One more national championship to pass Duke.

[CallMeBruce]

If Vitale recruited for UConn, like he does every game for Duke, JC would have ten NCs.

This meme about Vitale rooting for Duke has gotten pretty tired.

 

[dsturdy5]

The last 2 championships for UConn came as a shock to everyone else in the country. Duke's championships came as a 1 or 2 seed in seasons where they were constantly talked about as championship contenders.

To some people, the Duke type seasons are more "legitimate." They were expected to win and then they won.

With UConn, people will tend to chalk it up to flukiness of the tournament if they want to still worship Duke.

This was pretty much the narrative on Mike and Mike the day of and after the NC game.

 

[Palatine]

This meme about Vitale rooting for Duke has gotten pretty tired.

Not as tiring as listening to Vitale virtually recruit for Duke in every game he announces. Even when they're not playing.

 

[CallMeBruce]

Not as tiring as listening to Vitale virtually recruit for Duke in every game he announces. Even when they're not playing.

OK.

 

[upstater]

I know we are winning them at a record pace, but guys we all know it ain't easy. We can look at each of our Championships and pick one or two times that we were 'fortunate'. Missed late shot, or some other bounce that went our way. Not calling it luck at all but fortunes in our favor.

Just saying even if we are stuck on 4 for some time we still have a lot of Championships considering its Men's basketball, making it the greatest to be a Husky fan!

We say the same thing after every championship. After Ollie was hired, we talked about winning one in the next 15-20 years.

 

[upstater]

I might buy one flukey championship but when you have a similar run a few short years later, it throws the whole theory out the window…

Now every time UCONN wins a couple of tourney games in a a row, people will start to think about another special run. No other team will garner this type of reaction because no other team can point to 2 championships of this nature in such a short timeframe.

I doubted UConn could win it all this year even before and in the middle of the tournament, but now I do think UConn was last year's best team, if for no other reason than I can't think of a better one. If pressed, I might say Florida. But Florida lost twice to UConn.

The interesting thing is that my friends who watch from around the country (not Uconn fans) were very leery that UConn was going to win. In the early rounds, they kept writing to me that UConn was formidable and was going to be there at the end. A Michigan St. fan was rooting hard for Villanova and Iowa St., and telling me that UConn always plays well in tournaments. I was the doubter. If you had read the Syracuse board during the sweet 16, you would have read multiple posters saying that UConn was going to win it all. Opposing fans think this way. In fact, in 2011, UConn was the fourth biggest favorite to win it all based off the tens of millions of ESPN brackets.

I think the country knows that UConn is very very good in the tournament. Always.

 

[August_West]

If you had read the Syracuse board during the sweet 16, you would have read multiple posters saying that UConn was going to win it all.

ExCuse fans didn't pick us because they thought we were good, they picked us because they had just been kicked with the horrifying fact of their 25-0 season collapsing and then losing to Dayton. They were coming from a place of " well that was the worst possible end to a season I could imagine, what could be worse, oh yeah Storrz winning the title will put the cherry on top of this show"

And guess what? We did put that cherry on top for them.

Then they started blaming each other saying that certain posters negative mojo made uconn win and that it was karma.

It was a very enjoyable couple weeks watching the melts over there.

 

[otp85]

I've said it on these boards before about the Syracuse bashing; why? We have 4 rings in 15 years and somehow you're all bitter. Enjoy this, enjoy the naysayers, they make winning all the more satisfying.

Personally, if I had to listen to vitale blow smoke up our ass every time I turned on espn (which I don't do anyways) it would get annoying.

 

[bellairehusky]

This is my perspective...I live in Houston and I travel a lot to Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California and Florida, mostly for work. On many occassions, I wear UConn basketball gear of some sort. I can tell you with certainty that the average basketball fan in all those cities have a lot of respect for UConn. They know our brand. Once in a while it comes with caveats, as I think the APR issue and the NCAA compliance issues have been unfairly characterized or inflated. Regardless of that, they all know that "UConn wins championships"... and they know that come NCAA tourney time, we are to be feared more so than any other school - even if they try to convince themselves otherwise on message boards.

 

[CL82]

Imagine the cognitive dissonance that will cause in the college basketball universe.

I liked this just for use of the phrase "cognitive dissonance."

 

[sdhusky]

This is my perspective...I live in Houston and I travel a lot to Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California and Florida, mostly for work. On many occassions, I wear UConn basketball gear of some sort. I can tell you with certainty that the average basketball fan in all those cities have a lot of respect for UConn. They know our brand. Once in a while it comes with caveats, as I think the APR issue and the NCAA compliance issues have been unfairly characterized or inflated. Regardless of that, they all know that "UConn wins championships"... and they know that come NCAA tourney time, we are to be feared more so than any other school - even if they try to convince themselves otherwise on message boards.

And they know our women's program wins championships.

 

[Go_Huskies]

Let's be honest Duke is popular the same reason Obama and Tiger Woods are popular with the media. They are doing something well that you don't expect someone like them to do well. They had a lot of smart looking kind of preppy white guys on their team winning basketball games. It is unusual and unexpected so people started to root for them. It isn't racist. It is just human nature. It is like rooting for the underdog. And plus who is the media? A bunch of preppy white upper class guys. So they can relate to Duke. If Duke was filled with a bunch of white country music fans and born again Christians, like Tebow, they wouldn't be hyped up as much, if at all.

Same thing with Tiger. Tiger Woods is a black guy playing golf and winning. It is unusual and unexpected so people started to root for him. I never watched golf like a lot of people until Tiger came along.

Same thing with Obama. But rooting for a guy in sports because he is doing the unexpected is inconsequential. Making him the president probably not the smartest thing.

Now Duke is hated because the bandwagon went a little too far and people have gotten over the novelty of seeing upper class white guys do well in CB. Been there and done that. Now they adulation seems undeserved. Same thing with Tiger and especially Obama. Tiger is not hated as much because he is a really good golfer albeit he has no personality. If he was white he still be famous, not as famous as he is now, but Pete Sampras fame. Obama is hated because all he has done is fail and they give him a Nobel Peace Prize.

In my mind Obama = Duke.

 

[partial]

I know we are winning them at a record pace, but guys we all know it ain't easy. We can look at each of our Championships and pick one or two times that we were 'fortunate'. Missed late shot, or some other bounce that went our way. Not calling it luck at all but fortunes in our favor.

I have nightmares of the arizona game from the 2011 run with Kemba. I think the last play we were down 2 they had the ball got an offensive rebound for a wide open 3 ( that shot looked as good as any i've ever seen) but it didn't go. I don't think i could watch it again without that pit in my stomach type of feeling.