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Gary Parrish: UConn worst Reigning Champ in 25 years

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In fairness to UConn, the Huskies' preseason No. 15 ranking was more of a reaction -- let's go ahead and call it an overreaction -- to last season's surprising run through the NCAA tournament than it was an intelligent projection for a program that A. was unranked as late as early March, and B. is without four of the top five scorers from that team, including Final Four Most Outstanding Player Shabazz Napier. Still, UConn should be better than this, if only because reigning national champions have been better than this through 19 games literally without exception for each of the past 27 seasons.

Uh, what? How does that last sentence make any sense whatsoever?
 
I love the comments. "UConn wasn't the best team, they just got hot at the right time, just like in 2011." Um okay. Do you think playing your best basketball in March might be a pretty big part of winning championships?
 
CL82 said:
I love the comments. "UConn wasn't the best team, they just got hot at the right time, just like in 2011." Um okay. Do you think playing your best basketball in March might be a pretty big part of winning championships?
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It's the same way people said things like "Kentucky would've won if they'd made their free throws." Possibly true. Also making free throws is PART OF THE GAME.
 
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Inyatkin said:
We'll just have to live with the indignity of being the worst reigning champion, which is something literally 350 other teams would like to have.
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I'm reminded of League of their Own when the Jon Lovitz character said "ooooo, that one hurt", dripping with sarcasm.

Funny thing is, it doesn't take much research to figure out what some of our problems are:

Senior Class - recruited with 10 scholarships. With 13, maybe we find a Giffey or Austrie, who pays dividends this year with veteran leadership. As it was, we got Boat, DD (and Drummond to pay his own way). But only Boat is left.

Junior Class - recruited knowing we were ineligible their freshman year. Omar stuck it out, thankfully. But that's a tough sell. Nolan is much maligned but at least played a role in a title, so thank goodness he decided to come despite our probation.

Sophomore Class - recruited amid coaching turnover and with Ollie on a temporary contract. Probably lucky Facey stuck it out, and lucky to find Brimah in the spring. Getting Purvis to transfer, even though he's been a bit less than we hoped so far, was huge. He at least has some talent which we have in the cupboard going forward.

Freshman Class - less excuses, other than conference upheaval and Ollie still being unproven. Hamilton was a great get.

It is what it is. It's been hard to stay on top in the past even without these issues - but this year's team has a full four year cycle worth of recruiting handicaps and we still got a title out of the cycle. I'm going to look back and celebrate everyone who came here during these four years - or stuck it out when the roller coaster came. They all are loyal program kids.
 
CL82 said:
I love the comments. "UConn wasn't the best team, they just got hot at the right time, just like in 2011." Um okay. Do you think playing your best basketball in March might be a pretty big part of winning championships?
Expand ...

When you think of all our ships, it was an experienced and talented guard at the helm with a no less capable 'Robin' sidekick.

Ricky/Khalid, Taliek/Ben, Kemba/Bazz and Bazz/Boat I just hope our coaching staff remembers that this recipe works. Of all coaches, Ricky needs to preach this and following this proven great guard strategy. It works well in college.

I say all this to say that we may have got hot at the right time, but we had great guards who knew how to use the heat to cook a Championship. By the way, just maybe we didn't get hot, but the food was 'finally finished' and ready to display.

The reality is Boat is not enough this season and the losses show he doesn't have Robin, a cape or even police backup.
 
Inyatkin said:
It's the same way people said things like "Kentucky would've won if they'd made their free throws." Possibly true. Also making free throws is PART OF THE GAME.
Expand ...

Not just that. It's not like you can just add the missed FT's to the final score. Kentucky never had the lead. The few chances they had to lead or tie, they didn't get it done.
 
CL82 said:
I love the comments. "UConn wasn't the best team, they just got hot at the right time, just like in 2011."
Expand ...

I love it, too. When the title was wide open, UConn seized the initiative while others spit the bit. And we did it twice. That's a bad thing?
 
cbs, their website considers florida a bubble team cause they beat arkansas. the P5 and NBE are getting great press coverage
 
Florida in 2008 also missed the tournament...they were a bubble team, to be sure. But let's not sell this team totally out yet. We look like shit, but I wouldn't be surprised if we ended with over 20 wins still. Our schedule was frontloaded.

There are 11 regular season games left. 2 are against SMU. All the rest are against teams behind us--many far behind us--in KenPom.

And we have the AAC tournament at home.
 
.-.
Gurleyman said:
I'm reminded of League of their Own when the Jon Lovitz character said "ooooo, that one hurt", dripping with sarcasm.

Funny thing is, it doesn't take much research to figure out what some of our problems are:

Senior Class - recruited with 10 scholarships. With 13, maybe we find a Giffey or Austrie, who pays dividends this year with veteran leadership. As it was, we got Boat, DD (and Drummond to pay his own way). But only Boat is left.

Junior Class - recruited knowing we were ineligible their freshman year. Omar stuck it out, thankfully. But that's a tough sell. Nolan is much maligned but at least played a role in a title, so thank goodness he decided to come despite our probation.

Sophomore Class - recruited amid coaching turnover and with Ollie on a temporary contract. Probably lucky Facey stuck it out, and lucky to find Brimah in the spring. Getting Purvis to transfer, even though he's been a bit less than we hoped so far, was huge. He at least has some talent which we have in the cupboard going forward.

Freshman Class - less excuses, other than conference upheaval and Ollie still being unproven. Hamilton was a great get.

It is what it is. It's been hard to stay on top in the past even without these issues - but this year's team has a full four year cycle worth of recruiting handicaps and we still got a title out of the cycle. I'm going to look back and celebrate everyone who came here during these four years - or stuck it out when the roller coaster came. They all are loyal program kids.
Expand ...
The point has been made before, but the fact that in the middle of all that we've averaged 20-plus wins per season and picked up a national title to boot is a sign of the program's strength. We've had everything possible thrown at us. Doesn't mean the good times will last forever, but it's something that's been under-appreciated, even (or especially) by UConn fans.
 
Inyatkin said:
It's the same way people said things like "Kentucky would've won if they'd made their free throws." Possibly true. Also making free throws is PART OF THE GAME.
Expand ...
We would have beat Cincy if we didn't turn the ball over 68 times.
 
Inyatkin said:
We'll just have to live with the indignity of being the worst reigning champion, which is something literally 350 other teams would like to have.
Expand ...

Sometimes when I think about this season and have a good cry, I dab my watering eyes with the corner of the 2014 National Championship banner.
 
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