Editor's Note: Dick Weiss, a member of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association Hall of Fame, has covered college sports in Philadelphia and New York for more than 40 years. He will be providing regular commentary for the American Athletic Conference during the 2014-15 season.
The University of Connecticut's men's basketball team has won four national championships since 1999, establishing it as an elite program in college basketball.
The last two were unexpected surprises.
In 2010, the Huskies finished 9-9 in the Big East regular season, then took off like a sonic boom. Led by senior All American guard Kemba Walker, who scored a tournament-record 130 points, UConn became the first school to win five conference tournament games in as many days in claiming its seventh Big East tournament title. Then, with Walker’s averaging 23.5 points, the Huskies won six more to capture the NCAA tournament. They advanced to their fourth Final Four with a 65-63 victory over Arizona, reached their third national championship game with a 56-55 victory over Kentucky and beat Butler, 53-41, in Houston's Reliant Stadium.
Last season, after losing to Louisville by 33 points in the final game of the American Athletic Conference regular season, seventh-seeded UConn put on another dramatic tournament run that ended triumphantly when senior guard Shabazz Napier scored 22 points and schooled Kentucky in the art of the pick-and-roll during a 60-54 victory in the championship game at Dallas.
Walker and Napier were both first team All-America players who achieved iconic status in Storrs after they were each selected as the most outstanding players in their respective Final Fours.
Guard Ryan Boatright, a senior this year who scored double figures in all six of the Huskies' tournament games, also made the 2014 All-Final Four team.
“It felt good just because we felt Michigan State and Kentucky were America's teams and we beat them both during our run,” Boatright said. “They love Kentucky and they love Michigan State. Everybody doubted us. Nobody in the world expected us to be a contender.
“I think we solidified our brand with that title run and showed what Coach (Jim) Calhoun and Coach (Kevin) Ollie have implemented here,” said Boatright. “Our team last year had a lot of guys there from freshman year, when we won it. We could have left, could have transferred after getting banned by the NCAA. But most of us stayed and went through what we went through my sophomore year. It hurt us knowing we were good enough to be in the tournament and we all had to watch it on TV. We had that chip on our shoulder when we came back last year I think that's what drove us to win the national championship.”
UConn's nickname last year was “the Hungry Huskies.”
Now, it will be up to Boatright, who is UConn's leading returning scorer and a lockdown defender, to step out of Napier's shadow and keep the Huskies in the national spotlight.
The 6-2 Boatright, who was a co-Mr. Basketball in the state of Illinois when he averaged 31.6 points for Aurora High, was selected as the preseason Player of the Year by The American coaches, who also selected Huskies as the preseason favorite to win the league.
“I think it's great for Ryan,” UConn's third-year coach Kevin Ollie said. “I couldn't vote for Ryan because you are not allowed to vote for your own players. For his peers to vote for him is a humbling experience for him. He's been working very, very hard. He's not satisfied being the conference Preseason Player of Year. And he won’t be satisfied until the end of the year when we're playing our best basketball.
“He's really coming into his own”
The Huskies are a young team with a huge upside and could be dangerous by March if 7-0 shot blocking center Amida Brimah continues to develop, North Carolina State transfer Rodney Purvis, a 6-4 sophomore to whom Ollie refers as the “new Ferrari in the garage” is as good as advertised, and 6-7 freshman Daniel Hamilton, a McDonald's All America from Los Angeles, can provide scoring from the wing forward spot.
Boatright has taken it upon himself to be the leader on this perennial national power.
“I feel this conference is going to be tough again this year,” he said. “One thing Coach and I have in common is we know what it takes to get where we're going. We preach every day that being picked No. 1 in the league and coming off a national championship only makes the target on our backs a lot bigger, knowing that we’re going to get everybody's best shot.”
SMU beat UConn twice last year. Memphis, Cincinnati and newcomer Tulsa are NCAA teams in this multiple-bid league.
Boatright could have walked away from all this. He seriously toyed with the idea of declaring for the NBA after his junior season.
“I definitely thought about it,” he admitted. “I decided to come back to school the day before the deadline. It was a hard decision, but I'm proud of it. I came back to get my degree, raise my stock in the draft and play with my brothers.”
It is refreshing that hear that, the same way it was refreshing to hear Napier voice that same opinion.
“Obviously I wasn't a guaranteed lottery pick,” Boatright said. ”It didn't take lot of people to tell me i could use another year.”
Boatright got help from the 41-year old Ollie, an NBA veteran who developed into a pro by playing for Calhoun, then became a mainstay in the league. Ollie researched where Boatright might be selected, spoke with an NBA draft panel and then was honest with him during a meeting in his office last spring.
Boatright and Ollie have a close-knit relationship. Ollie became a hot commodity after the tournament and there was rampant speculation on campus he might leave for a job with Cleveland or his hometown Lakers.
“I just asked K.O. straight up, ‘Hey, what are you going to do?’” Boatright said. “’Your decision impacts my decision.’
“He told me on the phone that he was coming back to school. I was kind of nervous after the Lakers offered him. I know that's hard to turn down. When he told me he was coming back to school, it pretty much sealed my decision to come back to school.”
Ollie has quickly elevated himself to one of the best college coaches in country. He has been a fitting successor to Calhoun with the way he relates to his players and has convinced his players to buy into his philosophy and stick with it, even after the lopsided Louisville loss.
“After getting smacked on national TV like that, we went to the locker room,” Boatright said. “After coach screamed at us, we all just sat in the locker room and just looked at each other. I think everybody just looked at each other and took it in. We knew we needed to get better. We flew back that night and next morning, we had one of best practices we had all year and everything just seemed to click from thereon.”
UConn will challenge itself again in the nonconference schedule, with a home game against Texas, road games at Florida and Stanford and a neutral-site game against Duke at the Izod Center in New Jersey. “We will be a different team this year,” said Ollie. “A younger team without Shabazz and DeAndre Daniels. But we have players who can get up and down the floor and we should be fun to watch.”
“I think we're just as talented as last year,” said Boatright. “Well, maybe not quite as talented. Last year's team did win the national championship.”
That is a worthwhile goal to have, especially for a program that traditionally exceeds expectations.