Senior night, 34 years ago (dream season) | The Boneyard

Senior night, 34 years ago (dream season)

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maxw

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A friend and I got family tickets from Marc Suhr for Senior Night during the dream season. Sadly, families didn't travel long distances to visit their kids' senior nights during those days.

We sat right behind the players' bench for the first time. It was fun to watch coach Calhoun trying restrain himself in front of players' parents :) He was an intense man.

Here are a couple of photos from that game that I took with my Nikon point-and-shoot:

1708995484249.jpeg


1708995601782.jpeg
 
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maxw said:
A friend and I got family tickets from Marc Suhr during the dream season. Sadly, families didn't travel long distances to visit their kids' senior nights during those days.

We sat right behind the players' bench for the first time. It was fun to watch coach Calhoun trying restrain himself in front of players' parents :) He was an intense man.

Here are a couple of photos from that game that I took with my Nikon point-and-shoot:

View attachment 96985

View attachment 96986
Expand ...
Great pics - This was the season that turned me (and many others) into a boneyarder before the boneyard!
 
Terry Dehere chucking a three w/ John Gwynn just a few moments late?
 
When you see who is on the bench and who was on the floor, that team was nine men deep. On the court Glenn, Smith, Burrell, Murray and Sellers. On the bench George, Henefeld, Cyrulik and DePriest. If only George had held onto that ball. We could have won it all. They may have been the best pressing team we ever had. At that point the skill sets and athleticism had not elevated to current levels for some of the mid major lower level teams. There were games with Nadav playing centerfield that we would just completely dominate the game with our harassing press. Nadav could bait the passer so well, he was truly special like an all pro safety looking one way getting the jump when the passer through it the other way. Thanks for sharing the memory.
 
.-.
I've posted it before, but here is my funny Marc Suhr story from the dream season

I had been studying at Babbidge Brick falling library all day, and then went into bathroom

most people think you only have 5 senses, but we also have a definite sense when someone is staring at us

im sitting in stall, and then person in stall next to me finishes his business and gets up. It was Marc Suhr. I realized this because he was far taller than the stall, so his head was towering above me. Im sitting on toliet in stall next to him, with pants around ankles, now looking up at him

his sixth sense kicked in, and he sensed he was being looked at, by me, still on toliet...

he looks down at me, and awkwardly says "Hallo" lol
 
SilentDog said:
When you see who is on the bench and who was on the floor, that team was nine men deep. On the court Glenn, Smith, Burrell, Murray and Sellers. On the bench George, Henefeld, Cyrulik and DePriest. If only George had held onto that ball. We could have won it all. They may have been the best pressing team we ever had. At that point the skill sets and athleticism had not elevated to current levels for some of the mid major lower level teams. There were games with Nadav playing centerfield that we would just completely dominate the game with our harassing press. Nadav could bait the passer so well, he was truly special like an all pro safety looking one way getting the jump when the passer through it the other way. Thanks for sharing the memory.
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Well said.

Add coach Calhoun and his unrelenting focus on defense, what a program he built, how much joy he brought to so many people! He was a genuinely good man, unlike some of the slime balls that are still coaching from that time.
 
SilentDog said:
When you see who is on the bench and who was on the floor, that team was nine men deep. On the court Glenn, Smith, Burrell, Murray and Sellers. On the bench George, Henefeld, Cyrulik and DePriest. If only George had held onto that ball. We could have won it all. They may have been the best pressing team we ever had. At that point the skill sets and athleticism had not elevated to current levels for some of the mid major lower level teams. There were games with Nadav playing centerfield that we would just completely dominate the game with our harassing press. Nadav could bait the passer so well, he was truly special like an all pro safety looking one way getting the jump when the passer through it the other way. Thanks for sharing the memory.
Expand ...
Skill sets …… aside from Burrell.
 
Poor Marc Suhr. I don't think any player incurred Calhoun's wrath as much as he did, but he stuck it out! He usually stayed on the floor about a minute before being yanked.
 
maxw said:
A friend and I got family tickets from Marc Suhr for Senior Night during the dream season. Sadly, families didn't travel long distances to visit their kids' senior nights during those days.

We sat right behind the players' bench for the first time. It was fun to watch coach Calhoun trying restrain himself in front of players' parents :) He was an intense man.

Here are a couple of photos from that game that I took with my Nikon point-and-shoot:

View attachment 96985

View attachment 96986
Expand ...
what a blast from the past! I was a freshman that year, and present that night. Awesome memories.
 
.-.
maxw said:
A friend and I got family tickets from Marc Suhr for Senior Night during the dream season. Sadly, families didn't travel long distances to visit their kids' senior nights during those days.

We sat right behind the players' bench for the first time. It was fun to watch coach Calhoun trying restrain himself in front of players' parents :) He was an intense man.

Here are a couple of photos from that game that I took with my Nikon point-and-shoot:

View attachment 96985

View attachment 96986
Expand ...
Amazing pics.
 
Secure Dog said:
When you see who is on the bench and who was on the floor, that team was nine men deep. On the court Glenn, Smith, Burrell, Murray and Sellers. On the bench George, Henefeld, Cyrulik and DePriest. If only George had held onto that ball. We could have won it all. They may have been the best pressing team we ever had. At that point the skill sets and athleticism had not elevated to current levels for some of the mid major lower level teams. There were games with Nadav playing centerfield that we would just completely dominate the game with our harassing press. Nadav could bait the passer so well, he was truly special like an all pro safety looking one way getting the jump when the passer through it the other way. Thanks for sharing the memory.
Expand ...

No one taught a 2-2-1 press better than Calhoun. I had a video of it on VHS and learned it from the GOAT himself when I first started coaching AAU. Such a difficult zone to run well, but absolutely stifling while having layers of safety nets when running it well.
 
husky429 said:
No one taught a 2-2-1 press better than Calhoun. I had a video of it on VHS and learned it from the GOAT himself when I first started coaching AAU. Such a difficult zone to run well, but absolutely stifling while having layers of safety nets when running it well.
Expand ...
Not many teams press full court these days. Any reason why? Too many easy hoops when it breaks down?
 
.-.
Secure Dog said:
When you see who is on the bench and who was on the floor, that team was nine men deep. On the court Glenn, Smith, Burrell, Murray and Sellers. On the bench George, Henefeld, Cyrulik and DePriest. If only George had held onto that ball. We could have won it all. They may have been the best pressing team we ever had. At that point the skill sets and athleticism had not elevated to current levels for some of the mid major lower level teams. There were games with Nadav playing centerfield that we would just completely dominate the game with our harassing press. Nadav could bait the passer so well, he was truly special like an all pro safety looking one way getting the jump when the passer through it the other way. Thanks for sharing the memory.
Expand ...

Ten deep. Toraino, hero of the BET, slayer of Coleman, Mourning, and Mutombo, hadn't yet met his moment.
 
uconnric said:
Poor Marc Suhr. I don't think any player incurred Calhoun's wrath as much as he did, but he stuck it out! He usually stayed on the floor about a minute before being yanked.
Expand ...
Johnnie Selvie
 
StllH8L8ner said:
Not many teams press full court these days. Any reason why? Too many easy hoops when it breaks down?
Expand ...

At the risk of offending some on the 'yard... players are 1) bigger, 2) more athletic and 3) more skilled than they were 30 years ago on average at every level. When you are big and skilled, passing over a press for easy buckets is a piece of cake. It doesn't work as a way to compete against better offensive teams. The most well-executed press in the NBA would get broken in 3 seconds. The analytics often just don't support pressing. It's also not used in the NBA so higher-level teams are going to avoid them to keep trying to get those 4* and 5* players in the program.

Think about Shaka at VCU compared to Texas and Marquette. In the A10 he could dominate with his havoc press because he wasn't playing against the best of the best. Now in the Big East, he's pressing some, but it wouldn't be a successful program identity.

A well-executed press at the high school level? Destructive. It's a gamble though... You know you're going to give up easy buckets sometimes, so you have to have a good way of tracking whether you're giving up too many easy buckets (versus getting your own). Against equally sized teams, my high school squads would throttle opponents with a press. By mid-January could run it well. I loved using it to give my non-shooter football players some PT. Against Windsor or East Catholic--bigger and more skilled teams--we wouldn't even think about a press for more than a possession here or there.
 
