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

[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?

 

[hungry husky]

Thought Rudy was very good but didn't hit his stride until the NBA. Would have liked to seen be more of a force in the college game.

 

[DogMania]

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.

I don't quite understand why people had higher expectation on what DB delivered. He was a good scorer but simply not a great athlete. I thought his handle was adaquate for a 3. He simply wasn't the type of athlete that could create his own shot against the quicker wings. Now not all teams have big atheletic wings, but he had a tendancy to struggle against the longer and more athletic ones. He could barely get above the rim. Throwing down a dunk only happened when he had a really good head of steam. I always suspected that he was stuggling with some leg issues his senior year making him look even less athletic than he really was.

With that said, DB was a solid scorer. When JC abandoned the idea of Rudy being his go-to-guy, realizing he simply didn't have the killer instincts and confidence to be that type of player, JC went to DB and Shad more late in games to knock down big shots. What might have influence some in thinking he was a dissapointment was that he and Shad were forced to play out of position at the 2 due to the huge need that UConn had for a 2G. AJ Price (AVM and Latptop-gate) missing time late in DB's and Shads career, forced JC to play them often at the 2, which had them often in mismatches that were often not in their favor. I thought both were very good 3s, but not elite. They both turned out what I expected. Shad had a very tough final season due to that horrible staph infection. I would have liked to see how good he could have been if he was healthy his final season. He always struggled with his handle and was not very good at creating his own shot off the bounce...but I digress...this was about Denham.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I don't quite understand why people had higher expectation on what DB delivered. He was a good scorer but simply not a great athlete. I thought his handle was adaquate for a 3. He simply wasn't the type of athlete that could create his own shot against the quicker wings. Now not all teams have big atheletic wings, but he had a tendancy to struggle against the longer and more athletic ones. He could barely get above the rim. Throwing down a dunk only happened when he had a really good head of steam. I always suspected that he was stuggling with some leg issues his senior year making him look even less athletic than he really was.

With that said, DB was a solid scorer. When JC abandoned the idea of Rudy being his go-to-guy, realizing he simply didn't have the killer instincts and confidence to be that type of player, JC went to DB and Shad more late in games to knock down big shots. What might have influence some in thinking he was a dissapointment was that he and Shad were forced to play out of position at the 2 due to the huge need that UConn had for a 2G. AJ Price (AVM and Latptop-gate) missing time late in DB's and Shads career, forced JC to play them often at the 2, which had them often in mismatches that were often not in their favor. I thought both were very good 3s, but not elite. They both turned out what I expected. Shad had a very tough final season due to that horrible staph infection. I would have liked to see how good he could have been if he was healthy his final season. He always struggled with his handle and was not very good at creating his own shot off the bounce...but I digress...this was about Denham.

If a player is under 6'5 and doesn't have a great handle, they tend to look unathletic. Brown was a good athlete, albeit a little slow, but his handle was terrible and there was no place to play him. Coming out of high school, I had heard from guys that knew these things that he was expecting to be 2 and done.

 

[noeynox]

Nantambu Willingham. Thought we were getting someone who could match up with Mourning and Mutimbo. Thought wrong.

 

[gapere]

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

Well with the hype surrounding that 111 point game and Denham himself talking about leaving for the NBA after a season or two when her first got here, yea I had rather high expectations.

Not that he wasn't a good player but hype didn't match reality.

 

[Tenspro2002]

Deng and Majok are 1a and 1b. They're basically the same person as far as I'm concerned.

Drummond is definitely up there. For a guy we in the fan base salivated over for years, he was basically a wash on the court -- the occasional highlight-reel dunk or block sullied by the more-frequent lack of instinct or touch around the rim.

I'd also add the list of "long, athletic wings" JC paraded out there ever since Rudy Gay. Sticks was supposed to be Rudy 2.0, and then Roscoe was supposed to be Rudy 3.0. Neither of them lived up to it. Even Rudy wasn't the stud we needed him to be -- though that may have more to do with how the coaching staff utilized that type of player than the player himself.

We've also had some disappointments in terms of guys who were supposed to be lights-out shooters: Haralson and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel come to mind in recent years.

 

[Horatio]

Scottie haralson was the worst recruit to come to Uconn in my opinion . I'm basing that on the fact that this kid did not live up to the hype ( the next Rashad) and from what I saw , He came to Uconn out of shape and could barely run. It looked like he came in with a gut and a bum knee.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Nantambu Willingham. Thought we were getting someone who could match up with Mourning and Mutimbo. Thought wrong.

