Is 1999 Duke the best basketball team ever? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

Is 1999 Duke the best basketball team ever?

Kolumbo said:
True. But guys can be great college players and not great NBA players, or NBA players at all. Two different games.

I have to admit that Duke was super talented for the college level. Carrawell, Burgess, James. It was stacked. But of course UConn was the better team. Credit Calhoun. Blame K.
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And high school is different than college. Burgess was arguably the top recruit in the country but did nothing in college.
 
I think that Duke was as usual over rated so that resulted in us being relatively underrated. But we had a great team too. And pretty much dominated that game. I agree with superjohn that we win that matchup 6-7 times out of 10. We had the physical presence to control Brand and the quickness and speed on the perimeter. They might have had better front line players but they weren’t that much better that we couldn’t compete, our small forward was an All-American and we had the better backcourt and in the college game Give me the better backcourt and I’ll take my chances every time.
 
QDOG5 said:
I've always thought the key to the title game was Jake staying out of foul trouble. He ended the first half with 1 and the game with 3. His stat line for the title game was modest but it is my opinion that the Huskies played their best ball when he was on the floor.
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That's how it always was with Jake. Not sure I've ever seen a player who was so much better than his stats.
 
superjohn said:
That's how it always was with Jake. Not sure I've ever seen a player who was so much better than his stats.
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I must admit that I thought Brand would pump fake twice and Jake would be on the bench for the last 18 minutes of the first half. As usual, I was dead wrong. JC did a great job massaging Jake's minutes. He ended with 28 played.
 
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superjohn said:
And high school is different than college. Burgess was arguably the top recruit in the country but did nothing in college.
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That's K's m.o. Recruit McD's All-Americans and rest on their skillz

Is it your implication that Duke was not stacked?! I disagree.

Regarding Burgess, meh. He only played 2 years at Duke and had OK numbers on a team of all-stars. He was like the 7th best player because look who was in front of him.
 
AZHuskiePop said:
They had holes that JC exploited.
The big guy was a stud but he was not really that big I question his matchup with some of the other great big men before him I suspect they would dominant him .
They had a good but not great PG
whose penetration was key to their offense. Langdon was a great shooter but a mediocre creator,
All these weakness JC exploited
I think some of the Wooden teams were almost impossible to defend.
and would handle that team easily.
I saw that Duke team play a very good Temple team in NJ in the elite 8. The Owls hung with them and I knew we were much better so I couldn’t understand why they were such a big favorite.
I never considered our win an upset.
I think it way more of us being underrated by the media for some reason. Apparently they ignored our record in typical media hysteria.
In 10 games it would have 50-50 or 60-40 either way.
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Plus they were not a strong defensive team and had absolutely nobody who could defend RIP. Add in Ricky's first half scoring spree and there is no doubt which team was the better team and not just for this game.
 
So many people watering down UConn's greatest win ever. I don't like it.
 
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The ONLY argument 98-99 Duke can make is for the Greatest Team to NEVER Win a Championship. And even then they lose to 90-91 UNLV. Teams that didn't win aren't the greatest anythings except 'Greatest Losers' and people should never try to make this into an argument.

If anything these ratings only show you the flaws in the ratings methodology since clearly the ratings do not mimic history.
 
UConn Esq said:
The ONLY argument 98-99 Duke can make is for the Greatest Team to NEVER Win a Championship. And even then they lose to 90-91 UNLV. Teams that didn't win aren't the greatest anythings except 'Greatest Losers' and people should never try to make this into an argument.

If anything these ratings only show you the flaws in the ratings methodology since clearly the ratings do not mimic history.
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85 Georgetown or 83 Houston are certainly in the running.
 
caw said:
Maggette was decent in the NBA. Battier was also very welll respected.
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Yes, but not standouts. Battier maybe more well known for defense, but 7 or 8 points a game isn't really going to give you notoriety.
 
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gampelcrazies said:
The greatest runner up
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I was fortunate to have been at that 1999 UConn championship game and every time, during the game, we spelled-out and chanted UCONN the arrogant Dukies finished it by yelling “Sucks”. At the end of the game, we all turned toward them and, as one, yelled “ Who sucks now!” What a game...what an unforgettable ending...what a delightful, fulfilling, total satisfaction!!
 
superjohn said:
UConn was better than them, it's not watering down anything.
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I was commenting on the prior post where he said Duke was not a good defensive team. Brand was an absolute college beast, Battier was defensive player of the year, and the rest were all around great players. Wake up and smell the coffee Mrs. Bueller.
 
There were two dominant teams that year. Cincinnati started strong, but faded down the stretch. UConn was really good, and I thought UConn should have been no more than a 2 or 3 point dog in the Championship Game. Duke and UConn were really close that season.
 
superjohn said:
UConn was better than them, it's not watering down anything.
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A lot of things went right for us that night, Ricky playing out of his mind the 1st half, Wane hit a big shot or two, our matchups delivered especially KFree with Battier. Our AA played better than theirs, and Khalid hit big shots and free throws. Our coach out coached K. But with all that (us playing at our best) it was still a close damn game. It certainly wasn't an upset, but to me it was a game amoung equals. That's why it was such a great game and the ending so satisfying.
 
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Kitaman said:
A lot of things went right for us that night, Ricky playing out of his mind the 1st half, Wane hit a big shot or two, our matchups delivered especially KFree with Battier. Our AA played better than theirs, and Khalid hit big shots and free throws. Our coach out coached K. But with all that (us playing at our best) it was still a close damn game. It certainly wasn't an upset, but to me it was a game amount equals. That's why it was such a great game.
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UConn had better overall team speed, and it was a problem for Duke all night. Ricky Moore looked like he was playing against rec league defenders. Duke couldn't stay in front of us, and was having trouble getting shots off.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
UConn had better overall team speed, and it was a problem for Duke all night. Ricky Moore looked like he was playing against rec league defenders. Duke couldn't stay in front of us, and was having trouble getting shots off.
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I also think our players were tougher (street/playground). Dook looked like a collection of suburban kids, whereas our looked battle tested. Back then the BE teams never flopped, which was dook's one advantage. When the refs weren't calling OFs, they couldn't stop us. Calhoun matched K in the ref respect department.
 
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Either Duke had better players and a worse coach and we had worse players and a better coach or we had better players and a better coach.

We won. These are the only three options.
 
I obviously get the fact that in a single-elimination tournament, the best team doesn't always win; do any of us believe George Mason was really a better team than us in 2006? At the same time, when the entire point of the college basketball season is to win a single-elimination tournament, it seems a bit ridiculous that a team could be considered the best ever if they didn't win a championship.
 
I have a memory that I'm pretty sure is accurate. UConn and Duke played three teams in common that year and UConn won all three by a greater margin (I don't think any of the three were any good). That stat was consistently ignored before the game and has been consistently forgotten since then but it should hold some weight in the discussion of who was the better team.
 
auror said:
'99 Duke was the most dominant team in their season of any team of the last 25 years.

That much is not debatable. The box scores exist. They demolished teams that year.

'99 UConn was one of the best defensive teams of all time, though. Irresistible force meets immovable object in a 1 game series. Best memory ever.
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And I endured a 36 hour bus trip to Tampa bought tickets 4th row center court from scalpers......... and my 16 year old and I saw the game of a lifetime
 
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