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Message: [QUOTE="superjohn, post: 5142925, member: 1522"] This thread is weird. There's people diminishing what Calhoun did and what Hurley is doing. They are both legends, Calhoun over a lifetime of coaching and Hurley still in the early to mid stages... UConn basketball sucked before Calhoun got there. I wasn't around for it but my dad was and he was blown away by what Calhoun did and we have the numbers to look at. They had 4 straight seasons of getting their butts kicked and hadn't made the tournament in 7 years. They had 2 tournament appearances in the 19 years before Calhoun got there. They had some success as a program but you had to go back to the 50's and early 60's when they had Hugh Greer and Fred Shabel. Calhoun created a national giant of a program from the ground up with the help of a powerful Big East which was the best basketball conference in the country. He had to slay giants like John Thompson/Georgetown, Jim Boeheim/Syracuse, Lou Carnesecca/St. John's, PJ Carlesimo/Seton Hall, Rollie Massimino/Villanova. While those other big name coaches and programs started to faulter Calhoun kept building and building and blew by all of them. Hurley took over the program in a precarious situation because Ollie stopped doing his job and because UConn was stuck in the AAC. It was quite a hole to dig out of because Ollie left it in tatters but the program had already won 4 national championships. The program was a major national brand and needed someone to steer it back on course. Hurley got them on the right trajectory quickly and the move back to the Big East was necessary. Nobody could've or should've expected him to take the program to new heights but that's what he's done. This is now the best version of the UConn program there's ever been which is remarkable because the program is at a bigger disadvantage than it was during the Calhoun years due to realignment and money. No reason to bring one down to bring the other up. If we're excluding John Wooden who built the UCLA program and dominated the NCAA tournaments (a very different tournament and time) nobody has done what they've done. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach