from a much smaller deficit in the last five minutes or so, almost entirely on the back of Madison Square Gordon.
 
NJHusky said:
That was most significant but not as large a deficit as Albany in round 1. Wasn’t Albany a 16v1?
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IIRC we were down 9 with under 3 min vs Duke when Rashad hit the corner three to start the comeback. At its largest, the deficit vs Albany was greater, but that game didn't even come down to the wire. We won by double digits. I don't know how many fans were really worried during that Albany game. That Duke game was the most nail-biting game in our history (IMO) outside of '99 Duke. I wanted us to beat them so friggin bad and we probably would have won going away if it weren't for the two quick cheap fouls on Okafor.
 
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Lefty2one said:
IIRC we were down 9 with under 3 min vs Duke when Rashad hit the corner three to start the comeback. At its largest, the deficit vs Albany was greater, but that game didn't even come down to the wire. We won by double digits. I don't know how many fans were really worried during that Albany game. That Duke game was the most nail-biting game in our history (IMO) outside of '99 Duke. I wanted us to beat them so friggin bad and we probably would have won going away if it weren't for the two quick cheap fouls on Okafor.
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It was 8.......75-67. Then we scored the next 12 before Duhon hit the meaningless half court 3 at the buzzer that allowed Duke to cover
 
BlueHen said:
1996 Big East final vs Georgetown. Allen vs Iverson

Down 11 with less than 5 minutes to go, UConn ends game with 12-0 run to win 75-74. Ray Allen hits game winner with about 13 seconds left.
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I remember sitting in Huskies looking at my buddy when we were down 11 and saying that if they were going to win, they couldn't give up another point. I didn't realize until the next day that I was right.
 
InTheRed said:
I remember sitting in Huskies looking at my buddy when we were down 11 and saying that if they were going to win, they couldn't give up another point. I didn't realize until the next day that I was right.
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That one is one of my all time favorites only because I was sitting two rows behind the Georgetown bench
 
Ones I thought of were already mentioned. Down 34-9 to UMass at the half. Down 24 to Pitt. Duke, Georgetown.

There was also a game against BC in the middle of our long streak against them that we won in double overtime when we down by 18 in the second half, I think Sheffer and Donyell both hit tying threes at the end of regulation and OT.
 
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Duke '04 is #1 merely for when it took place and what it meant. All other comebacks start at #5 (i.e. the #2-4 slots are empty). Nothing even approaches Duke '04. That includes all the games they were trailing at the half in '99.

Fun fact(s). 1) UConn was 9-0 in 1988-99 in games they trailed at halftime. 2) UConn was undefeated outside the state of Connecticut.
 
We did have the two Pitt regular season games that have been pointed out and the 04 BET game against them.

There also was a game at BC ~93 or 94 where we were down by around 18 or so late in the first half and came back to crush their spirit (and continue a streak that lasted another eight or so years).

I still believe that Jim Calhoun willed us to that win as he could not tolerate losing to BC.
 
Palatine said:
We were down 24 at halftime versus Pitt (can't remember home or away). With ten minutes to go in the game we were ahead and pulling away.

The UMass comeback at Civic Center was a god one.
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Away in 1995.

Randy Smith had a great column in the JI after that game that I cut out and still have --

"Put yourself at Fitzgerald Field House with the scoreboard reading 'Pitt 40, Visitor 15'. At that moment, all hidden doubts concerning your team and yourself have emerged, and are staring you smack dab in the face. If you're a phony, the conditions will expose you as a phony. If you're a pretender, you'll be exposed as a pretender. If you've got an ounce of quit in you, you'll quit. Adversity sometimes brings out the best in athletes and sometimes the worst, but it always brings out the real athlete -- good, bad, or somewhere in between. Down 25 in the other guy's building is a time for truth telling . . . ."
 
uconngb said:
It was 8.......75-67. Then we scored the next 12 before Duhon hit the meaningless half court 3 at the buzzer that allowed Duke to cover
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That and the Gonzaga game in 1999 each took about 5 years off my life. In 2004 I was trying to figure out if we could go home on Sunday until Rashad hit that shot and then Emeka fouled out Duke’s entire center rotation.
 
In the Hurley era last night's game reminded me of the Georgetown game at home. The Joey C game. We thought we were gonna lose. But we kinda always knew we'd win
 
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