One of the few posts on this board to make me laugh out loud.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

By the end of Majok's only season at UConn he was starting to show some talent, and I think he would have had a big year if he came back. He had staggering financial problems that obviously influenced his decision. I definitely regretted losing him.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Jamal Coombs-McDaniel, Haralson and some others were only considered good recruits because of the Boneyard positive feedback cycle building them into superstars when they didn't even have other major college offers that I remember.

Tony Robertson was a guy that could have been one of the best UConn players ever if he cared enough. Some of the most spectacular plays I have ever seen a Husky make were made by Tony Robertson. He had a 4th gear that even top athletes only dream about, and looked like something out of a roadrunner cartoon when he decided to use it. He had the highest "game vertical" I have ever seen. He exploded off the floor, in traffic, and his dunks were awesome. I can't remember the exact game, but I can picture him making a ferocious block from behind on a star center. He had one of the sweetest outside shots of any Husky in history. He shot over 40% from 3 his last two years, and was a 50% shooter for the 2002 Final 8 team while averaging 11.3 ppg. And he had that shooting percentage with Taliek as a Sophomore at Point, who wasn't exactly feeding the players easy shots.

Then other times he clearly didn't even want to be on the court. Marcus Johnson was unable to put the pieces together to be the star that he could have been. Tony Robertson was unwilling.

 

[swami7774]

Anthony (Big Jim) Moye.

 

[Kemballin']

Strong bump man.

Anthony (Big Jim) Moye.

 

[swami7774]

Strong bump man.

As I recall, we "stole" him from U-Hartford. Those were the days when stealing a guy from U-Har was consider a coup.

 

[swami7774]

Nantambu Willingham. Thought we were getting someone who could match up with Mourning and Mutimbo. Thought wrong.

I'll never forget attending the BE regular season clincher vs Pitt at HCC in '94. Willingham was in there for garbage time. He managed a huge dunk, then picked up a midget(had NO idea where the guy came from) and shook him like a salt shaker.
Stuff like that sticks in your mind.

 

[CTBasketball]

Enosch Wolf.

 

[joober jones]

You're all going to laugh at this one, but honestly, I thought Dove had potential. He was an excellent shot blocker and positional defender who was very raw offensively. As JC put it, he "showed flashes, but then HT came and his career was over."

 

[tentoes4rings]

Richie Ashmeade

 

[RichZ]

I thought Kirk King was going to be more than he was. The flashes of brilliance were something else. People may know of his 22 consecutive field goals over 3 games, but most think it was all dunks and layins. In reality, a lot of of it was 12 to 15 foot jumpers. But Ray's magic bucket in the BET never would have happened without #13. Kirk scored 8 consecutive points to erase almost all of the 10 point deficit we faced with 5 minutes to go. Of course Ricky had a few stops on AI in there, too, so Kirk didn't get us into position for Ray's runner single handedly, but damned near. I expected a huge senior season from Kirk. But it wasn't until 10 or 12 games in that he started to show some of the previous season's form. And then his career ended with the suspension for the remainder of his senior season, and that was that.

 

[joober jones]

I thought Kirk King was going to be more than he was. The flashes of brilliance were something else. People may know of his 22 consecutive field goals over 3 games, but most think it was all dunks and layins. In reality, a lot of of it was 12 to 15 foot jumpers. But Ray's magic bucket in the BET never would have happened without #13. Kirk scored 8 consecutive points to erase almost all of the 10 point deficit we faced with 5 minutes to go. Of course Ricky had a few stops on AI in there, too, so Kirk didn't get us into position for Ray's runner single handedly, but damned near. I expected a huge senior season from Kirk. But it wasn't until 10 or 12 games in that he started to show some of the previous season's form. And then his career ended with the suspension for the remainder of his senior season, and that was that.

I still remember when Kirk King had a shot rattling on the rim that would've extended his consecutive field goals made streak that was tipped in by Travis Knight. It was probably the only time I was upset by a put-back from a UConn player. I had the good fortune of meeting Kirk once and you'd be hard pressed to find a nicer guy.

 

[intlzncster]

I disagree on Rash. Nobody gave up more of his game to be a team guy(glue guy). Remember his sophmore year he was leading the team in scoring until he hurt his ankle at Seton Hall. He deferred to others for the good of the team.

Typed the exact same thing, but deleted on reading this. Dude was nasty coming out, and basically sucked it up in deference to better players so we could win a Natty C.