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Message: [QUOTE="boog204, post: 3493298, member: 880"] So before I "distance teach" and home school my kid, I've decided to work out to a "classic" UConn game to keep me from going insane. As of now I'm just choosing random NCAA tourney games to relive. I'm three games in. TL:DR summary, thank god for TCF! Game #1 --> Natty vs. GTech Quick thoughts. I've been one of the first to criticize Taliek over the years both during his time and after he was immortalized (I'm doing it again.) But man, what a floor game he played. In the first half when the game was still a game, he absolutely controlled tempo, the break, hit a jumper to keep the D honest, and had that dagger and 1 (think he missed the FT, but still) that helped us build the big lead. What was even more telling was that when he went out for a blow and Ben had to run the point, we were a mess. BG turned it over on two straight occasions (narrowly missing a third) and defensively we were hurt. Secondly, there was a stretch where CV was the best player on the court. Grabbed every board, played willing defense, deserved the hockey assist on several plays. When he wanted it, he let his immense talent show. I know he had a useful NBA career - useful being probably an understatement for 10 years and almost 7000 career points, but man I can't help but think that he really underachieved. Game #2 --> 2nd Rd Dream Season vs. Cal I remember the Dream Season pretty well even though I was only 9/10 years old and I thought I "knew" basketball pretty well. But watch this game to see how one player can dominate action without really stuffing the stat sheet. Nadav in the first half was amazing. Playing the passing lanes, swinging the ball quickly against their matchup zone, the countless tips rebounding either to himself or to just keep the ball alive and some beautiful passing for easy buckets or fouls. Freaking incredible performance and I think he only had four points in the half while we built up a 20 pt lead. Game #3 --> 2nd Rd, 1995-96 vs. Eastern Michigan Brian Tolbert was the best player on the court and I remember thinking then and now that this dude could play in the league. Wonder what happened to him? Other things. It's pretty clear why we were not going to advance in that tourney. Other than Hayward, that team was soft. And then when you remove Ricky as another ballhandler, we were severely hamstrung against teams that could D us up. You could tell that Doron was already exhausted from being the only ballhandler/creator on the floor. That leads me to this... Rip was a better player than Ray at UConn. The championship aside but Rip did more. He could play the 1, 2, 3. He could create offense for himself or others. Ray averaged more assists but I find that to be a misleading number. Against strong/physical defense, Ray became solely a jumpshooter because his handle wasn't strong enough to create anything. Ray was 8-20 from the field but only 3-11 from 2. Against Miss. St the following game, he was 9-25 but only 5-15 from 2. In this game you could already see that the team could very easily struggle against a team that would slow it down and make someone other than Doron create something. If you made it this far, I congratulate you! Hope everyone is well! [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach