Most Frustrating Seasons

[willie99]

2010
2012
2015

Great list, followed by a few more Ollie years when we sucked

This year not even on that radar, actually on the other end of the spectrum

 

[Scoe]

I don't think I slept well for a week after that GM loss. I was so mad at Rudy Gay I've never forgiven him. He had the talent to win that game 1 on 5. (some sarcasm)
But he just played like he was bored with college. Drank myself silly after that game.

That entire year felt like an NBA team that showed up drunk to games maybe sobering up in the 2nd half climbing out of holes.

 

[gsmooth]

I don't think I slept well for a week after that GM loss. I was so mad at Rudy Gay I've never forgiven him. He had the talent to win that game 1 on 5. (some sarcasm)
But he just played like he was bored with college. Drank myself silly after that game.

That was black Sunday for me. I always went to this Salsa dance joint in Cambridge and the bouncer, who I was cool with, graduated from Villanova, but he grew up in Connecticut and as a Husky fan. So he was a fan of both teams. Both teams lost that day, UConn to George Mason and then Nova to Florida. As I soon as I walked in the door he told me "not a word. Not a word".

I remember I didn't even go on the dance floor that night with all the good looking women on the floor, which I never hesitated to do ever, LOL. But on this night I just sat at the bar and drank and I am not an alcohol drinker at all.

2006 just seemed like a struggle after they peaked and beat Villanova in the revenge game at Gampel. After that they struggled. I remember after Rashad got benched for Denham in the 2nd round game vs. Kentucky, Mike Anthony stated in his article that Rashad sat at his locker and spoke in a very annoyed manner. Even though UConn won, Rashad was not a happy. Mike Anthony went on to say that he knew that team had issues and were looking out for themselves individually to the detriment of the team goals. I mean this team lost to a NIT bound Syracuse team in the BET and then they learned their lesson so well they fell down by 12 with 11 minutes left to #16 Albany. At that point I was hoping they would get to the Final Four, but I wasn't necessarily expecting.

That 2006 team doesn't sit well with me to this day and I like Rudy Gay, but I don't hold him in high regard like the other UConn greats.

 

[willie99]

At least the 06 team earned a one seed and lost in OT in the Elite 8 ( in a true road game FWIW)

10 & 12 lost more than expected and exited early from everything

 

[NC_Uconn_Fan]

2005-06 and it's not even close.

 

[StllH8L8ner]

That was black Sunday for me. I always went to this Salsa dance joint in Cambridge and the bouncer, who I was cool with, graduated from Villanova, but he grew up in Connecticut and as a Husky fan. So he was a fan of both teams. Both teams lost that day, UConn to George Mason and then Nova to Florida. As I soon as I walked in the door he told me "not a word. Not a word".

I remember I didn't even go on the dance floor that night with all the good looking women on the floor, which I never hesitated to do ever, LOL. But on this night I just sat at the bar and drank and I am not an alcohol drinker at all.

2006 just seemed like a struggle after they peaked and beat Villanova in the revenge game at Gampel. After that they struggled. I remember after Rashad got benched for Denham in the 2nd round game vs. Kentucky, Mike Anthony stated in his article that Rashad sat at his locker and spoke in a very annoyed manner. Even though UConn won, Rashad was not a happy. Mike Anthony went on to say that he knew that team had issues and were looking out for themselves individually to the detriment of the team goals. I mean this team lost to a NIT bound Syracuse team in the BET and then they learned their lesson so well they fell down by 12 with 11 minutes left to #16 Albany. At that point I was hoping they would get to the Final Four, but I wasn't necessarily expecting.

That 2006 team doesn't sit well with me to this day and I like Rudy Gay, but I don't hold him in high regard like the other UConn greats.

As great as Rudy was, I always felt that his sophomore year he was playing not to get injured since he was a sure fire lottery pick. Put up solid numbers but the pedal wasn’t always to the metal IMO.

