Favorite freshman class

[UConn990411]

Are we talking about our favorite class ever, or favorite class while they were freshmen?

If it's the latter, it's tough to argue against Shabazz, Lamb, Roscoe, and Olander.

 

[Excalibur]

Not the best class, but my favorite was the Rip/KFree/Jake class.

 

[willie99]

in no particular order

89/90
01/02
10/11

 

[Husky1]

The other thing that Donyell's class reminds me of was the first real time that Calhoun went all over the country to bring in kids (Florida, California, Arizona, Washington, Georgia, PA, ) Also, I remember trying to follow the recruiting which was before internet and boneyard via the better papers which were the JI and Norwich Bulletin. I think also Husky Blue & White was up and running and that was always an exciting day when the issue came out (I think bi-weekly).

 

[superjohn]

Not the best class, but my favorite was the Rip/KFree/Jake class.

It's definitely one of them. You can make an argument Rip is the best to ever play here, Jake is probably one of our best centers and Freeman was a tough SOB undersized power forward.

 

[CL82]

'78-79 was a very important class for us. Corny was a great talent and McKay was a prolific scorer. I've said this in the past, but I would have loved to see what Jim Calhoun would have done with them. Perno is a great guy, but he barely had control of that team and neither guy really developed over 4 years.

But my favorite 'class' would be 2010-2011. These are the kids of Kemba and the kids. Bazz, Lamb, Giffey and Roscoe. If you are looking not at overall development but immediate impact, I think this group of kids would be it.

Now, if the question was my favorite freshman that would be El Amin.

 

[Hugo]

Until the Corny Thompson class, and granted it was a different era, but the class that entered my first year was the best, but couldn't play varsity as freshmen. Wes Bialosuknia, Bill Holowaty, Tom Penders, Ron Ritter, Dick Thompson and PJ Curran. They joined with Toby Kimball for two years and a few other good upperclassmen to give UConn some visibility outside the old Ysnkee Conference.

Remember going to all the freshman games and staying to watch the varsity in the old field house. The drew a good crowd and if you went for the frosh, you could grab a good seat for the varsity. When they all moved up to varsity the next year, Wes fitted right in with Kimball as the scoring option and they became, as you said, visible outside the YC.

 

[whaler11]

I thought this would be an interesting question. And thanks for putting the data together but when you look at the basketball impact of 91/92 and then consider that Kevin Ollie is the head coach and Marshall is fixing Central and is going to end up replacing Ollie.... There really isn't a discussion to be had.

 

[cohenzone]

Remember going to all the freshman games and staying to watch the varsity in the old field house. The drew a good crowd and if you went for the frosh, you could grab a good seat for the varsity. When they all moved up to varsity the next year, Wes fitted right in with Kimball as the scoring option and they became, as you said, visible outside the YC.

That frosh team was so exciting, even more than the varsity, which was the year UConn got to the regional finals when Dom Perno stole the ball from Bill Bradley to seal an upset over Princeton.

They drew so much attendance with kids sitting in the walking aisles, that the next year was the first time students were charged for games, 50 cents. Outrageous.

 

[superjohn]

I thought this would be an interesting question. And thanks for putting the data together but when you look at the basketball impact of 91/92 and then consider that Kevin Ollie is the head coach and Marshall is fixing Central and is going to end up replacing Ollie.... There really isn't a discussion to be had.

Donyell is our head coach in waiting, amazing what you learn on the boneyard.

 

[Travelman6]

Gordon/Okafor. Best duo ever.

02-03 and 03-04 never lived up to potential and extremely high level of talent. Those were the main players in the Gmason elite 8 debacle if I recall.

 

[blackbird]

What about the 2-man class of Rudy Gay and AJ Price?

I think for sheer star power at the time there is no better class. We thought we came away with the best PG and the best SF going to college.

You gotta wonder what that one could have been had Price not gotten sick, and then hurt. (And Quite frankly, had he not been sick, I have a feeling laptopgate doesn't happen either.)

Who knows if they would have played together at all, but I think we come away from that class with another championship. (I also think that Price has the mental game that Marcus lacks at the PG position.)

I gotta go with 10/11 though. Primarily Giffey and Napier, but Roscoe and Lamb were great in that first championship too.

 

[whaler11]

Donyell is our head coach in waiting, amazing what you learn on the boneyard.

Yeah that's what I said. He's the coach in waiting.

I think he's going to be a very good head coach and I am predicting he'll be the coach after Ollie.

But I totally said he is the 'coach in waiting'.

Moran.

 

[Mr. French]

This topic is great, right up my alley, but I haven't responded for fear I'd rant and talk about every memory I have since 94 or so.

I don't know how to personally quantify which classes are best, or how to rank them. I probably have different answers for different criteria.

What I will say, though, is that Gordon + Okafor is tough to beat for me bc BG is one of my personal favorites, Mek might be our most dominant, and they have every aspect of their résumés to stack up with other classes (individual/team/NBA/etc) ... but look at some of these classes. It's also crazy to think how good some of those classes would have been had some of the highly thought of guys had panned out better (Hazelton, Marcus White, etc etc).

As many have said, Bazz class will always be amazing and a personal fav w Bazz/Giff/Lamb all players I love individually plus their 2 rings. Rays class, Donyell's class, Rips class are all obvious great ones, but I also didn't quite realize bc of differing situations that AJ/Rudy and Taliek/Caron were the same classes.

Calhoun had some serious recruiting suction in the late 90s through the later 2000s. I really didn't follow recruiting rankings too much until later, but I remember the most excitement over the Stanley/Kelly/Wiggins and the Daniels/Boat/Drummond classes, yet they probably are the bench marks for not living up to expectations... Interesting and also an important note for recruiting ranking discussions.

Often times rankings don't equate directly, and guys exchange roles as far as which players become stars and which disappoint relative to expectations.

 

[ctchamps]

It would be easier for me to list which weren't my favorites.
So I'll be in the now and say this years class just to be different. Two kids who weren't expected to do much are doing a lot more than anyone had expected and the kids who haven't contributed a lot are passionate about UConn from what I've seen. Hopefully 3 years from now they'll do enough that others will post something similar.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

As an '08 grad, the 02/03 class helped UConn get three of my favorite depth pieces during my time at UConn with Anderson, Denham and Hilton.

 

[MexicoHusky]

The current Freshman class is rapidly becoming my favorite. I think we have something with these guys. I'm am starting to think the three that are currently playing (Vital, Durham and Jackson) have very high work ethic. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's our strength coaches. Maybe it's even Rodney's leadership and work ethic. I'm not sure what it is, but Vital is clearly physically more capable. I noticed Durham looked kinda jacked yesterday and Jackson looks more athletic as well. Too bad Gilbert has been unable to show his skills. I really like these guys.