We’re continuing #MailWeek by writing some (safe for work) fanfic! We like your mailbag questions so much (if not you, personally) that we’re giving some of your questions extra attention. Today we’re answering one from The Husky Army.
@ADimeBack Looking back at it now, was losing out on Andrew Bynum that important?
— Husky Army (@thehuskyarmy) July 18, 2016
Alright! A dumb hypothetical! Dumb hypotheticals are possibly my favorite thing in the world (besides puppies). The A Dime Back Slack channel is riddled with them — at one point including this very question.
For some quick background that you may already know, Andrew Bynum was a monster high school prospect. A five-star center with an NBA body at age 17 (6’11” 270 lbs), he was ranked the sixth-best recruit in the country, and the best center. Despite the usual host of high-major offers, Bynum visited UConn on Oct. 22, 2004 and committed just five days later on his 17th birthday.
Seven months later, doubt started to creep in. In May of 2005, Bynum submitted his name for the NBA Draft but withheld from hiring an agent. He said he was testing the waters. The prevailing theory was that if a lottery pick seemed likely, Bynum was gone. In June, one week before the draft, it became official. Bynum notified coach Jim Calhoun that he would not be attending UConn as planned — against Calhoun’s strong objections. In the end, Bynum’s intel proved accurate, and he was taken by the Lakers with the 10th pick in the 2005 draft, becoming the youngest player in NBA history, debuting only six days after his 18th birthday.
To gauge how UConn history might have changed had Bynum chose differently, we have to start with a simple question: if Bynum was on the 2005-06 roster, would Hilton Armstrong have redshirted?
It was a reasonable question in the spring of 2005. Armstrong had showed improvement in his first three years in Storrs, but had yet to truly harness his potential. Playing behind fellow big men Emeka Okafor, Charlie Villanueva and Josh Boone, Armstrong struggled to get starters’ minutes — averaging 6.5 fouls-per-40 in 2005 didn’t help — despite being a great shot-blocker.
Armstrong’s talent lurked just below the surface, and many within the program thought a year on the bench would do him a world of good, leaving him as a likely starter on the 2007 team.
When Bynum went pro however, any redshirt talks for Armstrong were nixed. Armstrong went on to average 9.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game — eventually landing as a lottery pick himself in 2006.
If Bynum had played, and Armstrong had redshirted, it’s doubtful that UConn would have been better off. As Andre Drummond proved six seasons later, it’s incredibly difficult for even the best freshman big men to dominate during their first collegiate season. And Bynum was not a finished product. In his rookie season in the NBA, Bynum barely saw the court, playing only 338 minutes over 46 games. He averaged 1.6 points and 1.7 rebounds for the Lakers.
However, with the gift of hindsight, right before the 2006 NCAA Tournament where UConn would enter as a 1 seed with a 27-3 record, Armstrong and Calhoun both intimated that — even if Bynum was on campus — a redshirt was unlikely.
“I didn’t want to, not for my senior year,” Armstrong told USA Today. “I thought even if (Bynum) came in, I’d be able to show what I could do.”
“We would not have redshirted him,” Calhoun said in the same story. “Andrew wouldn’t have played over him.”
Now, that’s easy to say after your senior center has won the Big East Defensive Player of the Year award. Does that make it true? Who knows. Let’s say it is.
If Bynum shows up on campus, and Armstrong’s development remains the same, the 2006 team gets even deeper. The starting lineup of Marcus Williams, Denham Brown, Rudy Gay, Josh Boone and Armstrong remains. Rashad Anderson stays as the best sixth man in the history of the universe. Bynum likely pushes rap star Ed Nelson and fellow freshman Jeff Adrien a spot down the depth chart. Craig Austrie, Marcus Johnson and Rob Garrison round out the rotation.
Overall, Bynum’s addition likely doesn’t change much during the regular season. He would’ve had to pull a superman act to save UConn from its 15-point defeat at Marquette, and while he might have helped at No. 4 Villanova, unless he was guarding Allan Ray, the Huskies probably lose that game as well.
Here’s where the juicy part of this dumb hypothetical begins. UConn lost its first game of the Big East Tournament to a mediocre Syracuse team that it had defeated by 23 points one month earlier in Gampel Pavilion. The Huskies were woeful from the floor, going 8-29 in the first half. Boone struggled all game, missing 10 of his 11 shots. Armstrong ended up with a double-double (14 and 10), but fouled out. Nelson didn’t play and Adrien was a non-factor. The game went to overtime and Syracuse won 86-84. With Gay also struggling, maybe Bynum picks up enough slack to get UConn over the finish line.
Villanova (the second-best team in the Big East that year) lost to 6 seed Pitt in the semifinals. After beating UConn, Syracuse narrowly beat 5 seed Georgetown and then Pitt in the title game. The Huskies had beaten both Georgetown and Pitt earlier in the season. If they get by Syracuse, maybe that title run becomes theirs.
This next part gets tricky, because we have to talk about a game that never happened (repressing things is healthy).
UConn didn’t look very good doing it, but managed to win its first three games of the 2006 NCAA Tournament. With a trip the Final Four on the line against 11-seed George Mason, the Huskies squandered a nine-point halftime lead. George Mason buried six straight threes in the second half to force overtime. UConn shot 1-7 from the floor in extra time, and became the victim of one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history.
Jeff Adrien played the best game of his freshman season, with 17 points and seven rebounds, making up for Boone’s disappearing act. Playing only 20 minutes, Boone had six points and four rebounds. Armstrong was marginally better, netting eight points and five rebounds in 37 minutes.
George Mason’s relatively-diminutive front court of Jai Lewis and Will Thomas (both 6’7”) brutalized the UConn bigs. The duo combined for 39 points and 19 rebounds. Would Bynum have been able to slow them down?
Probably.
George Mason should not have been that much better than UConn. The Huskies were seemingly constantly at risk of crumbling under the weight of their own expectations that whole tournament, but all they needed was one more player to put up a good game for them to reach the Final Four. In what would have been the 34th game of his collegiate career, it’s not unreasonable to think Bynum could have been that player.
George Mason got whacked pretty good by Florida in the Final Four the next weekend. The Gators’ young front court of Joakim Noah and Al Horford outplayed Lewis and Thomas, and two nights later would win the first of consecutive national championships. The way UConn had sleepwalked their way through March, a similar fate likely awaited them in the semifinal had they beat George Mason, Bynum or not. But history would look a lot kinder upon a 31-win team that lost in the Final Four to the eventual champion, than on the group of talented, yet fatally flawed, Huskies that would split up after the season, sending five players to the NBA Draft, four in the first round.
Losing out on Bynum isn’t on top of the list of great UConn do-overs (hi Coach Pasqualoni), but it might have cost UConn another Final Four and contributed to the the 2006 team being permanently on the wrong side of history.
