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

[TheChamps990411]

Uconn was up big early in the first half, then it was tied with less than 9 minutes left in the game, then UConn blew it open and won by 15.

Yeah. I remember vaguely at no point thinking we`d lose that game. We were really good early on but for sure after that January slump it was a whole different animal.

 

[jleves]

Just like both 23 and 24, it's January and we're in the conversation

That's the best you can hope for

Everything else will take care of itself come April

Enjoy the ride people

FIFY

 

[Punkbo]

At this point in the season, this team is clearly better than the ‘23 team. That team was a mess in January. The losses to St. John’s and Seton Hall were maddening. This team has all the pieces to be very good. My one hope with this team is Reed becomes the monster he should be. His On/Off switch needs to be turned to On more consistently.

 

[50cPitchers]

I'd lay -3 with this team vs the '23 team

 

[sdglast]

The 24 did actually fall behind PC in Providence by that same amount!

The 24 team also got blown out by Seton Hall in December losing by 15 (I still can't figure that one out), and came back later in the year and beat Seton Hall by 30. They were just so good. I think this team can develop along the lines of the 23 team. They are probably a bit further along than the 23 team who really struggled in January, especially when Creighton did the whole let AJ shoot 3s gameplan. I think this team is certainly as good an offensive team because of Jackson's struggles at times in the half court, as Mullins, AK, Silas, and Ball can all knock down 3s. They aren't quite as consistent down low, but this team is starting to come together. They are a work in progress, but I can see them putting a big tournament run together, as they can light it up and typically they play really good defense. They have to develop more of a killer instinct, rebound the basketball more consistently, and put teams away when they have the chance. That can certainly come in later January/early February, when Hurley's teams typically peak, and I expect nothing less with this team.

 

[BigErnMcCracken]

I don’t know about this comparison stuff but this teams record is better than both of those teams as of Jan 8 and their lone loss is by 4 to the current #1 team in the country down 40% of their starting lineup.

So while I personally think 24 is the best UConn team of all time I’m saying that with the benefit of having seen them in February, March and April. Anyone saying this team doesn’t have “it” or some such just sounds goofy to me.

 

[Teddie1056]

It’s been discussed a lot, but thought it would be a good time to revisit the conversation now that we are about halfway through the regular season.

We are sitting at 15-1, 5-0 in the BE with several impressive OOC wins and fresh off a huge comeback win at PC in which we showed Championship Pedigree and resiliency. This team can win in many ways and ultimately wears teams down with our balance and depth.

The ‘23 and ‘24 teams through 16 games were both 14-2. To me, this team looks like it can be better than the ‘23 team but not quite as dominant as the ‘24 team- so I would put them as Hurley’s second best team so far.

We obviously won’t have a definitive answer until the season is over, but it’s an interesting debate. Up to this point in the season- where does this team fit compared to the 23 and 24 teams?

I think that the 2023 team needed to find its mojo. This team is better that early/mid season 2022/23. Hot take, but late season 2022/23 was almost as good as 2023/24. Every single player in that starting lineup is going to play at least a little in the NBA, and of course you had Clingan on the bench. Aside from a slide in the middle of their schedule, their only loss was to a very good Marquette team by 2.

I mean, ask yourself, who would you take

1: Newton (24) > Newton (23) > Ball (26)
2: Castle (24) > Hawkins (23) > Demary (26)
3: Jackson (23) > Spencer (24) > Mullins (26)
4: Karaban (26) > Karaban (23) > Karaban (24)
5: Clingan (24) > Sanogo (23) > Reed (26)
6th Man: Diarra (25) > Smith (26) > Joey California (23)
Backup Center: Clingan (23) > Reibe (26) > Samson (24)

I am not saying by the end of the year that people don't move up that list, but it's not likely they surpass the 23 team head to head, even if they win out.

 

[Teddie1056]

I don’t know about this comparison stuff but this teams record is better than both of those teams as of Jan 8 and their lone loss is by 4 to the current #1 team in the country down 40% of their starting lineup.

So while I personally think 24 is the best UConn team of all time I’m saying that with the benefit of having seen them in February, March and April. Anyone saying this team doesn’t have “it” or some such just sounds goofy to me.

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.

 

[superjohn]

I think that the 2023 team needed to find its mojo. This team is better that early/mid season 2022/23. Hot take, but late season 2022/23 was almost as good as 2023/24. Every single player in that starting lineup is going to play at least a little in the NBA, and of course you had Clingan on the bench. Aside from a slide in the middle of their schedule, their only loss was to a very good Marquette team by 2.

I mean, ask yourself, who would you take

1: Newton (24) > Newton (23) > Ball (26)
2: Castle (24) > Hawkins (23) > Demary (26)
3: Jackson (23) > Spencer (24) > Mullins (26)
4: Karaban (26) > Karaban (23) > Karaban (24)
5: Clingan (24) > Sanogo (23) > Reed (26)
6th Man: Diarra (25) > Smith (26) > Joey California (23)
Backup Center: Clingan (23) > Reibe (26) > Samson (24)

I am not saying by the end of the year that people don't move up that list, but it's not likely they surpass the 23 team head to head, even if they win out.

If you're looking for next level impact '23 isn't the team for you. Only Clingan is an impactful NBA player from that team and he played just 13 minutes per game. Hawkins and Jackson are NBA players but they look like they're on their way out of the league. Sanogo got a tiny sip of coffee (87 minutes to be exact) in the NBA and now plays in Italy. '24 blows them away in terms of NBA impact players with Castle, Clingan, and Cam with likely the other two starters becoming NBA players. '26 should blow them away as well.

As for your player comparisons you have some of the wrong positions competing against each other. Silas '26 is better than Tristen '23, they are both point guards. It doesn't pertain to '23 vs '26 but Cam was way better than Jackson and Hawkins. Mullins is also better than Jackson and I think he will be better than '23 Hawkins and he will blow away Hawkins in the NBA.

Saying it's not likely '26 surpasses '23 if they win out is quite the take.

 

[Leebo]

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

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.

 

[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: