UCONN Players you thought would be Real Good BUT.............

[jslack03]

Although he was a decent role player for UConn - I have to include Denham Brown on my list...the kid scored 100+ points in a high school game...brought a touch of hype along with that. Doug Wiggins, Nate Miles (never stepped on the court), Ajou, Ater and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel

 

[huskies20]

Justin Brown, never listening to calhoun for summer camps and general work ethic.

 

[mauconnfan]

Yeah Jimmy Sullivan was always a mystery to me. I heard he averaged 30 and thought we were getting a scorer.

Spot on with Vern. He should have played more.

I always liked Terry Coffey too. Thought he should have played more.

Yeah there's a good one Terry Coffey, tough strong guard from the Baltimore/DC area right?

 

[Calhoun's Court]

Yeah there's a good one Terry Coffey, tough strong guard from the Baltimore/DC area right?

Yes he was from the Baltimore/DC area.

Looking over this thread the only players not mentioned it seems it Sgt. Eddie Williams and Boo Willingham.

 

[Stinger92860]

Not only Pinone we should of had Harold Pressley too.

Wish we could have gotten in on Rod Foster too.

That 2-3 year period was amazing for CT high school basketball, Gminski, Foster, Matthews,
Garrison, pinone, Dublin, McKay, bagley, Thompson, aleksinas, Jansen, who am I forgetting? That goes to a F4.

 

[Horatio]

"Ajou Deng is the gold standard for UConn flops" Lol!!!!

 

[Calhoun's Court]

That 2-3 year period was amazing for CT high school basketball, Gminski, Foster, Matthews,
Garrison, pinone, Dublin, McKay, bagley, Thompson, aleksinas, Jansen, who am I forgetting? That goes to a F4.

Bruce Kuzinski (who we did get) and Jay Murphy too a couple years later.

 

[60'sfan]

That 2-3 year period was amazing for CT high school basketball, Gminski, Foster, Matthews,
Garrison, pinone, Dublin, McKay, bagley, Thompson, aleksinas, Jansen, who am I forgetting? That goes to a F4.

Corney Thompson was a player who did not play up to his hype either. He was a top ten recruit and had a good freshman year but every year after that he got worse. Perno had a great team in 1982 (Chuck Alexsinis, Mike McKay, Jim Sullivan, Norman Bailey) but could not seem to get them to play up to their potential. I always wondered what Jim Calhoun could have done with them.

 

[DogMania]

Denham Brown

Yeah, he never came close to scoring 111 points in a game at UConn. Good grief! What expectations did you have?

 

[DogMania]

thought marcus johnson was going to be special after his mini scoring outburst early in his freshman year, so good infact that he would eventually be lottery pick after sophomore/junior year. to this day, the best pure athlete uconn basketball has ever had

A player's ranking and what's written about him has a lot to do with expectations we have. I remember when we were recruiting Marcus Johnson and Marcus Williams (the small forward that really liked UConn but chose Zona after JC seemed to cool on him preferring MJ over him. Well Hooper and I saw MJ at ABCD and weren't very impressed. He was a good athlete but couldn't shoot a J if his life depended on it.

At the time I thought we got the wrong Marcus and after watching them play in college felt even stronger about it. Now MW was a terrible defender starting out, so who knows if he would have seen the floor all that much at UConn his freshman year, but at Zona he lit it up from the word go, and I think entered the NBA draft after his sophomore season. I don't know what happened to him since. In fact I completely forgot about him till I ready this thread. He was a much better scorer in HS than MJ who put up modest #s. I think the relationship with coincidently our Marcus Williams father who was his AAU coach influenced JC's decision to take him over the other MW. If my memory serves me, we could have used his scoring during the years he played. MJ never really developed into a consistent scorer. He'd give us 15 one game and then 2 or 3 the next few.

Getting back to MJ, I probably expected more than what we got, but I never really thought he would be as good as many had hoped. He just didn't have a good feel for the game, nor was ever a good shooter. Very similar to Rudy Johnson, as far as being a good athlete, but not much of a basketball player.

 

[DogMania]

I'd put him behind Scott Burrell in that regard. A distant second, in fact.

Let's see...MJ, Scott Burrell, who was an oustanding athlete, but I think we're forgetting someone and one that's not all the removed from our program. Andre Drummond, ring a bell. He was and is a monster of an athlete. Pound for pound hands down the best athlete we've ever had. The man-child could dunk with his head at rim level. Not many who've walked this planet can boast about doing that.

 

[DogMania]

Drummond has to go on the list if you are talking about just time at UConn. He came in as th e#2 recruit in the nation and never came close to living up to expectations last year. Rudy Gay is another one. He had a tendency to disappear for long periods...his numbers and such were much more impressive than his actual play...Deng of course makes everyone'slist...hell he was in SI as the next big thing before he ever played a game.

As hyped were both Rudy and Andre, I expected their best hoops were years away and while in the NBA. So as good as I believed both would be very good in the NBA, I felt they would not live up to their ranking.

With that said, I wished Rudy would become the go to scorer that JC had envisioned, but he turned out to be a better Hudini, dissapearing regularly during winning time. AD was just not ready. If he stayed another season he would have been a monster. He's doing quite well in the NBA so far.

 

[DogMania]

Ajou Deng hands down gets my top vote, though he was more a victim than anything. He was hyped beyond what he ever did on the court. To this day, I don't know what people actually witnesed before he ever played at UConn.

Few have brought up Curtis Kelly. I saw him play in HS and expected a lot more. Granted if he stayed at UConn we would have seen more, but he just couldn't get out of his own way. Lacked maturity, similar to Doug Wiggins and Doug Wrenn who were magnets when it came to finding trouble on and off the court.

Cup Cormier is one that I had high hopes for when I first saw him play. Unfortunately he never learned to play safe and fast. All we saw was fast and sloppy. He'd step on the floor already with 2 turnovers.

Rudy Johnson is a player that many have mentioned. He was a product of being overhyped as well. I could never figure out why he was ranked as high as he was (I think it was like #23) but he averaged like 19 points in HS. He was not a very good shooter or ball handler. Was a great athlete but struggled with knee issues throughout his career. He was a great kid though and I really liked him.

Ater Majok is at the top of my list. He was really hyped, similar to Ajou, but not nearly as much. Many were dubbing him Ajou II. He never got much of a chance at UConn. He ran into eligibility problems for the get go. The NCAA took forever to clear him. I can barely remember him even playing. I think if he had played here for a few seasons he could have been a good college player. My expectations were high for him and he didn't even come close. He was a much more talented player than Ajou and not a fair comparison, though the contribution of both was eerily similar.

 

[Excalibur]

Let's see...MJ, Scott Burrell, who was an oustanding athlete, but I think we're forgetting someone and one that's not all the removed from our program. Andre Drummond, ring a bell. He was and is a monster of an athlete. Pound for pound hands down the best athlete we've ever had. The man-child could dunk with his head at rim level. Not many who've walked this planet can boast about doing that.

I'll take the guy who was drafted in the first round for two major professional sports, and had an offer to play football for what was the top program in the country at the time.

 

[Excalibur]

I'd put Josh Boone on the list. I think we saw how good he was his freshman year and were spoiled by the way Emeka developed, but Boone never really improved from there, and had a tendency to be very passive.

A few people have mentioned Denham Brown. I struggle to include him because he was a good player, but I always felt that he could have developed an offensive game similar to Rip's, but he never seemed get over his tendency for sloppy ball handling or develop the feel for when he could get his shot off.

 

[THC]

Shawn Ellison

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Marcus Johnson is the one guy who I felt after watching him play was going to be a monster star at UConn, and never panned out.

Tony Robertson could have been a star.

Ajou Deng was all hype. I never saw him play well so I had no reason to believe he was going to be a star.

Marcus White had sick up and a nose for rebounds but that was pretty much all he could do.

 

[RichZ]

That 2-3 year period was amazing for CT high school basketball, Gminski, Foster, Matthews,
Garrison, pinone, Dublin, McKay, bagley, Thompson, aleksinas, Jansen, who am I forgetting? That goes to a F4.

That was an amazing period in CT HS BB history. During that same stretch, there was a kid ad Harding who led the MBIAC in rebounding for two years. Stood about 5-9 and could stuff the ball with two hands from a flat footed stance under the rim. I believe his name was Phil Murphy. Couldn't do anything but rebound and dunk, but he was fun to watch.

 

[Hugo]

I'll take the guy who was drafted in the first round for two major professional sports, and had an offer to play football for what was the top program in the country at the time.

Agree wih Scottie being the better athlete. Could AD jump higher ? Probably, but did he have a 95 mph fastball or could he play QB at the BCS level ?

 

[Deepster]

I'd put Josh Boone on the list. I think we saw how good he was his freshman year and were spoiled by the way Emeka developed, but Boone never really improved from there, and had a tendency to be very passive.

Hmm. He won a national title playing a nice supporting role and played 4 years in the NBA. His 2nd year in the pros, he averaged 8 pts, 7 boards and a block. That's not that bad, is it? How many higher rated Dukies have done worse?

 

[gibhunter]

Andre Drummond. From what was shown in his recruiting video and how he is doing in the NBA I expected way more out of him.
Denham Brown, I am still waiting for his scoring explosion...he scored 100 points in a high school....
Stanley Robinson.

 

[mauconnfan]

Bruce Kuzinski (who we did get) and Jay Murphy too a couple years later.

Harold Pressley, Phil Garris, Charles Smith, Frenchy Tomlin.............

 

[mauconnfan]

Corney Thompson was a player who did not play up to his hype either. He was a top ten recruit and had a good freshman year but every year after that he got worse. Perno had a great team in 1982 (Chuck Alexsinis, Mike McKay, Jim Sullivan, Norman Bailey) but could not seem to get them to play up to their potential. I always wondered what Jim Calhoun could have done with them.

I think Corny was fine it was the fact he played for a really bad coach and their guards were never very good.......Dulin, Johnson and Sullivan weren't all that solid and make it real tough on a talented front line!

 

[Waquoit]

Perno had a great team in 1982 ([Corny], Chuck Alexsinis, Mike McKay, Jim Sullivan, Norman Bailey) but could not seem to get them to play up to their potential.

Potential? That team lost 7 out of it's last 8. Perno should have been fired right then.

 

[mauconnfan]

Potential? That team lost 7 out of it's last 8. Perno should have been fired right then.

He was awful.......he should have been fired the minute anyone heard he didn't go see 6'10" Jay Murphy himself instead sending Howdy Doody to the game and say "he'll never play in the Big East.." And then not making an NCAA tourney team out of that squad? Awful.....nice guy but never should've lasted........also it took how long for him to start playing Cliffy his freshman year when it was obvious to everyone else the kid was special?