StllH8L8ner said:
Even without a title that year, my favorite season of all-time. Great memories….except for the last 2.6 seconds when I experienced my first true heartbreak and began my distain for all things Duke.
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True unless you experienced it you can’t imagine how great that season was. It was unexpected because we lost so much from the previous disapointing year.
I was in Hartford in the spring of 1989 as Andrew Gaze put a dagger through our NCAA dreams with a buzzer beating three . That Seton Hall team lost a heartbreaking NCAA finals . The Big East was brutal.
I was at the GT and Syracuse games in Hartford. The pressure we put on their guards was relentless. Never. have seen that since . They had no rim protection to cover errors .
That team had two first team , AZHuskie , UConn All time defensive players .
A second team player and two honorable mentions that how good they played D.
Cuse had Derrick Coleman and Billy Owen’s . They weren’t good they were great
Georgetown had Alonzo Mourning and Mutumbo
Coleman was the number 1 pick in the NBA draft and if not for injuries would be among the best forwards ever to play .
and I believe both GT twin towers are HOF
The best basketball players were in college then it was a different era.
Yet we tied with Cuse for first place unbelievably then
got the bad draw in the Big East tourney
playing GT and Cuse on successive days. But managed to beat them both for our first Big East Tournament Championship.
You couldn’t come closer to the treasured FF than they achieved . Love those guys.
 
.-.
StllH8L8ner said:
Not many teams press full court these days. Any reason why? Too many easy hoops when it breaks down?
Expand ...

selles said:
Ten deep. Toraino, hero of the BET, slayer of Coleman, Mourning, and Mutombo, hadn't yet met his moment.
Expand ...
I thought that was him on the bench and forgot to look to verify. He certainly did not back down to anyone a beast on the boards. Even against Alonzo and that huge Georgetown team. Nice catch.
 
AZHuskiePop said:
True unless you experienced it you can’t imagine how great that season was. It was unexpected because we lost so much from the previous disapointing year.
I was in Hartford in the spring of 1989 as Andrew Gaze put a dagger through our NCAA dreams with a buzzer beating three . That Seton Hall team lost a heartbreaking NCAA finals . The Big East was brutal.
I was at the GT and Syracuse games in Hartford. The pressure we put on their guards was relentless. Never. have seen that since . They had no rim protection to cover errors .
That team had two first team , AZHuskie , UConn All time defensive players .
A second team player and two honorable mentions that how good they played D.
Cuse had Derrick Coleman and Billy Owen’s . They weren’t good they were great
Georgetown had Alonzo Mourning and Mutumbo
Coleman was the number 1 pick in the NBA draft and if not for injuries would be among the best forwards ever to play .
and I believe both GT twin towers are HOF
The best basketball players were in college then it was a different era.
Yet we tied with Cuse for first place unbelievably then
got the bad draw in the Big East tourney
playing GT and Cuse on successive days. But managed to beat them both for our first Big East Tournament Championship.
You couldn’t come closer to the treasured FF than they achieved . Love those guys.
Expand ...
Yep, GTown and Cuse were on top of the college hoop world and everyone I was in middle school with had something with a Hoya or fat Orange thing on it. Everyone looked at me like I had two heads when I walked in with my UConn starter jacket (which I still have, shout out mom who keeps everything) purchased from the Starter outlet in New Haven. Big Monday had a must see game every week.

Those years also had some very punchable faces in the Big East in Darren Morningstar from Pitt, Marty Conlan at PC, Robert Werdann from SJ, along with Jayson Williams before he shot his limo driver.

I can’t remember what I had for breakfast this morning but those games are burned into my memory like it was a short time ago.
 
prankster said:
Johnnie Selvie
Expand ...
Justin Brown, the Australian is a close second to Suhr. I sat near the UConn bench during the 2001 NIT games at Gampel. Brown tried dribbling the ball and turned it over. Calhoun screams, "You are not a point guard!" there were only a few thousand people there so everyone heard it clearly. But give the kid credit. He stayed 4 years.
 
Secure Dog said:
I thought that was him on the bench and forgot to look to verify. He certainly did not back down to anyone a beast on the boards. Even against Alonzo and that huge Georgetown team. Nice catch.
Expand ...
Toraino is by far the scariest individual I ever saw on campus. He walked into McMahon dining hall one day. Black leather jacket. Black ski cap with a tray completely filled with food. People just cleared out as he walked through. He sat alone. No one would go anywhere near his table.
 
.-.
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