 

[UconnFanDC]

The fact that no one has mentioned the 2016 is interesting… that team was a full court heave away from not making the tournament. But alas, they did by winning the AAC.

Post season “success” cures all. Let’s see how this season finishes before we call it a disappointment. (FWIW it is frustrating we have lost a ton of winnable games.)

That season didn't start of 14-0 nor did it have an Andre Drummond type of player on its roster. Plus that 2016 team started off like 0-3 and kept loosing throughout. Frustrating, but the expectations died faster then a fish out of water

 

[Scottobot]

This year is not frustrating, other than I’m frustrated by lack of Clingan’s playing time. This years team is fun to watch, has several big time wins. The PK tournament alone made this season good.
For me the most frustrating was the year we got Andre Drummond, and had Lamb, Napier, and Oriakhi returning from championship team, and only won 20 games and had early NCAA exit. Drummond was the highest rated recruit we ever got. Number 2 player in the county. My expectation was he was the next Shaq, or close to it.

 

[Inyatkin]

2000 would be my choice because we were preseason No. 1 and coming off such an insane high the year before. 2010 another good choice.
This one isn't over, but wouldn't be in the top 10 for me.

 

[Palatine]

Losing to Yale was like an entire bad season.

 

[Shamon30]

Lots of people are saying 05-06. I'll agree that had the most disappointing ending, but I didn't find it to be a frustrating season. I think we had our best ever record that year and many games were filled with highlight reel moments.

Yeah, we could have been even better and we didn't quite jell as we should have and underperformed at times, but that's better than a losing season or one full of "moral victories" where we come up just short at the final buzzer. Don't get me wrong, losing to George Mason was an abysmal experience. Still, on the whole, it wasn't nearly the most frustrating season the vast majority of the time.

 

[MyDorona]

The 2005-2006 season was just disheartening as throughout the season it appeared all too often that they were winning a lot of games in spite of themselves and there wasn't a whole lot of interest in putting more than a nominal effort into winning. The players that seemed to care the most were the players who played the least. I don't think anyone can find a team that ended up with a record that stellar that cared so little about winning. They won a lot of games solely because their talent was so superior (and from what I saw, evidently believed that would be enough to win a title).

This is the only correct answer, and for exactly these reasons. This was the season it dawned on me that after NC #2, we had become exactly the type of program Calhoun loved to beat when he was on the ascent- a team of five-star, NBA-talent misfits who only saw college as a year to kill between HS and the NBA.

Calhoun could've had just about any recruit he wanted after Natty #2, and he almost did with Gay, Bynum, Durant, etc. I seem to recall an article or two after 2006 where Calhoun admitted that he had fallen too in love with the number of stars and rankings next to the kids' names, instead of finding the gritty, under-ranked players that fueled the program's rise in the '90s.

I do not think we build another championship-level team in 2011 or '14 unless we have the '06 disaster, and Calhoun ultimately has this realization.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

2019-2020.
they never even got a chance to complete the season, after ending up 19-12/10-8, and firing on all cylinders down the stretch.
character, grit, determined.
check out the roster
2019-20 UConn Huskies Men 's Roster and Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
9 guys around 20 minutes per.
last loss on 2/20 at temple by 4. then 5 wins in a row until shutdown.
fierce. feared no one at the end, cuz they felt that they had all the answers. i still believe that they did.

 

[Inyatkin]

This is the only correct answer, and for exactly these reasons. This was the season it dawned on me that after NC #2, we had become exactly the type of program Calhoun loved to beat when he was on the ascent- a team of five-star, NBA-talent misfits who only saw college as a year to kill between HS and the NBA.

Calhoun could've had just about any recruit he wanted after Natty #2, and he almost did with Gay, Bynum, Durant, etc. I seem to recall an article or two after 2006 where Calhoun admitted that he had fallen too in love with the number of stars and rankings next to the kids' names, instead of finding the gritty, under-ranked players that fueled the program's rise in the '90s.

