Biggest Freshman Surprises?

[UKemba15]

Okafor. Played above his ranking from jump and ended up being a dominant stud who led us to #2.

And led himself to the #2 draft pick. His whole story is just incredible, and such a good dude.

 

[Mr. French]

Bouknight for me. Nobody could’ve known he was borderline nba by the end of year 1.

Lamb was way more of a surprise to me than Bouknight. But that's just my personal experience.

Lamb and Boone and probably Shabazz too are my answers. I also loved Shabazz's game, thought he'd be really good, but I didn't know he'd have the stones right away, especially being smaller and re-classifying.

 

[metsfan2323]

Okafor. Played above his ranking from jump and ended up being a dominant stud who led us to #2.

I remember reading somewhere that one of the coaches left Calhoun a post-it note after watching an early pre-season players only practice that said "Emeka, Oh My God". The coaches had no clue he was going to be that good.

 

[Sick Puppy]

Ray Allen

He was the best freshman in the country...as a 6th man.

 

[Huskyforlife]

Lamb was way more of a surprise to me than Bouknight. But that's just my personal experience.

Lamb and Boone and probably Shabazz too are my answers. I also loved Shabazz's game, thought he'd be really good, but I didn't know he'd have the stones right away, especially being smaller and re-classifying.

Yeah I was just throwing a different name out there. I think Lamb wins this argument generally speaking. But I didn’t think Bouknight was gonna be cooking people at an NBA level by the end of year 1.

 

[August_West]

Karaban

He really wasn't a surprise, to me at least. I expected him to be that good. He was that good through summer practices going into the season. That is the only reason I didn't include him. If this was an impact freshman thread instead of surprise thread then for sure he's either at the top of the list or right there. What an excellent season.

 

[Ricker]

Almost all of my surprises are on the underachieving my expectations side, because I tend to be positive about our recruit's potential. Henefeld & Oakafor for me would have been positive surprises because there was little to go on. Giffey would qualify careerwise for the same reason. I had had a half hour conversation with George Blaney pumping up Shabazz so his moxie as a freshman was not a surprise to me. Boat was more impactful careerwise also. On the downside, I had watched Ajou Deng a bunch in AAU and have never been able to fathom how he underperformed. Given a ranking of #15, it also surprised me that Daniels couldn't find the court as a freshman, but he eventually played to his ranking. Clingan exceeded my high expectations. I thought he'd play his jr year like he did last year. I don't know how much of a surprise it is because I always compared his impact to Dickinson who dominated many games as a freshman. Need I say that Karaban didn't surprise me?

 

[OceanDoggie]

Caron Butler was the most talented and productive Freshman for Uconn, for My money.

Season	School	Conf	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS		SOS
2000-01	UConn	Big East	29	28	32.8	5.2	12.0	.435	4.7	10.4	.455	0.5	1.6	.304	4.4	5.9	.754	3.4	4.2	7.6	3.1	2.2	0.3	2.4	2.6	15.3		5.43
2001-02	UConn	Big East	34	34	36.0	7.4	15.3	.486	6.6	13.1	.500	0.9	2.2	.400	4.6	5.9	.779	3.2	4.4	7.5	3.0	2.1	0.4	2.9	2.2	20.3		7.59
Career	UConn		63	62	34.5	6.4	13.8	.465	5.7	11.9	.482	0.7	1.9	.364	4.5	5.9	.768	3.3	4.3	7.6	3.0	2.1	0.3	2.7	2.4	18.0		6.51

 

[HuskyWarrior611]

Caron Butler was the most talented and productive Freshman for Uconn, for My money.

Season	School	Conf	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS		SOS
2000-01	UConn	Big East	29	28	32.8	5.2	12.0	.435	4.7	10.4	.455	0.5	1.6	.304	4.4	5.9	.754	3.4	4.2	7.6	3.1	2.2	0.3	2.4	2.6	15.3		5.43
2001-02	UConn	Big East	34	34	36.0	7.4	15.3	.486	6.6	13.1	.500	0.9	2.2	.400	4.6	5.9	.779	3.2	4.4	7.5	3.0	2.1	0.4	2.9	2.2	20.3		7.59
Career	UConn		63	62	34.5	6.4	13.8	.465	5.7	11.9	.482	0.7	1.9	.364	4.5	5.9	.768	3.3	4.3	7.6	3.0	2.1	0.3	2.7	2.4	18.0		6.51

Yeah there’s probably a solid list of impact freshman we can name for us before getting to Karaban unless we’re only counting title seasons.

We don’t have to say he’s something we’ve never seen before for him to be a great important player. We have a history of it.

I can’t wait to see how he leads this group this year with that being said. He should do a great job of filling that void left by Andre.

 

[UCfor3]

Caron Butler was the most talented and productive Freshman for Uconn, for My money.

