name your top 10 huskies of all time

[johnhuskies95]

Next to Rip, my all time favorite Huskies are Shabazz, Kemba and Boat based on heart, how hard they played and that they were able to put less talented teams on their backs and carry them to unexpected runs to the promised land. However, Gordon averaged 20 pts., 5 assts., 4rbs., and 21pts., 5rbs., 5assts. his soph. And jr. Years respectively in an era when the Big East was loaded with All Americans and top 25 teams. When Ben played and you tuned in to watch the Huskies play a mid level program, such as Houston or Temple, the game was a formality as the talent the Huskies had on floor guaranteed a W. They were beating teams by 40, and would have never have been run out of the gym by 40 to the likes of Louisville. Of the 4 NC's, 2004 was the only year that they not only won the tourney, but they were rwithout argument, after beating Duke, the best team in college basketball. Gordon went on to be the 3rd overall pick in the NBA draft, which proved to be no fluke as he was on the first team all rookie team, won the 6th man of the year award and finished his career with the Bulls 2nd all time in 3 pointers. I love Shabazz, even named my pet fish after him, but clearly Gentle Ben was the better basketball player.

Shabazz's numbers in his junior season are slightly better than Ben's sophomore season. Ben took more shots, but Shabazz was ever so slightly more efficient. In their final seasons, Ben definitely shot a bit better from 3, but elsewhere they were basically equal or Shabazz was slightly better.

I think people have a tendency to underrate just how good Shabazz was as a junior(which is understandable considering the ban). I think you're also underestimating how good Okafor was.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Shabazz's numbers in his junior season are slightly better than Ben's sophomore season. Ben took more shots, but Shabazz was ever so slightly more efficient. In their final seasons, Ben definitely shot a bit better from 3, but elsewhere they were basically equal or Shabazz was slightly better.

I think people have a tendency to underrate just how good Shabazz was as a junior(which is understandable considering the ban). I think you're also underestimating how good Okafor was.

Yeah, he's looking at someone else's stats. Gordon never average 20ppg in a season.

 

[RWR15]

Yeah, he's looking at someone else's stats. Gordon never average 20ppg in a season.

Unless there was another Benjamin Ashenafi Gordon from Mount Vernon, NY who played basketball at the University of Connecticut from 2001-04 I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm looking at the right guys stats. Sorry Bruce, he actually averaged 19.5 his soph. year and 20.5 as a jr. (I always learned in math class to round off numbers when you see a decimal point). Actually when I compared Bazzs' jr./sr. stats to Bens so./jr. numbers they are pretty similar across the board. Both averaged around 5 assts. a game (however Napier was the primary ball handler on his team) and around 5 board's a game ,impressive for 2 undersized gaurds (though I would imagine that the ball would be a lot more likely to bounce off the rim and directly into your hands with Brimah and Nolan standing around under the basket as opposed to Okafor and Boone crashing the boards) But my point wasn't to care their numbers. Just to point out that Ben was putting up those numbers and winning championships against much stiffer competition. I was a little surprised to see that people were arguing that Shabazz was the better player and the general lack of love I see for Ben as read this thread (because in my mind he's up there with Ray, Rip, Yell, Okafor...) I tend to think that Okafor overshadowed Gordon as he was NPOY when they think of 04'...in 2014 you heard a lot about Boat being Robin to Shabazzs' Batman. This was a different scenario. I always felt as though we had the big man in the country and the best backcourt player (with the possible exception of Jameer Nelson).

 

[MilliniumPrince]

Bazz
DT
Ray
Mek
B. Turner
Stef Dolson
Maya the Magnificent
Uncle Cliffy
TuffJuice
Kemba

A Husky is a Husky to me.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Unless there was another Benjamin Ashenafi Gordon from Mount Vernon, NY who played basketball at the University of Connecticut from 2001-04 I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm looking at the right guys stats. Sorry Bruce, he actually averaged 19.5 his soph. year and 20.5 as a jr. (I always learned in math class to round off numbers when you see a decimal point). Actually when I compared Bazzs' jr./sr. stats to Bens so./jr. numbers they are pretty similar across the board. Both averaged around 5 assts. a game (however Napier was the primary ball handler on his team) and around 5 board's a game ,impressive for 2 undersized gaurds (though I would imagine that the ball would be a lot more likely to bounce off the rim and directly into your hands with Brimah and Nolan standing around under the basket as opposed to Okafor and Boone crashing the boards) But my point wasn't to care their numbers. Just to point out that Ben was putting up those numbers and winning championships against much stiffer competition. I was a little surprised to see that people were arguing that Shabazz was the better player and the general lack of love I see for Ben as read this thread (because in my mind he's up there with Ray, Rip, Yell, Okafor...) I tend to think that Okafor overshadowed Gordon as he was NPOY when they think of 04'...in 2014 you heard a lot about Boat being Robin to Shabazzs' Batman. This was a different scenario. I always felt as though we had the big man in the country and the best backcourt player (with the possible exception of Jameer Nelson).

