- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 6,051
- Reaction Score
- 19,075
Wanted to jump in earlier in the tournament when things looked promising, but as we always say around here, if you think it messes with the mojo, it does.
Still remember being here after UNC and wondering if we’d ever make the Final Four. Then the Boneyard Classic when we savored 77-74. Now we are hanging 5 banners.
I was born in 1971, and my first college basketball memory is Bird-Magic. So in my basketball lifetime, there isn’t a single program that I’ve seen win more titles than UConn. And this from a program where the NIT title was seriously like a big deal when I was in college. There were wild parties and stuff over that.
When things bottomed out in 2018 or so, and we were playing in a conference with Tulsa and directional schools, I legitimately thought UConn as a big time basketball program could be a bygone era, but at least I’d have great memories. Maybe we’d have some sort of Dream Season II where it all randomly came together and we made a run, but six straight games where we pimped the other team, yo? Gonna be honest. Didn’t think that was in the cards.
Our journeys have been way different than Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina and Kansas, where they are almost always in the hunt. We emerged from pretty much nothing in 1990 - we finally got one in 1999 as “long-suffering” fans (funny in hindsight that 9 years constituted a lot of suffering - won’t get much sympathy from Bills fans, Cleveland baseball fans, etc.). Then we have bottomed out 3 times with the program falling off a cliff (2010, 2013, 2018) due to a variety of factors - Calhoun approaching retirement, coaching changes, recruiting suffering, academic sanctions, conference changes, etc. where it felt like maybe we were losing our place in the basketball hierarchy. We had a brand - but brands are fleeting if they aren’t relevant. UNLV had a brand. FlorIda looked like they were the next big thing. Gonzaga had a way more relevant brand than we did a few years ago. We were barely in the mix with top 50 recruits and had to hope we found the gems in the second tier.
And every time we came back and won another title out of what felt like rubble - and each of those journeys was a completely rewarding redemption arc. For Kemba and Calhoun in 2011 after the disaster the year before. For Bazz and the guys who stuck with the program through the sanctions (and the program for winning one without Calhoun). This one of course is about the guys on the team first and foremost, and Dave Benedict for being the right guy to bring it all back and Hurley for being the right guy to coach. But this one - this one is for us too. The fanbase who saw things bottom out and, while yes we vented and said some things we all want to take back, we stayed passionate. We kept caring, and kept wishing for it all to come back. And here we are.
I’m not sure there’s a single sports entity - college or pro - that I would change journeys with than being a UConn fan. There have been good times and bad times (you know we’ve had our share), but holy crap the feeling of reward out of the titles we’ve had, I just can’t imagine many fans out there have had it any better. UCLA in the 60s? Meh. Give me ours every time.
Happy 5th, everyone.
Still remember being here after UNC and wondering if we’d ever make the Final Four. Then the Boneyard Classic when we savored 77-74. Now we are hanging 5 banners.
I was born in 1971, and my first college basketball memory is Bird-Magic. So in my basketball lifetime, there isn’t a single program that I’ve seen win more titles than UConn. And this from a program where the NIT title was seriously like a big deal when I was in college. There were wild parties and stuff over that.
When things bottomed out in 2018 or so, and we were playing in a conference with Tulsa and directional schools, I legitimately thought UConn as a big time basketball program could be a bygone era, but at least I’d have great memories. Maybe we’d have some sort of Dream Season II where it all randomly came together and we made a run, but six straight games where we pimped the other team, yo? Gonna be honest. Didn’t think that was in the cards.
Our journeys have been way different than Duke and Kentucky and North Carolina and Kansas, where they are almost always in the hunt. We emerged from pretty much nothing in 1990 - we finally got one in 1999 as “long-suffering” fans (funny in hindsight that 9 years constituted a lot of suffering - won’t get much sympathy from Bills fans, Cleveland baseball fans, etc.). Then we have bottomed out 3 times with the program falling off a cliff (2010, 2013, 2018) due to a variety of factors - Calhoun approaching retirement, coaching changes, recruiting suffering, academic sanctions, conference changes, etc. where it felt like maybe we were losing our place in the basketball hierarchy. We had a brand - but brands are fleeting if they aren’t relevant. UNLV had a brand. FlorIda looked like they were the next big thing. Gonzaga had a way more relevant brand than we did a few years ago. We were barely in the mix with top 50 recruits and had to hope we found the gems in the second tier.
And every time we came back and won another title out of what felt like rubble - and each of those journeys was a completely rewarding redemption arc. For Kemba and Calhoun in 2011 after the disaster the year before. For Bazz and the guys who stuck with the program through the sanctions (and the program for winning one without Calhoun). This one of course is about the guys on the team first and foremost, and Dave Benedict for being the right guy to bring it all back and Hurley for being the right guy to coach. But this one - this one is for us too. The fanbase who saw things bottom out and, while yes we vented and said some things we all want to take back, we stayed passionate. We kept caring, and kept wishing for it all to come back. And here we are.
I’m not sure there’s a single sports entity - college or pro - that I would change journeys with than being a UConn fan. There have been good times and bad times (you know we’ve had our share), but holy crap the feeling of reward out of the titles we’ve had, I just can’t imagine many fans out there have had it any better. UCLA in the 60s? Meh. Give me ours every time.
Happy 5th, everyone.