Yes, it is such an important event each year, this short documentary would be the basis of a great feature length movie. The "Biggest" motor race in the world! 😊
As a UConn alum, graduating in 1966 (the Fred Shabel, Toby Kimball, Wes Bailosuknia, Tommy Penders era), I really appreciate your chronicle of UConn basketball.
UConn’s first number 1 ranking was in ‘95, not ‘98. In fact, BOTH the men and women were ranked no. 1 at the same time that year (‘95). First time for any school ever.
There’s just something special about how the. UConn culture is all about unselfishness, teamwork, simply outworking and out hustling the other team, and when they go on.a run, and the other team calls a time out, and the UConn chant starts. It allways gives me goosebumps
In the first photo of Dee Rowe, former UCONN Great Tony Hanson is on Dee's left. Saw him many times along with Al Weston, Lee Otis Wilson, Joey Whelton, John Thomas. Tremendous Teams.
Let's not forget UCONN is only 50 miles down the road from Springfield where basketball was invented. Also not far from Yale where some say Football was invented, and Pittsfield Ma, which has a better claim to being the place where baseball was invented than anyone else.
Front court will be tough with Mahaney, Diarra, & Mckneeley. I would assume would all start. Hopefully AK comes back after testing the waters to play the 4 with Samson & Tarris Reed fighting for the 5. Unless Hurley opts to continue to use Diarra off the bench and Jaylin Stewart makes some strides this summer. Regardless they will both will play significant minutes. Should leave us 9 deep with Solo Ball, Jayden Ross, & freshman Ahmad Nowell. Can't wait to see Mckneeley & Mahaney shine in Luke Murray's offense!
UCONN is THE blue blood now. What they have accomplished in the last 25 years is insane. Current CBB for mens is insanely competitive. These teams would mutilate the UCLA, Kentucky, UNC teams of the past
As someone who has been watching college basketball since the early 1980s all I can say is 🤣🤣🤣🤣 to your premise. College basketball has been on decline since the early to mid 1990s when early entries became available for the NBA. Sure there have been times since then with great champion teams such as the back to back Florida title teams and 2005 UNC but there is a lot of parity in college basketball now and as dominant as UCONN has been the past several years they are still not as good as programs from the past before early NBA entries.
@@JTH-hm8ew LMAO old head refusing to accept how weak and one dimensional teams were back then. This UCONN team would have DESTROYED teams in the 80s and 90s. And denying UCONN as the superior blue blood for what they have accomplished in the age of upsets is impressive. Back to back these days is unheard of and they did so by covering the spread every damn game. Just give credit when its due.
I am sorry but this UCONN team would not have destroyed great teams of the past. Also, I never denied UCONN being a blieblood program. What UCONN has done is stellar. However, great teams of the past would not be destroyed by current UCONN which in of itself is quite comical and laughable as one who witnessed great teams of the past. Also, great teams of the past were not one dimensional either.
Correction, the UConn basketball program has been dominating college basketball, 17 titles between the men and women, and nobody comes close. UConn is also the basketball program that both the men and women won in the same year twice, no college program has done that at least once! UConn's blood is so blue it has a purple tint at night.
@@jeromedanielson4422UConn isn’t a blue blood. Girls ball school definitely. Zero success prior to 99’… the program is hollow and dull like they’re uniforms
I live in Connecticut right next to stores. My grandfather's brother taught their and I've been watching UConn's in 1990. Really appreciate this video it was so well done
Now, but at the time it was exclusively referred to as “Willimantic High School,” “the Willimantic High School,” or ambiguously as “W.H.S.” - I didn’t feel comfortable connecting the two when even UConn’s own library special collections referred to it as Willimantic High
UConn class of ‘84 here. Corny Thompson era. What I came here to say is that my father attended Ellsworth High School during the time that Hugh Greer was coach there, as well as boys gym teacher. Coach Greer treated everyone with grace, whether you were on the team, or just a kid in gym class. Very classy man.
I'm a UConn alum myself (1980). Back when I was there, men's soccer and women's field hockey were the marquee sports. Men's basketball was pretty good (they reached the Sweet Sixteen in 1976), but women's basketball was an afterthought. We had a team, but it was irrelevant. I had to say, I graduated from the University of Connecticut because if I said UConn, people would think I was referring to that Canadian territory next to Alaska. We've come a long way, baby!
@@swami1 Lafayette must have been in Towers. I lived in Stowe C for five semesters (brachferred after one semester at Hartford), then moved off campus.
Whoever did this it was an excellent job! I remember sneaking into the old field house in the 80's and sitting right behind the bench. We have come a long long way. I hate the term blue blood. We are a True Blood. The basketball capital of the world!!!
Newest? How old is the person making this video.. uconn have won 6 national titles in at least 3 and probably 4 different conferences.. ten seconds and a lil google would help out your clips accuracy..
You look at the other blue bloods: Indiana made 7 final 4s before UConn made 1 Duke 10 Kansas 10 Kentucky 13 UNC 14 UCLA 15 I get their dominance has been sustained over the course of my lifetime, but they definitely came last to the party
@@tycooper7368 it takes more than 20 years to lose blue blood status. thats why its called "blue blood". this is different from being "elite program". these are two different things. lots of programs are in much better spots than Indiana. hell Alabama for example. They are an "elite" program but not a "blue blood". then its opposite for Indiana.
Really enjoyed this! My only gripe would be I think Ollie deserves far more responsibility for what happened than is portrayed here, but this is 10/10 masterpiece. Thank you for taking the time to put this together.
Definitely weighed a harsher critique of Ollie (particularly as a recruiter), but ultimately I decided to exercise caution assigning blame to any one person - there were so many moving parts in that era of college sports, I wouldn’t have felt right putting it out there without being confident in saying it