He averaged 18.5 as a junior. Not sure where you're getting your numbers. http://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/ben-gordon-1.html

 

[David 76]

The thread says "Top ten Huskies" not pros not favorites as far as I can tell.
Ray
Donyell
Bazz
Kemba
Emeka
Chris
Rip
Ben
Wes
Toby

Easy for me to leave Dove, AD, and Rudy out as short timers but it is very hard to leave Caron off this list, Also very hard to leave KEA and Uncle Cliffy off. I think the youngsters leave the team's leading scorer off. Kind of crazy. I think Wes & Toby showed they could compete in any era.

Very surprised at a few of the names that showed up on some of these lists. Some good players and great teammates. But no comparison in my book. Taliek, Tony, Jeff, Charlie V (as a husky) even one of my favorite Huskies, Donny can't knock anyone off this list. Caron, KEA, & Cliff are arguable

 

[Dogbreath2U]

Taliek Brown won a championship, so if he's on your list, he should be in that section. But, he should be nowhere near this list.

I'm 32, so I'm not going to include the Toby Kimball's and Wes B.'s of the world as I never saw them play. My list, in no particular order.

Kemba
Bazz
Rip
Ray
Donyell
Emeka
Gordon
Caron
KEA

Last spot is extremely tough. Chris Smith? Honestly, I was too young when he was playing to really make an assessment on him. Sheffer? AJ Price? Johnnie Selvie? The last spot is hard, but these top 9 are no brainers for me.

I agree with your top 9 above and would put the last spot between Hasheem, AJ, and Chris Smith, with the winner going to .............................................Chris Smith. But what got me to post is your inclusion of Johnnie Selvie and no emoticon with a wink or anything. You are kidding, right?

 

[RichZ]

The thread says "Top ten Huskies" not pros not favorites as far as I can tell.

Actually, it says "your top 10 huskies of all time'" which implies favorites.

 

[johnhuskies95]

I'm a huge Rudy supporter, and he's at least one of the 5 best UConn NBA players, but you could make the argument very easily that Jeremy Lamb was a better at UConn than he was. Somehow Jeremy never gets any consideration in these types of threads.

 

[champs99and04]

I'm a huge Rudy supporter, and he's at least one of the 5 best UConn NBA players, but you could make the argument very easily that Jeremy Lamb was a better at UConn than he was. Somehow Jeremy never gets any consideration in these types of threads.

Yeah, I don't see any argument for Rudy being in the top ten.

 

[David 76]

Actually, it says "your top 10 huskies of all time'" which implies favorites.

I'm pretty old too but I think "your top ten" means your opinion of the top 10 players. not you your top ten favorites.

 

[Dogbreath2U]

I'm a huge Rudy supporter, and he's at least one of the 5 best UConn NBA players, but you could make the argument very easily that Jeremy Lamb was a better at UConn than he was. Somehow Jeremy never gets any consideration in these types of threads.

The UConn history is so rich at this point that I would not put Rudy up for consideration at that level and Jeremy would not be in the neighborhood, although he was certainly a top level player. I would have to give more thought to it than I can or will spare now to see where Jeremy would rank even approximately

I don't think he's even close to either of those guys. He definitely wasn't as good a player as Sheffer. Sheffer, Allen, and Knight all had their best seasons immediately after Ollie graduated, so I'd be hard-pressed to find the argument that he made them better.

Kevin Ollie was an over-achiever at UConn in some ways. He showed a lot of improvement in his game at UConn, going from a bad shooter to one who had to be guarded and could hit midrange shots reliably when open. I wonder if KO was a lot more than we knew as far as being the emotional leader of the team. What did Ray Allen say when asked something like who was the greatest leader he played with? Ray said "Kevin Ollie" IIRC.

 

[johnhuskies95]

The UConn history is so rich at this point that I would not put Rudy up for consideration at that level and Jeremy would not be in the neighborhood, although he was certainly a top level player. I would have to give more thought to it than I can or will spare now to see where Jeremy would rank even approximately

Jeremy was the second best player on a national championship team and was extremely efficient for a guard both years he was here. I know that the team was disappointing when he was a sophomore, but I think he's overlooked. I agree he's not top 10, but he was a really, really good player here. He shot 60% on twos his sophomore year.

 

[David 76]

Yes. There are a lot of very good-not top ten guys.

I think it would be good if people posted their age next to their top 10. I can only guess that some of these lists never saw Donyel or Chris play let alone Toby or Wes.