I truly believe we can win it all | The Boneyard

I truly believe we can win it all

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I feel we have much more than others think we have.
Defense and rebounding trending up
I believe our center position is top 5 of 68
We have 3 legit scorers
2 bench players I feel will have a more polished game than the reg season in Mahaney and Stewart
And a healthier Diarra
 
Nothing like the optimism of a win streak and ending season on a blow out.

I’ll feel better after this team wins a tourney game in BET. Then go from there.

I don’t think this team has to win the BET, but getting to final would be good start to this journey.
 
If we win this year the SEC will have us thrown out of the NCAA.

But yes, we can win but will win is super long shot. Making the second weekend if we avoid the 8/9 game or giving the #1 seed a huge scare will be enough for me but any run will be based on matchups. If we can a avoid a team that presses a lot we will be OK.
 
I feel we have much more than others think we have.
Defense and rebounding trending up
I believe our center position is top 5 of 68
We have 3 legit scorers
2 bench players I feel will have a more polished game than the reg season in Mahaney and Stewart
And a healthier Diarra
I've always felt this way (except for two days after Seton Hall).
But we have to more imagination as a fan base. We gave up too early.
It's like the high school kid whose gf breaks up with him: "you don't understand Mom! That was my soul mate"...wait a few weeks, Junior.
 
Star Wars Doom GIF
 
My Man Scrappy! I think you are slipping a bit. You used to "know" such things not believing which contains a hint of doubt.

Know I'm worried.
 
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That’s what it’s all about. It’s not about crunching the numbers and deciding who has the better quad wins or defensive rating. Why don’t we just run a simulation then, and crown the champion that way? Is this Market Analysis, or March Madness? Nobody gets a trophy for having the most accurate breakdowns of strengths and weaknesses.

We have around a half dozen guys who are capable of going off for 20+ on any given night, one of whom would be like Andy Dufresne coming out of the sewer pipe if he did so. We are arguably a handful of possessions across a handful of games from being a top 4 seed. We have one of the best coaching staffs in the nation, and 3 starters who have won 12 NCAA tournament games.

What is the point of even watching, if I’m not going to go into it with full hope and faith that our players and our coaches can make something magical happen? Why, to hedge against disappointment if they lose? I’d be disappointed regardless. So I choose believe, and enjoy the ride.
 
The one main reason I feel UConn has an advantage is experience in playing under the big lights of the NCAA tournaments. No other team playing has been to as many tournament games, especially the final two weekends, as has UConn in the last few years. How much of an advantage does it make? I am not sure, but it has to count for something more than a slight edge.
 
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Anything is possible. For this group to go deep a couple guys have to get white hot.....maybe Liam and Reed.....and carry the group.

This team is not nearly as talented as those of the last two seasons. It also does not defend nearly as well, and that, is what drives deep runs in the Tournament.
 
Anything is possible. For this group to go deep a couple guys have to get white hot.....maybe Liam and Reed.....and carry the group.

This team is not nearly as talented as those of the last two seasons. It also does not defend nearly as well, and that, is what drives deep runs in the Tournament.
This - who knows what can happen. We have 4 guys that we know are capable of monster games, get a couple of those clicking simultaneously and crazy things can happen. Doing it for 6 is unlikely but who knows.
 
A deep run in the tournament will completely depend on consistent, above-average performances by Tarris and Stew.
 
Starting next Sunday. Every team is 0-0. A new season. We can outscore just about any team in the Tournament. Gotta bring the energy on defense and rebounding and limit our TOs. Brackets and seeding/matchups do matter.

Let's bring it and roll the dice.
 
Karaban is the key. In the pivot, it doesn't matter if it's Tarris or Samson, we just need one to step up, and it's rare one doesn't. We know what Ball and Liam are and we're seeing a slightly better Hass lately, but the wildcard is AK. He shoots poorly and we can lose to anyone. He shoots well and it frees everyone else up. He's the veteran leader of this team and his importance can't be underestimated. Karaban leads the caravan, in my opinion.
 
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Man a lot of you guys are going to be extremely disappointed.

There is no chance this team runs the table, it is fatally flawed.

I doubt we escape the first weekend. Certainly not the second.
 
You wouldn’t be Scrappy if you didn’t
Given it seems like there is a better than decent chance we are on course to see Duke in a potential second round matchup, allow me to pose the question of how do we defend Cooper Flagg, Duke's 6"9" do it all phenom that makes them go?

I don't sense Alex has much of a chance given the size/athleticism gap. Given Maluach isn't much of a threat offensively, it does make you wonder if a guy like Samson, given his athletecism, could be the type of player that could pose issues for him.
 
Man a lot of you guys are going to be extremely disappointed.

There is no chance this team runs the table, it is fatally flawed.

I doubt we escape the first weekend. Certainly not the second.
Agree to disagree. I don't think there's a great chance, but I definitely think they have a chance.

2011 we started Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriahki, Olander, Lamb and Kemba.
2014 we started Nolan, DeAndre Daniels, Boatright, Giffey and Napier.

You're dead wrong if you don't think we're better than either of those teams.
 
There is a path albeit an incredibly tough one where there’s a fair amount of luck plus star performances out of our star players involved. I think we’ve shown that we can beat just about anyone…but we can also take a dump and lose to anyone. Depends on which team shows up on any given day.

IMG_9263.jpeg
 
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Agree to disagree. I don't think there's a great chance, but I definitely think they have a chance.

2011 we started Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriahki, Olander, Lamb and Kemba.
2014 we started Nolan, DeAndre Daniels, Boatright, Giffey and Napier.

You're dead wrong if you don't think we're better than either of those teams.
I don't know how you're defining better, but we're much, much worse defensively than both those teams.
 
Agree to disagree. I don't think there's a great chance, but I definitely think they have a chance.

2011 we started Roscoe Smith, Alex Oriahki, Olander, Lamb and Kemba.
2014 we started Nolan, DeAndre Daniels, Boatright, Giffey and Napier.

You're dead wrong if you don't think we're better than either of those teams.

We are better at certain positions, yes. But are we better overall than the 2006 team, for example (a much more apt comparison)? No. And what was their fatal flaw? Similar to the current team, their guard play was not championship caliber. @kobebeanbryant is right.

Hey, I am all good with Scrappy's, yours and anyone else who wants to be wildly optimistic about this year's team Deepster. The team's play since the St. John's game has gone up a notch and it has rightly given some optimism to our chances going into the post season.

But if you can't see the biggest difference between the 2011, 2014 and this year's team I don't know what to tell you.

Kemba and Shabazz were obviously the best guards in each of those respective tournaments. It made all the difference in the world. We don't have that this year (with all do respect to both Diarra and Ball). Not by a long shot. And it will be our fatal flaw.

I am not being negative, just honest. I bet on us to win it all last year in February. No way am I making a bet on us this year.
 
Take the best versions of our guys this year and put them together.

Solo shooting lights out. Tarris double-double machine. Hass steady with the ball and continuing his magic with Samson. McNeeley late shot clock heroics. JStew and Mahaney providing spark off the bench. And AK doing a bit of everything and hitting crunch time threes

I don't particularly care if it's not realistic. I'm not some ESPN talking head, I'm a UConn fan. I believe
 
If we don't win it's fraud and we should march on the NCAA office in Indianapolis.
 
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