I do not think we build another championship-level team in 2011 or '14 unless we have the '06 disaster, and Calhoun ultimately has this realization.

This is a nice story, but the idea that Calhoun or anyone decided they'd rather have less great players rather than more seems questionable. Who are the five-stars we turned down in favor of a lower-ranked, grittier player?

 

[bmayuc]

Lots of people are saying 05-06. I'll agree that had the most disappointing ending, but I didn't find it to be a frustrating season. I think we had our best ever record that year and many games were filled with highlight reel moments.

Yeah, we could have been even better and we didn't quite jell as we should have and underperformed at times, but that's better than a losing season or one full of "moral victories" where we come up just short at the final buzzer. Don't get me wrong, losing to George Mason was an abysmal experience. Still, on the whole, it wasn't nearly the most frustrating season the vast majority of the time.

05-06 is the only correct answer because... and someone correct me if I'm halucinating 15 years later, wasn't AJ Price a freshman on that team but had his brain aneurism?

Like all that team needed was 1 more ball-handler and playmaker with the absolute stud post/wing/scorers to be basically undefeated and he was sitting right there on the bench but was unable to play, and everyone knew it, and that sucked.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I'm pretty sure the aneurysm was the prior year and 2005-2006 was due to the laptop.

Things that stick out about that year (which is why I personally classify the shortfall in end results as disheartening as opposed to frustrating) are a play early in a game in Providence where MW feed a highlight reel alley opp to Rudy for a monster slam while we were down by double digits and the two were too busy celebrating at midcourt to notice the entire PC team run by them to score on a five on three and the general situation of the George Mason game. GM's power forward (who was obviously smaller than Rudy and listed as an inch shorter and ten pounds lighter) beat Rudy gor the Maryland HD title a couple years earlier. A player at Rudy's level should have said "this guy took one title from me, I won't let him take another" and then put a superior effort into that game. Instead he seemed content with being a bystander for long stretches.

 

[willie99]

I don't think you can call earning a one seed and losing in OT in the Elite 8 a frustrating season. 05/06 was a great season, although I'll give you a disappointing last game

 

[AZHuskiePop]

The year we got Andre Drummond and did nothing

We Had Bazz, RB, Jeramy Lamb ,
Plus Andre . All first rounders
Roscoe, Alex second rounders
Plus RB , and DD prized freshman
We were under .500 in the BE
That’s the most talented underachieving team
2009-10

 

[CTBasketball]

We Had Bazz, RB, Jeramy Lamb ,
Plus Andre . All first rounders
Roscoe, Alex second rounders
Plus RB , and DD prized freshman
We were under .500 in the BE
That’s the most talented underachieving team
2009-10

Then we got blown out of the gym by a guy who was afraid to fly on an airplane.

 

[Shamon30]

05-06 is the only correct answer because... and someone correct me if I'm halucinating 15 years later, wasn't AJ Price a freshman on that team but had his brain aneurism?

Like all that team needed was 1 more ball-handler and playmaker with the absolute stud post/wing/scorers to be basically undefeated and he was sitting right there on the bench but was unable to play, and everyone knew it, and that sucked.

That was the year he was suspended. I may be a bit biased toward 05-06 due to the breakout season Hilton Armstrong had. He's my all time favorite Husky, so I really enjoyed that.

 

[HuskyHawk]

This season isn't even the most disappointing of the last three seasons. 2008 tops the list for me, but there are several that didn't go as we hoped.

 

[Scottobot]

This is the only correct answer, and for exactly these reasons. This was the season it dawned on me that after NC #2, we had become exactly the type of program Calhoun loved to beat when he was on the ascent- a team of five-star, NBA-talent misfits who only saw college as a year to kill between HS and the NBA.

Calhoun could've had just about any recruit he wanted after Natty #2, and he almost did with Gay, Bynum, Durant, etc. I seem to recall an article or two after 2006 where Calhoun admitted that he had fallen too in love with the number of stars and rankings next to the kids' names, instead of finding the gritty, under-ranked players that fueled the program's rise in the '90s.

