The 93-94 Uconn team was loaded

[Mr. Wonderful]

One team lost in the Sweet Sixteen to a crap team that lost in the FF. The other team went toe-to-toe with the champs in the Elite 8. That's a lot better.

No it isn't.

 

[Scoe]

The 94-95 team was better because they gained more experience not because Donyell left.

 

[boog204]

I recognize this isn't a popular position, but I'm not sure that 1996 Ray was better than 1994 Donyell. It's a tough argument in hindsight because of what happened to their careers in the NBA, but in 1994, Donyell averaged 25.1 ppg, 8.9 rpg, 1.7 apg and over 3 blocks per game. He shot 51% from the field, 31% from three, and 75% from the line (I know, I know, Florida). He also destroyed the school record in blocks and was the first player since Patrick Ewing to win Big East POY and Defensive POY in the same year.

I thought Donyell had the single most dominating year of any UConn player since I've been following them (87 or so). Ray was fantastic, but he could be stopped and was stopped when a team played physical with him. He was something like 10-38 against Georgetown that year and was 9-25 against Miss St. And when teams did challenge physically, he tended to just stand around on the perimeter waiting to take a contested three.

Donyell, imo, was much more consistently great and was absolutely dominant in just about every game (missed free throws aside.) A case could certainly be made for Kemba and his year, but he went through a pretty bad stretch where people here were ripping him as a chucker.

 

[Sky ball]

When the issue of whether Rip might have been a better or more clutch college player than Ray was mentioned recently, I compared the lineups of the Ray team that lost to UCLA ('94-95?) and the Rip championship team. Which star had a better team around him? Ray: KO, Sheffer, Knight, Donny M., Fair, Hayward, etc. vs. Rip: KEA, Ricky M., Kevin F., Jake V., Rashamel J., etc. I gave the nod by a hair to the '99 team. If you look at the team with Donyell, they might well have had the better team, although IIRC, Travis was a lot better as a senior.

Who had the better team behind him, Ray or Rip?

I remember a few years after ray's team lost to UCLA Calhoun said that was his best team to date. I think that was after the 1st NCAA title?

 

[selles]

He was something like 10-38 against Georgetown that year and was 9-25 against Miss St.

Boubacar Aw was definitely Ray's kryptonite. I hated that dude.

 

[David 76]

Think I remember Calhoun saying that UCLA game was his biggest regret. But I thought he said he should have let them run?

 

[boog204]

Boubacar Aw was definitely Ray's kryptonite. I hated that dude.

I did, too. He really took Ray out of his game and he got soooo passive offensively. I think in some ways the Boubacar Aw games were the transition games for Ray from slasher/shooter to more of the standstill shooter that he evolved into. If you watch sophomore Ray he's taking people off the dribble far more often than Jr year Ray when he became more of a shooter.

 

[ASweet3781]

Even before the seeding, I remember Calhoun saying that he felt UCLA was the only team that could stop us. This is after we had just gotten handled by Villanova in the Big East Final, too.

Isn't it amazing how many times that happened to us? We just happened to end up in a bracket that was near impossible to win when we had a very strong team capable of a Final 4? And what was so suspicious about that is that it's not like UConn always had a great team heading into the tournament. So to end up with a worst case scenario each time was one of the big reasons the Final 4 alluded us all the way until 1999.

1994- UNC had their entire 1993 title team plus Wallace and Stackhouse. If they didn't blow it against BC they would have been pretty hard to beat. But seeing they lost we have no one to blame but ourselves for this year.
1995- UCLA on the west coast. Should have been the championship game. Instead.... UMass stayed east and got blown out by Big Country.
1996- People look back on the Mississippi St as a shocker/lost opportunity, but if you go to UConnhuskygames.com the experts analyzing our bracket all agreed it was the toughest region and that Miss State was the 4/5 seed the 1's were fearing the most because of how they played Kentucky.
1998- Umm #1 UNC. Carter. Greensboro? Really?

Those were worst case scenarios pretty much. And it continued in 2002 with Maryland and 2003 with Texas in San Antonio. Those teams also could have made the Final 4 with a non worst case bracket. Having Duke in the Meadowlands in 1990 was probably the worst after being stuck in UNLV's region that year as Duke had literally advanced out of the Meadowlands the 3 previous season and turned out to be at the start of their dynasty with that group. I consider the magical 2011 and 2014 runs to be payback to us from the basketball Gods for this.