Dream Season vs. '09

[Chin Diesel]

A few people suggested the '09 FF team was the best non-title winning team. Unless my social distancing self is brain farting '09 is the only FF team at UConn to not win it all.
So, in terms of accomplishment, they made it further than any other non-title team.

I still would take Dream Season team over '09.

'09 had an 8 man rotation and that was it. One helluva of a rotation though. The common refrain is "UConn wins it all if Dyson is healthy".

'09 had AJ Price at his best with Dyson, Austrie and a freshman Kemba.

I'll take Tate, Smith, Gywnn as a draw offensively and defensively '90 could have Burrell or Depriest defend Price or Dyson.

Up front '09 has a literal huge advantage with Thabeet, Robinson, Edwards and Adrien.
Would love to see Burrell match up with Sticks athletically and Dove use his guile against a physically superior Adrien.
Biggest advantage for '90 is the overall suffocating defense at the point and the wings. Price gives it up and Dyson or Austrie can't move the ball against forward against the wings of the DS team.
Offensively DS team can't do anything inside against Thabeet. He would own the paint. But Gwynn, George and Smitty had the mid range game to get their shots off.

I"m still taking the DS team in this match up.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

A few people suggested the '09 FF team was the best non-title winning team. Unless my social distancing self is brain farting '09 is the only FF team at UConn to not win it all.
So, in terms of accomplishment, they made it further than any other non-title team.

I still would take Dream Season team over '09.

'09 had an 8 man rotation and that was it. One helluva of a rotation though. The common refrain is "UConn wins it all if Dyson is healthy".

'09 had AJ Price at his best with Dyson, Austrie and a freshman Kemba.

I'll take Tate, Smith, Gywnn as a draw offensively and defensively '90 could have Burrell or Depriest defend Price or Dyson.

Up front '09 has a literal huge advantage with Thabeet, Robinson, Edwards and Adrien.
Would love to see Burrell match up with Sticks athletically and Dove use his guile against a physically superior Adrien.
Biggest advantage for '90 is the overall suffocating defense at the point and the wings. Price gives it up and Dyson or Austrie can't move the ball against forward against the wings of the DS team.
Offensively DS team can't do anything inside against Thabeet. He would own the paint. But Gwynn, George and Smitty had the mid range game to get their shots off.

I"m still taking the DS team in this match up.

AJ would have been tested big time .I love him but he would have been on his own.
i saw the 1989-90 team defeat a Georgetown team with Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutumbo ,both arguably better than Thabeet , because they struggled to get into their offense.
Heck they struggled to get the ball into the front court .
Kemba wasn’t Kemba yet and poor AJ would have been under pressure like he has never seen. Forget Dyson with the ball in his hand. That team could pick your pocket like no other in our entire history..

 

[Palatine]

From a talent point of view, it's hard to beat the 2006 team.

The great what if is, what if no laptop fiasco?

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

No mention of Henefeld in the OP is criminal.

 

[Ts5034]

In a perfect world, Dyson stays healthy, and we have a great shot at winning it all in 2009. In a perfect world, we beat George Mason and go on to win the title in 2006. That team was loaded and could easily have won it all. That would have been SIX Championships in 16 years with 1999, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014. But, with the NCAA Tournament, the team with the most talent does not always win. Thats why Its hard to look back and say “we should have won”. Also, Its hard to say if everything stays the same if we in fact did win in those years. You never know if certain recruits that passed on us decided to commit that would have changed the trajectory of everything going forward.

By the way, didn’t Calhoun say at one point that if he knew how bad 2012 turned out with the Boatright NCAA fiasco, and his spinal stenosis issues, and that team never really clicking on all cylinders, that he would have just retired in 2011? Makes you wonder how that would have turned out with KO getting the job one year earlier...

 

[Chin Diesel]

No mention of Henefeld in the OP is criminal.