I do not think we build another championship-level team in 2011 or '14 unless we have the '06 disaster, and Calhoun ultimately has this realization.

I disagree with the fail of the 05-06 season being about over ranked top recruits. Rudy Gay was the only top 25 recruit on that team. Hilton Armstrong was a developed player. Rashard Anderson, Denom Brown, and Josh Boone were all former champions and were that mid tier 30 to 60 recruit they built their program on. Gay scored 20 points in that game and carried them in second half. The team also featured blue collar hard worker freshman Jeff Adrien who was not a top recruit and who had a great game, and would later go to Final 4 With Thabeet.
They played that game against GM in DC in front of crowd that was going bananas every time Gm made a basket. GM played out of their minds in the second half shooting 70% on contested 3s, and contested shots from their bigs with Armstrong and Boone in their face. This game is an example of why in NBA plays a series and not one game. For this one game GM was just better. They beat UConn.

 

[AZHuskiePop]

That was the year he was suspended. I may be a bit biased toward 05-06 due to the breakout season Hilton Armstrong had. He's my all time favorite Husky, so I really enjoyed that.

I give 2005-6 a pass
Although they had a ton on talent they essentially only had I guard and a bunch of wings , but they still won over 30 games , the Big East Tournament and regular season and lost in OT in the elite 8 . Even Calhoun said when asked “you have so many future NBA players , he replied true unfortunately 3 of them play the same position “
Maybe it’s who they lost to but JM beat some good teams to get to the elite 8 and looked better than we did in our wins. We barely got by an ordinary Kentucky team.
I think AJ was suspended that year for the laptop caper. He got an entire year and Williams only got a semester , Freshman Craig Austry actually had to start a bunch of games .

 

[AZHuskiePop]

To me a frustrating team is a team with talent that underachieves.

Thats why I wouldn’t include a team from the AAC yesrs
2014-15 We lost 3/4 of the NC team
and really didn’t replace them with anything near equivalent talent . Then lost Purvis and Boatright for a number of games but still won 20 games. Without those injuries I believe we did enough to get into the NCAA . about the limit of expectations
2015-16 we won 26 games
The AAC tourny and got screwed in seeding having to play the number 1 seed in the tournament in the second round . A better seeding and draw min a sweet 16 team
Brimah missed a bunch of league games which hurt the conference standings but at full strength
We became a nice team .
2016-17 we had high expectations but injuries and highly overrated recruits diminished that team Also a lot of new pieces
2017-18 was just an undermanned group doomed by desertion and graduation. especially after Gilbert was lost. Anything we got from that team was bonus.
2018-19 Hurley blew off
2019-20 was frustrating only because the team jelled and then COVID hit . It became a very entertaining team . Vital refused to let them lose. He was the biggest overachiever in my memory. That always makes the season fun.

 

[MyDorona]

This is a nice story, but the idea that Calhoun or anyone decided they'd rather have less great players rather than more seems questionable. Who are the five-stars we turned down in favor of a lower-ranked, grittier player?

Calhoun didn't "turn down" five-star recruits; he simply recruited a different type of player after the 2006 debacle. With the exception of maybe Drummond- a local kid and a generational talent- he began to once again recruit guys who were projected to stick around beyond a year or two. He alluded to this many times after 2006, and this article I found would tend to support his philosophy:

"But the best teams almost always have experience. Some of the best teams I've had, like my '99 (national championship) team that went 34-2, that was because some of my best players came back (instead of turning pro)...Experience makes a difference. There are subtle things you see on game tape that you don't see in the box score. Older guys are smarter, and make better decisions. If you watch Kentucky, John (Calipari) does a great job coaching them but they're all kids. That eventually shows."

Former UConn coach Jim Calhoun says experience key in NCAA tournament

The longtime Connecticut coach said that this year's Final Four shows the value of experience in the era of one-and-done.

www.usatoday.com