Cherry picking | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Cherry picking

HooperScooper said:
Where did you get this from? Just because an AI search came up with something doesn't make it true. While the 5 games in 5 days was a truly remarkable achievement there's just no way a team goes up 7 seed lines with 5 wins when they played 30 games before that.
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My guy read my above post, already agreed I wasn’t correct.
 
willie99 said:
Winning a title is not easy, and it's not even predictable sometimes

2014; We were blown out by Rick Pitino's Louisville squad in the AAC title game, the 3rd time they blew us out that year. We were a 7 seed, looked like we were losing the first game, and then beat UK in the championship game after UK beat Louisville for the 2nd time that season earlier in the tournament.

2011; We were squarely on the bubble heading into the BET. If we lost our first game, I think we miss the tournament. 5 games in 5 nights later, we were a 3 seed and won the NC. We had Kemba, but I'm not sure anyone saw that coming

2023; we lost to Marquette in the BET Final. We were a 4 seed, and we had a coach that couldn't win a close game and couldn't win a tournament game. We were one of the bracket busting favorites to be upset by Rick Pitino's Iona squad in the 1st round. And then......

2004; Jim Calhoun was awarded the "Uncoach of the Year" by Doug-Got-Nothing. We stumbled at the end, Meka had a bad back. A 2 seed that ended Duke's dreams and destroyed Georgia Tech in the finals, the same Yellowjacket team that destroyed us in November in MSG

1999; A powerful 1 seed that broke Dookie's hearts

2024; our best ever, the only people that didn't think we'd win the title were metrics guys ☺️


I'm not predicting a title, I can't this Sunday morning, but I do believe we're in the mix and it's not like we haven't overcome the odds before

LET'S GO HUSKIES
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I'm with you 100%. We tend to take the current feeling as the future reality
We're like a 15 year old boy who just got his heart broken. "But Mom, you dont understand. I'll never meet another girl like her for as long as Iive"
 
willie99 said:
Winning a title is not easy, and it's not even predictable sometimes

2014; We were blown out by Rick Pitino's Louisville squad in the AAC title game, the 3rd time they blew us out that year. We were a 7 seed, looked like we were losing the first game, and then beat UK in the championship game after UK beat Louisville for the 2nd time that season earlier in the tournament.

2011; We were squarely on the bubble heading into the BET. If we lost our first game, I think we miss the tournament. 5 games in 5 nights later, we were a 3 seed and won the NC. We had Kemba, but I'm not sure anyone saw that coming

2023; we lost to Marquette in the BET Final. We were a 4 seed, and we had a coach that couldn't win a close game and couldn't win a tournament game. We were one of the bracket busting favorites to be upset by Rick Pitino's Iona squad in the 1st round. And then......

2004; Jim Calhoun was awarded the "Uncoach of the Year" by Doug-Got-Nothing. We stumbled at the end, Meka had a bad back. A 2 seed that ended Duke's dreams and destroyed Georgia Tech in the finals, the same Yellowjacket team that destroyed us in November in MSG

1999; A powerful 1 seed that broke Dookie's hearts

2024; our best ever, the only people that didn't think we'd win the title were metrics guys ☺️


I'm not predicting a title, I can't this Sunday morning, but I do believe we're in the mix and it's not like we haven't overcome the odds before

LET'S GO HUSKIES
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This years team feels in some way similar to last years team. Very good, but not a machine. I don't think it would surprise most of us if we play a few games that we are actually capable of, that we could make a deep run in tourney - E8?FF? Who knows. As has been stated already, we gave the eventual champions all they could handle. Who knows what happens if Clayton makes one less shot.
 
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superjohn said:
You're way off on 2011. We were never a bubble team in 2011, we were never anywhere near the bubble. We were ranked #21 in the country the day the Big East tournament started and we had wins over #2 Michigan State, #8 Kentucky, #7 Villanova, #9 Georgetown, and #12 Texas. At the time the Big East was considered the best conference in college basketball history that season.
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I remember this being accurate. And yes, screw AI when it comes to my Huskies. I know more. I think the better judge is remembering how we felt. I felt more confident going into 2011 than '14 and '23.
I will bet my life savings that only liars were bullish on the '23 team before the 2nd half of the St Mary's game.
 
Jaydumo20 said:
I remember this being accurate. And yes, screw AI when it comes to my Huskies. I know more. I think the better judge is remembering how we felt. I felt more confident going into 2011 than '14 and '23.
I will bet my life savings that only liars were bullish on the '23 team before the 2nd half of the St Mary's game.
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I'm always bullish :)

With the possible exception of 2014
 
2011 was never actually a bubble team. Now given the way we ended the season I do remember talk from like random people that if we lost to DePaul we could be on the bubble, but that was never actually true.

I like our chances to make a big run. It’s not just blind faith. We were elite this year in the non conference and there’s enough evidence now that since changing our offensive style before 2023 we are just better away from the big east and big east reffing. Lots of parallels to the 23 team, probably not as good as that one, but that team rolled through the tournament. A team 80-90% as good as that one might still win it all. There’s real concerns too and anything can happen in march but I feel good about making a real run
 
Gurleyman said:
I maybe was overly pessimistic, but I remember feeling like we had better beat DePaul to be sure we got in. The early season win over Michigan State wasn't all that great by the end of the year (they were ranked No. 2 in the nation when we beat them, but they ended up a 10 seed). Kentucky and at Texas held up pretty well, but we had a lot of losses late in the year. It was also the first year of the First Four (VCU went from First Four to Final Four), so that made me a little more comfortable ... but obviously ended up never having to worry about it.

