Comparing this year’s team to ‘23 and ‘24 teams

[caw]

All three of those seasons the defense was top 10 (and on barttorvik this year's defense is ranked #2, higher than it was in 23 or 24).

There may be defensive metrics that are better or worse, but on the whole this year's defense has been perfectly in line with those seasons from an efficiency perspective.

That’s true but the 24 team was different defensively once the NCAAT started (and really once they were fully healthy with Castle and Clingan). I want to say the efficiency metrics were like high 70s/low 80s from what I recall, in the NCAAT.

 

[imno1]

The defense was better in 23 and 24. No cling kong anchor makes all the difference

Yet our current teams defensive fg% rating is better than both 23 & 24. We are even averaging more blocks per game.

 

[Umami Zen]

15-1 and not having played their A game yet is pretty incredible. Offense is starting to come together in a meaningful way now that we have our starting 5 healthy. Coaches and players are beginning to believe they can take a run at the trophy. Our D is championship level.

Every team is different. 23 and 24 were special. To be mentioned with them mid-season is quite an accomplishment. Still got work to do and growth to happen. Stay healthy and roll the dice.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

It's less of a mark against 26, and more that 24 was an all time great team, and 23 I think is insanely underrated.

What is? Huh?

 

[FightOnCT]

Hard to compare because the ‘24 team at this point had just starting taking off in terms of dominance. Those first few Big East games without Clingan were ROUGH.

Realistically won’t be on the level of that team by March but that’s more a testament to how perfectly structured and elite that team was

 

[Kowalski]

Wayyyy too early to do comps. I do think it's safe to say 24 is just off limits regardless of what happens. Even if we ran the table from here on out, 24 was next level good and, barring injurie,s should have only lost 1 game that year. I also think tourney 23 beats this group, as it is at this moment, fairly easily.

Agree but I think there’s a legit chance this team can end up being as good as the 23 team. A lot depends on Demary. He was awesome Wednesday & I hope that means he’s figured it out going forward. Also, the ceiling on Mullins is super high. By year end, he’s got a chance to be as good or even better than Hawkins was in 23 and that’s a very high bar. And if Solo starts finding his shot again, I think this team will have more shooters.

Up front, Uconn doesn’t have a rim protector off the bench like they had with DC. But the frontcourt starters on this team and depth is real good and AK can do more and is a better player than he was as a freshman.

 

[boog204]

Agree but I think there’s a legit chance this team can end up being as good as the 23 team. A lot depends on Demary. He was awesome Wednesday & I hope that means he’s figured it out going forward. Also, the ceiling on Mullins is super high. By year end, he’s got a chance to be as good or even better than Hawkins was in 23 and that’s a very high bar. And if Solo starts finding his shot again, I think this team will have more shooters.

Up front, Uconn doesn’t have a rim protector off the bench like they had with DC. But the frontcourt starters on this team and depth is real good and AK can do more and is a better player than he was as a freshman.

All fair... To me, it's as simple as this. Tourney 23 was a machine. You had two outstanding bigs, both much better than what we have now, and the AJax factor who made a zillion things happen. I agree with you that Mullins could be (if he's not already) better than Hawkins, and Demery could be 23 Newton, who was actually up and down most of the year. But the Adama/DC combo was beyond dominant on both ends. Tarris has Adama moments, but he's not there yet.

 

[Marat]

The bottom line is that while you may find some similarities to those teams and can be fun to compare them, this '26 squad is a different team . It doesn't have to be as good or better than those teams. It has started strong record-wise beating some very good out of conference opponents, but has yet to display the killer instinct and A game for 40 minutes to dismantle teams , that hopefully will be on display soon. In any case the foundation is there to accomplish what we all want. Let's see '26 write their own chapter in Husky lore. Enjoy the ride.

 

[Lafayette]

‘26 UConn is already better than ‘25 UConn

Comparing to natty ‘23 and ‘24 at this point is a bit comical. Let’s wait until BE Tourney final game.

 

[Woof]

I have no issue comparing teams as we are about half way through the regular season. One just needs to keep in mind that this will all change by the end of the season. But it is still interesting to see where we stand at this point.

I have Pomeroy comparisons as of 16 games into the season. It is interesting in that all of the top 10 teams have a higher "rating" so our "rating" is higher than it was in 2023 even though our "ranking" is lower. Another thing to note is that our SOS "ranking" and "rating" are both higher than it was in 2023. We have clearly played a tougher schedule so far this year. But it can't be ignored that we are 8th versus 3rd. In fact, we never dropped below 6th in 2023, even when we were losing a bunch of games in January.

 

[Woof]

I also have a comparison of our advanced stats so far this year with the final advanced stats of 2023. Unfortunately, the web archive did not crawl the stats website in January 2023 so I can't do a direct comparison. The encouraging news is that the advanced stats are better than in 2023.

It is possible that this team could be better than 2022/2023 but in a field that is much better than it was in 2022/2023.

 

[RuffRuff]

I believe the 24 team was one of the best CBB teams I’ve ever seen but it’s amazing how close on every stat this current squad is to that historic team so far.

Is it? Which?

 

[OceanDoggie]

I think there is some misremembering going on with the '23 team being a juggernaut despite a blip in the Big East because they so thoroughly dominated the NCAA tournament.

They had the ranked win against Bama in the nonconference, it was a close game until late and UConn blew their doors off at the end but they didn't play anyone else in the nonconference and they lost 5 out of 7 ranked games in the Big East conference regular season/Big East tournament to go along with two bad losses getting blown out by Providence and losing to an awful St. John's team at home.

It all clicked in the tournament so we like to just remember that tournament dominance and that they went perfect out of conference but the reality is they didn't exactly play a murderers row out of conference and Hurley said himself he felt like he was on the hot seat before that NCAA tournament.

That said, Jay Bilas had them winning the whole thing on his bracket, while Reese Davis had them in the Championship game losing to Alabama of all Teams and Seth Greenberg had them in the Final Four.

 

[caw]

I have no issue comparing teams as we are about half way through the regular season. One just needs to keep in mind that this will all change by the end of the season. But it is still interesting to see where we stand at this point.

I have Pomeroy comparisons as of 16 games into the season. It is interesting in that all of the top 10 teams have a higher "rating" so our "rating" is higher than it was in 2023 even though our "ranking" is lower. Another thing to note is that our SOS "ranking" and "rating" are both higher than it was in 2023. We have clearly played a tougher schedule so far this year. But it can't be ignored that we are 8th versus 3rd. In fact, we never dropped below 6th in 2023, even when we were losing a bunch of games in January.

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I'm sleepy as hell but I'm 99% sure Kenpom is not meant to be used across years for comparison.

 

[CTFAN4LIFE]

Agree that the '24 team is an all time team, but this year's squad can come together to "rival" the '23 team and on its best days can compare to the '24 team. Enjoy this action: