Was this the most surprising UCONN championship run ?

[Dave]

My initial reaction was 2014 ( and not even close) cause what were we even doing there bring a 7 seed. But if I think back to 2011 pre season, even before Maui and putting up 50 on Kentucky in the first half, beating MSU etc. The Team was basically Kemba and a bunch of Freshmen and I’m sure my expectations then were not very high. You could at least make the argument at that point 2011 was more surprising. I’d still go with 2014 though.

 

[jibsey]

Kemba run!!!!

Yup. 2011.

 

[AntG168]

2014 easily. We barely beat St Joes. There was not a single point on that season that anyone thought we'd win a natty. That same isnt true for 2011 and 2023

 

[RichZ]

No. 2014 was more surprising.
And 2011.
Then this season. Because we were looking past this year, eyeing the team Hurley was building for 23/24. THAT was going to be our shot at glory. No one knew that Karaban was going to be a deadeye shot. No one expected Hawkins improvement (thanks, Rip!) Or that Adama would go from good to great. Donovan? He was going to be a project. Then the portal happened. And everything changed.
After the PKI, nothing was surprising except our string of crap games in the conference. That was surprising. And it's still a bit befuddling.
I think though, that after that nasty losing streak, the fact that we recovered and surpassed our early season strength may have taken the rest of the CBB world by surprise.

 

[Waquoit]

This team wasn't a surprise once we saw them play. Even early on when many we telling us to slow our roll we're thinking "Look how good we play. Who's better?"

 

[SallyH]

Personally, I think this one might be the most remarkable. We had so many new pieces to fit together. Karaban had more experience with the team, but we had two new starters, and a few new bench players - all of whom are great but it was no easy feat to pull them all together. Great coaching job. Of course, the trio of Sanogo, Jackson and Hawkins have played with each other for 2 years is an extremely strong core around which to build a team.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

Clearly not as surprising as 2014. Hard to distinguish between '11 and this year. In both years we went undefeated OOC, struggled in conference and were seeded at a level where making the Final Four was not shocking but there were other teams with a better chance of going all the way than us.

The '11 team played far more competitive games in the tournament, three of which could have easily gone the other way, but there was faith in that team being able to win a close game because of Kemba and the Big East tournament, whereas when SD State cut it to 5 this year I can't have been the only fan beyond nervous because I didn't want to see us have to make good decisions down the stretch.

This is a great point. The Achilles heel of this team was close games in crunch time with multiple close losses.

Remarkably, the ONLY games they won the entire season by less than double digits are below and I wouldn't even necessarily consider these "close" games perhaps with exception of the PC BET which got close after blowing a big lead.

9 vs Seton Hall
9 @ St. John's
8 vs Villanova
8 vs Creighton
7 vs Providence (BET)
6 @ Georgetown

Certainly a way to circumvent your biggest weakness is to just blow everyone out, which is what we did. Part of me would like to have seen how we would have responded against say against a Kansas in a close game late.

Alas, we'll never know and more importantly it really doesn't even matter.

 

[Mr. French]

We need to distinguish WHEN we were surprised or not.

By Big East tournament, 2011 was still surreal but I wasn’t shocked. 2014 was the least expected, even in-season, but I thought we were a 4/5 that year and had a terrible matchup with Louisville that made us look worse. But I also knew that each individual game, Shabazz could take over.

Before those seasons? It’s gotta rank 2011 then 2023 next. I knew we’d be good, solid, I didn’t expect our offense to be this good though.

 

[jibsey]

From a standpoint of our fan’s expectations think about this: At BE Tournament time 2011 our fan base was emotionally down and was so disgusted that many were not going to bother even attending the BE Tournament. A pick me up (and classic) post by Maker’s Muppet made fun of us all to shame some who had given up. We go win the next 11 games in a row to the strongest competition overall that I can even remember. And that was the old ridiculously strong BE conference where Marquette was a middling team who beat us at the Civic Center.

 

[Spaceman213J]

'99-The year before they were 1 win away from the final four I believe. RIP & the crew continued to grow. It was either going to be Duke or UConn. They were easily the 2 best teams in the land. (2nd least surprising for me)

'04-Best UConn team period. Only back spasms and foul trouble could stop Okafor, Gordon & company. (least surprising)

'11- Surprising, but early on they proved they could take out anybody on any given night. The run through the BE tourney was special. Kemba was just so great that year and had some supporting pieces in Lamb, Oriakhi, a young Shabazz. (2nd most surprising for me)

'14-Watching this team struggle man... I had little hope that they would make it to the 2nd weekend let alone win it all. Brimah's putback and foul shot make let the Shabazz show cometh. Boat turned the corner and really grew up in the tournament and Giffey did his thing. That and the defense by it's two star guards putting the Kentucky twins on their heals... well Phil Nolan can now say I was a starter on a national championship. (for me, easily the most surprising)

'23-We knew we had pieces. All the new guys were the question mark. Ended up like being a great Christmas morning when you're a kid. As each guy played and we could see what he could do, it was like "Whoa, cool I like this.". Even Naheim Alleyne (who won me over by playing hard non-stop through that awful slump) was like that gift you didn't ask for but in the end it was really cool. (Middle of the pack for me as far as a surprise)
onade
If you read this, you may have guessed I just down a few Arnold Palmers made with some Mike's Hard Lemonade. It's Spring Break at the school I work at.

 

[nomar]

You make a good point that it depends at what point you’re making the decision. At the start of the season there were a lot of questions marks for 2011, by the end of the big east tournament, it seemed like it was inevitable. To me this season seems like 2011 redux in many ways. Both years we won a big early season tournament, and had a midseason in conference swoon, only to win it all at the end.

This thread is a whole lot of people talking past each other because it's not clear what question is being asked.