Those 5 games in the BET included four wins over ranked teams, including 1 seed Pitt (and 3 Syracuse, 4 Louisville and 6 Georgetown), so it did raise our profile quite a bit. No way to prove it, but I think the Pitt win took us off the 8/9 line to about a 6, and then the next two wins got us up to a 3.
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I remember feeling like the DePaul game was a must-win, but I think it was really only a must-win in the sense if we didn’t right the ship and move on, our participation in the NCAAT was going to be a short-lived one. We were spiraling out of control and even if we weren’t in real danger of missing the Tourny, our team would be dead in the water if we couldn’t win a single game in the BET. Incredible we went from that to…well, you know where.
 
That 2014 championship is one of the more spectacular achievements by any team in history. Not only was that UConn team not super impressive heading into the tournament, but no team had won a title from outside of a major conference since 1990. UConn's best KenPom wins were over #3 Florida, 2-1 vs 27 Cincinnati, beat 32 Harvard, 3-0 vs. Memphis and 43 Maryland. Went 0-3 vs 1 Lousville and 0-2 vs 31 SMU and lost to 43 Stanford. That is 8-7 against the KenPom top 50 through the AAC tournament. Underwhelming.

The team also didn't look that impressive in hindsight. Napier was a journeyman in the NBA, and I don't believe Boatright or Daniels made it on the court in the NBA. UConn didn't get helped by any upsets until they played a team with a future NBA star in Kentucky in the Finals. In fact, UConn played the highest seed possible in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round, and in the Final Four.

For those three weeks, UConn was the best team in basketball, and Ollie defeated 5 coaches that are already in or will likely end up in the basketball hall of fame by the time they are done.
 
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nelsonmuntz said:
That 2014 championship is one of the more spectacular achievements by any team in history. Not only was that UConn team not super impressive heading into the tournament, but no team had won a title from outside of a major conference since 1990. UConn's best KenPom wins were over #3 Florida, 2-1 vs 27 Cincinnati, beat 32 Harvard, 3-0 vs. Memphis and 43 Maryland. Went 0-3 vs 1 Lousville and 0-2 vs 31 SMU and lost to 43 Stanford. That is 8-7 against the KenPom top 50 through the AAC tournament. Underwhelming.

The team also didn't look that impressive in hindsight. Napier was a journeyman in the NBA, and I don't believe Boatright or Daniels made it on the court in the NBA. UConn didn't get helped by any upsets until they played a team with a future NBA star in Kentucky in the Finals. In fact, UConn played the highest seed possible in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd round, and in the Final Four.

For those three weeks, UConn was the best team in basketball, and Ollie defeated 5 coaches that are already in or will likely end up in the basketball hall of fame by the time they are done.
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Unimpressive in terms of NBA talent but Napier and Boat was the best backcourt in the country and Daniels was an awesome third option. I was super high on that team coming into the season and we got shafted with a 7 seed but it really worked out because we were in MSG for the sweet 16 and elite 8 games.
 
woodchuck68 said:
Idk. I remember them losing a bunch of games towards the end of the season. They didn't need to win the BET but they almost certainly needed to win a couple of games.
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That's not true. As someone posted above this bracket projection below was done before the Big East Tournament started. And as I said above, despite how awesome a feat the 5 games in 5 days was, you don't move 7 seeds (i.e. 10 seed as a bubble team to the 3 they got) in 5 games when you've already played 30 games before that.

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superjohn said:
Unimpressive in terms of NBA talent but Napier and Boat was the best backcourt in the country and Daniels was an awesome third option. I was super high on that team coming into the season and we got shafted with a 7 seed but it really worked out because we were in MSG for the sweet 16 and elite 8 games.
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Bazz & Boat played incredible perimeter defense, probably the best a UConn backcourt has ever played. Daniels looked every bit the 5* we stole from Kansas. And Niles rediscovered his stroke. Everything clicked. Nothing unimpressive about that roster. Upperclassmen played to their potential.
 
Nameless said:
He wasn't whining he was pointing out a fact. The 2011 team was never on the bubble, despite the struggles in Big East play.

I agree with the sentiment of the OP, but he was in fact wrong on that point specifically
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You're right.
The 2011 team was a very young team with the freshmen playing somewhere around 60% of our minutes.
They won Maui and every other game outside the conference but lost 9 of 18 regular season Big East games, thus ninth place in the league.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
The craziest part about that '14 run in retrospect is that they had to come from behind to force OT against St. Joes in the first round and, barring a three point play by Amidah, probably would have gone home.
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I was pleasantly shocked Brimah saved the shot and free throw of his life to get us to OT. Totally inexplicable but very satisfying.
 
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kemba said:
2011 was never actually a bubble team. Now given the way we ended the season I do remember talk from like random people that if we lost to DePaul we could be on the bubble, but that was never actually true.

I like our chances to make a big run. It’s not just blind faith. We were elite this year in the non conference and there’s enough evidence now that since changing our offensive style before 2023 we are just better away from the big east and big east reffing. Lots of parallels to the 23 team, probably not as good as that one, but that team rolled through the tournament. A team 80-90% as good as that one might still win it all. There’s real concerns too and anything can happen in march but I feel good about making a real run
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I agree with this, but we will need someone to step up and be the alpha when we need buckets at crucial times. Adama was that guy in 23 and I think Tarris has that potential this time. If not him, then I hope Solo can finally wake up and be the shooter he was last season to fill that role.
 
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