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UW’s performance at last year’s national championship may have triggered the men’s basketball blueblood’s acceptance letter, but it only became clear months later when I was a teenager. That’s when I realized that I was furiously tracking his daily movements. This program may be on the verge of surpassing any program of the past 30-plus years.
Since Jim Calhoun took over as head coach in the late ’80s, the Huskies have had a number of major league prospects, but very few future No. 1 superstars. 1 NBA draft picks simply go through college in order. But Cooper Flagg was a turning point. Super prospects like Zion, whose outlandish highlight reels created buzz, not only hailed from New England, but also had roots on the current roster. His mother played with Donovan Clingan’s mother in Maine. The future teammates each held a special (and truly touching) photo shoot. wore their mothers’ college jerseys. Flagg might have been better off getting a portrait of Mark Twain tattooed on his back. This was a Pisa that promised to take the program to a whole other tier. So everything from his social media likes to his official visits became daily news for sick people like me. Their family has raised huskies as part of their daily life.
Of course, it didn’t matter. Flagg, like Williamson and many future NBA stars before him, ultimately chose Duke. But his rejection of UConn is important for two very important reasons: (1) it gave us; This photo The image of a flag holding a flaming pitchfork, that must be it. Convenient (2) It was an important reminder that UConn is not Duke. I have never been a Duke. It’s not that I didn’t want to be a duke.
That’s why it was so hard for me to buy into this new era for the Huskies, who beat Purdue 75-60 in the national title game on Monday and became the first men’s team to win back-to-back titles since the Florida Gators in the mid-’80s. is. Yes, it’s great to be widely recognized as a “blue blood” alongside the schools that built college basketball as we know it. But this aristocratic nonsense is in direct conflict with the program’s fundamental identity.It may be hard to remember now, as the college bell tolls and the sign counts slowly. Wrapping I-84But UConn made its bones as the underdog, the team that “shocked the world.” For most of the university’s history, the University Con program has been anti-Duke at best, a swaggering, salt-of-the-earth piece led by a coach who refused to give back a penny to cover the budget deficit. was.
The old Huskies weren’t always dominant, either, even during the season in which they won the national title. Three of the four championships they won under Calhoun and his successor Kevin O’Ree were improbable at best. They won the honor in 1999 by overthrowing the Blue Devils’ budding dynasty, and then won two more in 2011 and 2014, almost exclusively due to the heroics of their heroes. A cantankerous (and often hungry) scoring guard emerged in a run that ranks among the most miraculous in recent tournament history. And while the fourth championship team won it all with relative ease in 2004, the next championship-winning team was among the worst in the program. The NBA’s then-historic pool of talent struggled through a joyless three-loss season only to falter. Elite Eight by George Fucking Mason.
On the other hand, modern Huskies are very powerful. Sixth-year coach Dan Hurley won his first national title last season, as UW posted the fourth-largest average tournament win margin in the 64-team era. And this season, the program is back and even better. UW lost just one non-conference game in the regular season (by four points in the absence of elite freshman Stephon Castle) and three games, and somehow lost a heartbreaking 30-0 in Elite Eight games. of the victory that connected the runs and won another ring by the largest margin. Two-time National Player of the Year Zach Eady wowed UW with his incredible size for the first 18 minutes on Monday. And…slowly but surely, the Huskies took control, and a cross midway through the second half ensured they had an irresistible lead. -Board size, skill and toughness.
These new Huskies are dominant, as the KD-era Warriors often were in NBA games, but what’s most surprising is their accuracy. For example, in the old days, crimes were simple. In retrospect, Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier’s meteoric performances may have been an unintended benefit of having to make something of a single-digit shot clock for four months. By contrast, watching the ball and bodies fly around in Hurley’s league-best offense feels like waking up to a future with flying cars. The diversity up and down this roster is amazing. Virtually every player can pass, dribble, and screen, and even those who can’t shoot will be happy to have a big athlete with great sense dunk over your head.