Yeah. My fail. I mentioned Henefeld in the other threads about the 89-90 team. When you go team vs. team, the one thing that keeps jumping out to me is the versatility of the Dream Season team with all the wings and interchangeable pieces which could effectively defend opponents. Between Henefeld, Burrell, Williams and DePriest it was just unrelenting pressure. Then you have George, Smith and Gwynn pressuring the ball handlers.
As several others have mentioned the whole was definitely greater than the sum of its parts.

 

[Mr. French]

96, 06 and 09 are the 3 best teams to not win the title, in my opinion. Right after that you can argue 90, 94, 02 probably to round out the top 5.

 

[mauconnfan]

No matter what when comparing all of the very good "non-winning" teams you have to consider the intelligence of the Dream Season squad. They were smarter than most teams they played against that season from the tip and that began with Nadav, Scotty, Tate and Smitty. An amazingly fundamentally sound group of guys always ahead of the next play per se. Loved watching them on defense, the anticipation by the front 4 and even the ability to just play tough by Sellers was really fun to watch. If you don't believe me ask Campanelli - LOL

 

[Tenspro2002]

By the way, didn’t Calhoun say at one point that if he knew how bad 2012 turned out with the Boatright NCAA fiasco, and his spinal stenosis issues, and that team never really clicking on all cylinders, that he would have just retired in 2011? Makes you wonder how that would have turned out with KO getting the job one year earlier...

That's a fascinating "what if" in itself.

If JC retires in April 2011, what happens? Almost certainly the AD conducts a true national search and someone like Shaka Smart gets the job. Almost certainly no championship since then, but also none of the embarrassment of the KO era. Maybe Shaka is still coach, or maybe we part ways. Probably no Hurley though, but maybe we end up looking for a coach in 2018 anyway.

Of course, that whole scenario is predicated on JC not having an enormous ego and not retiring in the eve of fall practices in order to force the AD to take his hand-picked successor.

 

[the Q]

That's a fascinating "what if" in itself.

If JC retires in April 2011, what happens? Almost certainly the AD conducts a true national search and someone like Shaka Smart gets the job. Almost certainly no championship since then, but also none of the embarrassment of the KO era. Maybe Shaka is still coach, or maybe we part ways. Probably no Hurley though, but maybe we end up looking for a coach in 2018 anyway.

Of course, that whole scenario is predicated on JC not having an enormous ego and not retiring in the eve of fall practices in order to force the AD to take his hand-picked successor.

shaka is Probably gone by now. Question is when. He also probably isn’t as awful as the end of the Ollie years, so very possible he’s fired at the same time KO was.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

In a perfect world, Dyson stays healthy, and we have a great shot at winning it all in 2009. In a perfect world, we beat George Mason and go on to win the title in 2006. That team was loaded and could easily have won it all. That would have been SIX Championships in 16 years with 1999, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, 2014. But, with the NCAA Tournament, the team with the most talent does not always win. Thats why Its hard to look back and say “we should have won”. Also, Its hard to say if everything stays the same if we in fact did win in those years. You never know if certain recruits that passed on us decided to commit that would have changed the trajectory of everything going forward.

By the way, didn’t Calhoun say at one point that if he knew how bad 2012 turned out with the Boatright NCAA fiasco, and his spinal stenosis issues, and that team never really clicking on all cylinders, that he would have just retired in 2011? Makes you wonder how that would have turned out with KO getting the job one year earlier...

1.Does Dre come here with no JC?
2. Does the NCAA punish UConn if Calhoun’s not here ?
Some think the retro active APR punishment was a quid pro quo for Dre coming in as a walk on , getting around our scholarship reduction punishment.
3. If there was no punishment would that of effected where UConn landed when the league fell apart.
I didn’t spend five years on the Conference Realignment Board for nothing where speculation was a way of life.
My personal belief is JC poor health and subsequent retirement made us less attractive in musical chairs that took place in 2013. A healthy JC at the top of his game could have been a game changer.