Season	School	Conf	G	GS	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS		SOS
2000-01	UConn	Big East	29	28	32.8	5.2	12.0	.435	4.7	10.4	.455	0.5	1.6	.304	4.4	5.9	.754	3.4	4.2	7.6	3.1	2.2	0.3	2.4	2.6	15.3		5.43
2001-02	UConn	Big East	34	34	36.0	7.4	15.3	.486	6.6	13.1	.500	0.9	2.2	.400	4.6	5.9	.779	3.2	4.4	7.5	3.0	2.1	0.4	2.9	2.2	20.3		7.59
Career	UConn		63	62	34.5	6.4	13.8	.465	5.7	11.9	.482	0.7	1.9	.364	4.5	5.9	.768	3.3	4.3	7.6	3.0	2.1	0.3	2.7	2.4	18.0		6.51

He was fantastic for sure. No argument here but the thread is about surprises. Caron was expected to be awesome and met and possibly exceeded those expectations. Love Caron though. One of my favorite all-time Huskies and my wifes favorite. Was very gracious to both of us when we met him and took the time to tell us a few stories, including when he met Michael Jordan for the first time. Made a real positive impression on us. Who could forget the tourney run to the elite 8 his soph year. Almost carried us past Dixon, Baxter, Blake, etc.. singlehandedly.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Boat show. Suspended for getting like $100 of improper benefits then first college game he hit some big FTs against FSU(?) To close it out. Rest is history

As I recall, he hit 3 FTs to send the game to overtime, which we eventually won.

At the time, it prevented our season from really going off the rails after losing to (I believe) UCF the previous game. Turns out it just delayed the inevitable -- that team had serious chemistry problems.

 

[HailUConn]

For me, it’s Lamb. Dude is as clutch as it can be possibly asked from a frosh when the win or go home game started. He had a super natural ability to buy a bucket or defense stop when the lead is on the line. If you don’t believe me, watch all the 11 games of 2011 BE and NCAA tournament.

 

[OceanDoggie]

He was fantastic for sure. No argument here but the thread is about surprises. Caron was expected to be awesome and met and possibly exceeded those expectations. Love Caron though. One of my favorite all-time Huskies and my wifes favorite. Was very gracious to both of us when we met him and took the time to tell us a few stories, including when he met Michael Jordan for the first time. Made a real positive impression on us. Who could forget the tourney run to the elite 8 his soph year. Almost carried us past Dixon, Baxter, Blake, etc.. singlehandedly.

Good story.

To be honest, I still consider His performance a suprise.

Caron's 1999 class ranking was 60, and in 2000 it rose to 47-i believe He did a 5th year IICR: Recruiting Rankings and NBA Classifications, 1998-2003 » Basketball-Reference.com Blog

His output certainly exceeded that.

 

[gtcam]

KEA and Lamb are two that come to mind
I knew KEA was a great competitor, but his leadership was phenomenal.

 

[HooperScooper]

Good story.

To be honest, I still consider His performance a suprise.

Caron's 1999 class ranking was 60, and in 2000 it rose to 47-i believe He did a 5th year IICR: Recruiting Rankings and NBA Classifications, 1998-2003 » Basketball-Reference.com Blog

His output certainly exceeded that.

That's not the entire story about Caron's recruiting ranking. At that time most of the recruiting sites didn't rank 5th year high school players. The ones that did had Caron in the top 10. See this RSCI ranking which has Caron at #47 because they put 0 in for the sites that didn't tank him. But the 2 in there that did had him in the top 10. He was a very known quantity coming to UConn and he lived up to the top 10 billing.

RSCIhoops - 2000 Final

2000 Final

sites.google.com

 

[Mike Honcho]

Good story.

To be honest, I still consider His performance a suprise.

Caron's 1999 class ranking was 60, and in 2000 it rose to 47-i believe He did a 5th year IICR: Recruiting Rankings and NBA Classifications, 1998-2003 » Basketball-Reference.com Blog

His output certainly exceeded that.

I distinctly remember Caron being considered a top 5 recruit, yet he was ineligible for the rankings due to his prep year at MCI.

 

[Shamon30]

Craig Austrie. When Marcus Williams was suspended for the fall semester, I expected us to lose a handful of games. We lost none.

 

[tennmike]

While certainly not on the level of Caron, John Boone was a big surprise. He was sort of our Scottie Pippen.

 

[HooperScooper]

While certainly not on the level of Caron, John Boone was a big surprise. He was sort of our Scottie Pippen.

John? Smh

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

John? Smh

Is this Josh Brown we’re talking about?

 

[RichZ]

Mek.
Became my favorite Husky in his 2nd game.
Still is.

 

[superjohn]

Is this Josh Brown we’re talking about?

John Brown, 6'10 power forward/center played at UConn and won a national championship. Born in Torrington, CT and his Harpers Ferry raid kicked off the Civil War. He had a nice little post game but defense and offensive rebounding were his calling card.

 

[tennmike]

Is this Josh Brown we’re talking about?

yes...auto correct and multitasking are a bad combo.

 

[luck3317]

It's obvious that many BYers follow high school player rankings and college projections very closely. So probably you were way less surprised than I was by Alex Karaban last year.

It might just be my declining memory, but I don't remember being as surprised by the success of a freshman since, maybe, Emeka Okafor.

So, just out of curiosity, who do y'all remember as the most surprising freshmen in, say, the past 20 years? And, if you're so inclined, feel free to include any "bad" surprises.

Bouknight

 

[Waquoit]

Nadav Henefeld. No one knew he he was.

1. Okafor

I distinctly remember my first impression of each from seeing them in an pre-season game:

Henefeld - This guy can play! He can't be this good, can he?
Okafor- Uhh, you know he gets four years. Players can get better