UConn players who exceeded your expectations

[superjohn]

Selvie

 

[joober jones]

Hilton Armstrong, Ricky Moore, Kemba Walker, and Emeka Okafor, to name a few.

 

[Calhoun's Court]

Lyman DePriest

Willie McCloud

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

Okafor
Lamb
Kemba (but he exceeded any ones no matter what they were)
Gordon
Hilton
Marcus Williams
Bazz (so far, much better than expected)
Adrien

Some of these guys were expected to be really good coming in, but just like in the case of Kemba....no one knew HOW GOOD

 

[Fishy]

Emeka would have to be the big one - I don't think anyone could have seen that coming.

Hilton and Adrien having NBA careers certainly didn't seem likely coming out of high school. Kemba becoming Superman as a junior was a surprise. Back in those pre-internet days, the only time we saw Rip was when he was getting stuffed by the rim in the McD's game, so his career was probably better than we thought.

Honestly, the fact that so many guys can be seen as overachieving is probably (definitely) a credit to JC. He musta had something to do with all that.

 

[Scoe]

Voskuhl, (I thought he was gonna be a stiff when I first saw him play, no way did I think he would have a long NBA career)

 

[Horatio]

Thabeet , Kemba, Gavin, Hilton and Rashad. I remember listening to Mike Francesa the day after Uconn lost to John walls Kentucky team in 2010? . Mike was killing Kemba and talking about how he should've kept his mouth shut because he wasn't in John walls class/ stratosphere. How did that turn out?

 

[CTBasketball]

Tony Robertson and Shabazz Napier

 

[selles]

Selvie

Nadav, Doron, Donny Marshall, T. Knight, Walter Ray, Jake, KFree, Rip, Ben G, Emeka, Boone, Hilton, Austrie, Tooles, Chuck, Sellers, T. Walker, Kemba, Gavin, JLamb, Bazz. I'm sure there are more. It's an impressive list.

Boone is the guy who was the biggest surprise to me. I know he didn't progress like some of the others, but he was shockingly talented as a frosh.

 

[HuskyJJ]

AJ Price, Gavin Edwards.

To name two that haven't been mentioned yet.

 

[CTBasketball]

AJ Price, Gavin Edwards.

To name two that haven't been mentioned yet.

AJ Price was highly recruited by major programs. How did he exceed expectations?

 

[Perspective]

 

[HuskyJJ]

AJ Price was highly recruited by major programs. How did he exceed expectations?

He was an amazing finisher/a big part of the final 4 team. Do you know what he was ranked coming in? I didn't think it was that high but I could be very wrong.

 

[CardiacKemba]

1. Hilton
2. Kemba

 

[metsfan2323]

Okafor
Henefeld
Ray Allen
Lamb

 

[Scoe]

AJ Price was highly recruited by major programs. How did he exceed expectations?

perhaps he means exceed expectations after all we went through at Uconn such as the brain hemmorage, the laptop incident, not looking like the player we recruited in his first year of playing in the 06-07 season which was his 3rd year on the team, then having an all american season and tearing his ACL in the tournament game, coming back for his Senior season and leading Uconn to the FF. Now is he is having an NBA career and doing well right, I believe he tore his ACL again while in the NBA.

Coming into Uconn, him and Rudy Gay were supposed to be the next Uconn duo the year after Ben and Emeka left.

 

[Gurleyman]

Other than Emeka, I would say Nadav Henefeld was the crown jewel of this category. It was pre-internet so I didn't have a lot of info at my disposal, but I was expecting a non-factor and a guy who probably couldn't hack it at this level. Even after a good game or two, I expected him to come down to earth. Just kept getting better.

Really that whole team in one way or another - Sellers had zero points the day we looked at him. Smith came in with expectations but I wasn't expecting an All-American caliber guard. I had never heard of Gwynn. Burrell I expected would help, but didn't think he'd sniff the NBA.

Voskuhl was a good pick too - I thought he was a throw-in as a package deal with Mike LeBlanc, who I totally forgot about in that other thread.

 

[mauconnfan]

Tony Hanson, Jeff Carr, Randy LaVigne, Tim Coles, Al Fredericks, Ray Broxton, Willie McCloud, Gerry Besselink, Rod Sellers, Jake Voskhul............the list is way too long the more I think of it.

 

[huskyhal]

If you factor in success at the next level, Cliffie and our current coach jump right into my mind. They each exceeded my expectations at Storrs, and I never expected either to have the NBA success that they had.

 

[Kitaman]

Selvie

LOL Beat me too it. No UConn bball thread about player excellence can be legit without the great Selvie. I also would say Jake along with Edmund Saunders.

 

[art4life]

Kevin Ollie!

 

[caw]

Sheffer and Knight.

AJ was a top 30-35 player and was close to being a McDAA.

 

[Drumguy]

Emeka would have to be the big one - I don't think anyone could have seen that coming.

Hilton and Adrien having NBA careers certainly didn't seem likely coming out of high school. Kemba becoming Superman as a junior was a surprise. Back in those pre-internet days, the only time we saw Rip was when he was getting stuffed by the rim in the McD's game, so his career was probably better than we thought.

Honestly, the fact that so many guys can be seen as overachieving is probably (definitely) a credit to JC. He musta had something to do with all that.

Agree except for Rip - he was a top ten recruit so I certainly had high expectations! Emaka oh yeh. and I'll add - Kemba being the best player in college and taking a team of newbies all the way to the national championship is probably the single greatest acheivement in UConn basketball history!

 

[Husky25]

Selvie

Selvie didn't even meet my expectations, let alone exceed them. He was the go-to player on the Junior College National Championship team. I thought he was going to be the second coming of Kevin Freeman. He didn't even match up to Kelis Fisher and seemed to get dumber, basketball wise as his 2 seasons went on...

Ona related note, Freeman was the perfect Robin to Rip's Batman. He was an underrated lunch pail guy and one of my favorites (perhaps why Selvie didn't match up well in my mind.).

 

[alexd]

Yep....Selvie was the JUCO player of the year. I know JUCO players are kind of hit or miss....but I figured as the POY, he'd be decent.

I'd go with Hilton Armstrong, who we "stole" from LaSalle when he was a stringbean and ended up a BE defensive POY.

Donny Marshall, who barely played his first year & we know what happened.