Hurley’s group is talented. Castle may not be in flag territory, but he is a consensus top-10 recruit and will likely be a top-10 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. But beyond him, UConn doesn’t have a top-50 recruit in the rotation for either title game. Even Clingan, another lottery pick, was rated as the 14th-best center in the class before Hurley plucked the now-beloved bogeyman from Bristol, Conn.
If there’s a secret sauce here, it might be the transfer portal. The same coach who recently criticized the new transfer rule by comparing it to underwear has built a third of his rotation using it, including his starting backcourt. And while Clingan’s play at the rim has been a differentiator for this team time and time again, he scored just 11 points in Monday’s game, but with the 300-pound Eadie on one end, he was able to score on every offensive possession. What was its identity, including when it set up about 37 screens? Two fifth-year players, Tristen Newton and Cam Spencer, are adaptable enough to start or shoot the catch and also have the size and physicality to rip off rebounds in traffic. (Spencer, the shortest starter at 6-foot-4, grabbed eight rebounds by himself against Purdue.) The one-and-done worldview that Kentucky has shaped the sport for more than a decade It is probably no coincidence that UW has withdrawn from the program as it reconsiders its plans. Relying on 20-somethings with enough experience to get ahead on the field and develop the versatility for modern offenses to thrive.
But it would be a disservice to Hurley to attribute the Huskies’ success entirely to exploiting market inefficiencies. No one could have imagined that UW would hire a head coach sharper than Calhoun, but Hurley jumped even that high bar. In the last two years alone, he has been caught calling a referee a “fucking clown” before halftime and challenged two games.another fan To the battle. On Monday, he complained of a violation after he forced Spencer into a play while dribbling. “I’m just an asshole sometimes,” he said. recently. Needless to say, UConn fans love him. But while there may be genuine anger management issues here, issues that cause concern for burnout among those around him, he also has a showman’s talent and leverages all the attention his takedowns receive. They also have a clear understanding of how to do it.his press Now available for social media. While talking about recruiting in the days leading up to this year’s title match, he sounded as if he was cutting off a promotion to join the nWo. “We’re working really hard to get our type of talent,” he told reporters. “We don’t kiss a kid’s butt during recruiting. We don’t kiss them while they’re on campus.”
This routine that only does the hard work, only does it the hard way, could be the same as the one that comes with the NCAA manual. Upon taking over from Calhoun, Ollie famously declared that his team would only use stairs, not escalators. Although he went on to win the championship two years later, he missed tournaments twice as often as he appeared. But the script acknowledges that Hurley, the scion of East Coast basketball’s first family, nearly quit during his playing days after failing to live up to the standards of his father, a Hall of Fame high school coach. This makes it feel like it is written more honestly. , and his brother is a star point guard at Duke University. He is both an outsider and a member of the organization. He built Rhode Island into a mid-major powerhouse with eight wins, and is a coach who listened to the advice of Coach K, who has been his confidante since he was young. He moves up.
Now, after winning his second straight title (in half the time it took Krzyzewski to accomplish the same feat), Hurley has catapulted college into the stratosphere. He went beyond his status as just a member of the Blue Blood Club to the point of running for a seat on the High Council. .Only two schools have hosted more men’s basketball national championships than the Huskies’ total of six, and heading into Monday’s title game, one of those schools’ fan base is bellow Even an exploratory phone call with Harley.
After the Huskies won their first four championships, the inevitable upset followed a grace period of unknown length. We had a thrill because you never know when it will happen again. Hurley will also need time to reload, as the entire starting lineup will likely turn pro, but NIL’s money could help repel invading competitors such as the G League Ignite. It could serve as the ultimate reloading trump card as they continue to acquire NBA talent out of high school or through the portal.
But for the first time, anything that happens next at UConn seems possible. Whether it will once again face Duke for global prospects or even become a new generation of Duke. A Husky’s surprise run once shocked the world. Now their complete control will be.
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