I know its early in the season but UConn Men's basketball is on the verge of a 1-4 start in OOC play. They already have losses to #211 Wagner 67-58, #189 Northeastern 64-61, and #60 Oklahoma St 98-90. They managed to win over #209 Loyola Marymount 65-62.
They are now losing after halftime in a back and forth game to Division II Chaminade. If they cant manage to pull this game out, they will have started the year 1-4. Hard to picture a program that was National Champion two years ago and made it to the second round of the tournament last year being so unprepared this season.
I know they graduated several key players but these results seem to go beyond that. Wanted to see what everyone else thought about it?
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Today I learned Chaminade exists.
I just had a chance to turn the game on. Looks like they'll pull it out, but losing to a Div II program at halftime is still inexcusable.
Someone clearly never owned the NCAA Basketball video game. Every season after the first one starts off with the tournament hosted by Chaminade in Hawai'i, and user controlled team was always the one slated to play them. Had some of my best margins of victory against them. Playing as Radford.
Chaminade is to UVa as Richmond is to UVa
You were clearly not alive during the Ralph Sampson era of UVA basketball. One of sports' all-time improbable upsets.
Edit: I didn't see Blue Collar Hokie's response below
I only know Chaminade exists because they beat a Ralph Samson led UVA squad. People still talk about that.
Edit: meant to reply to Fencer
Chaminade sounds like champagne mixed with lemonade.
I'd try it
It sounds better than Zima is what it sounds
I say this, like, 95% tongue-in-cheek, but:
It kinda sounds like a Title IX violation.
They deserve to suck. I'm still pissed that they were given such a lenient penalty of just two years after that asshole Jim Calhoun cheated for years. They deserved much more than that two year ban and UK should have won that championship
(disclamer: I'm a UK bball fan).
Huh, in looking up more information about the Maui Invitational, the tournament they host every year that generally features a fairly high-quality field, I found that Dell Curry won the 1985 tournament MVP even though Virginia Tech didn't even make the tournament finals.
Anybody have more information on this?
1985 was the last time the Maui Invitational was only 4 teams. Virginia Tech lost to a heavily favored Michigan team 67-66, with Dell Curry setting a tournament record that still stands of 16 baskets in the game. Tech then beat Chaminade in the 3rd place game with Curry leading all scorers again, leading to him being voted the MVP.
I've won multiple bracket pools by picking UConn to win the national championship every year since like 2006 (minus the year they weren't eligible). Over time, they became my second favorite MBB team so it makes me sad to see them struggling.
As if their recent troubles weren't enough, it was announced today that transfer Forward Terry Larrier will miss the rest of the season after tearing his acl in Mondays loss to Oklahoma State. He was averaging 13.5 PPG, 5 RPG, and 1 APG so far this season. Tough blow for a team trying to find answers.