The Athletic ranks 2024 UConn championship the best over last 40 years

[NewBlood]

The Bama game was the toughest of the run. It's weird to think back that we were up 33-29 against SDST with three or four minutes left in the first half and won that game by 30. Last year's team was just relentless, and at some point, they would just bury you. It almost made the championship game anti-climatic for me because even though it was only a two-point game with a few minutes left in the first, you just knew our run was coming. And then, out of nowhere, we're up 17.

Bama game was a heavyweight fight. I loved that game because we showed toughness, fought back, then dominated

2024 team was truly truly special

 

[NewBlood]

The 2023 team was heads and shoulders better off the bench, not just Clingan. Diarra and Samson were great off the bench but between Clingan, Joey, Nahiem and Diarra all getting 10+ minutes a game that team truly wore other teams out and kept everyone fresh.

2023 just hit you in waves of scoring
2024 was just haymaker after haymaker and very few teams could even return a punch

 

[NewBlood]

'99 was a tough, tough team and '04 was scary when they were hitting on all cylinders but last year's squad was the best in the history of the program and an absolute freak show. When you think about the individual components, how they fit together, the chemistry and collective competitive mindset it was really a close to perfect college basketball team. In my mind they're in a class by themselves among UConn teams.

They way 04 played against Alabama was the way the 24 team was against everyone

 

[NewBlood]

I guess I'm just looking at it across the board. Last year's team was our most dominant performance-wise. Just destroyed people. But I think the quality of opponents was not nearly as good as, say, what the 99 team had to face. For example, I think the 99 Duke team was a monster and would crush Purdue 10 times out of 10.

24 Huskies would have dominated the 99 Duke team. Clinton and Steph would have shut down Brand and Langdon. Not even close