Alright you guys. Buckle up. What follows might be the single biggest waste of time endeavor in the history of A Dime Back — no small feat considering our body of work. Like most of our bad ideas, this one began with a simple, pointless question within the ADB Slack channel. In this instance, during a conversation about UConn great Wes Bialosuknia, this question was posed: who’s on the All-B team?
Ryan Boatright, surely. Josh Boone? What about Taliek Brown?
That begat a two-day long deliberation of the best 5-man rosters we could construct using players whose last names began with the same letter.
So we did that… for every letter in the alphabet, considering every player in UConn history.
Over the next two days we’ll give you those rosters and — because we’re nothing if not on-brand — we’ll have you vote to decide which team would actually win in a tournament.
Today, we have four play-in games, the winners of which get to face the four 1 seeds tomorrow.
Pour out a little liquor for the six letters who don’t have enough players to qualify: I, Q, U, X, Y, Z. Art Quimby and Vin Yokabaskas should have had differently named parents, if we’re being honest.
Let’s begin:
N
G: Shabazz Napier
G: Nels Nelson
F: Karl Niederwerfer
F: Ed Nelson
C: Phil Nolan
T
G: Jamal Trice
G: Ryan Thompson
F: Shamon Tooles
F: Corny Thompson
C: Hasheem Thabeet
This is the rap battle the world needs: Ed Nelson vs. Shamon Tooles.
A-Z Tourney: Round 1 -- N vs. T
- Team N (88%, 142 Votes)
- Team T (12%, 20 Votes)
Total Voters: 142
Loading ...PG: AJ Price
G: Worthy Patterson
F: Steve Pikiell
F: Rodney Purvis
C: John Pipczynski
VG: Jerry Vartelas
G: Alfonso Vaughn
F: Mike Vaughan
F: Charlie Villanueva
F: Jake Voskuhl
The fun thing about undergoing this pointless exercise is putting yourself in the position of imaging Rodney Purvis play power forward. Also, Team P vs. Team V makes us giggle for obvious reasons.
A-Z Tourney: Round 1 -- P vs. V
- Team P (65%, 106 Votes)
- Team V (35%, 56 Votes)
Total Voters: 142
Loading ...OG: Kevin Ollie
G: Tyler Olander
F: Alex Oriakhi
F: Charles Okwandu
C: Emeka Okafor
LG: Pat Lenehan
G: Jeremy Lamb
F: Dennis Long
F: Rakim Lubin
C: Alfred Lewis
[siren emoji] TYLER OLANDER AT SHOOTING GUARD! The O-team is essentially the opposite of Meghan’s all-guard-everything fantasy. At least Pat Lenehan will finally get the starting role he deserves.
A-Z Tourney: Round 1 -- O vs. L
- Team O (93%, 151 Votes)
- Team L (7%, 12 Votes)
Total Voters: 139
Loading ...FG: Jimmy Foster
G: Brian Fair
F: Sam Funches
F: Kevin Freeman
C: Kentan Facey
J
G: Phil Jones
G: Marcus Johnson
F: Rashamel Jones
F: Rudy Johnson
C: Vance Jackson
Vance Jackson is the first and only player to participate in this prestigious fake competition who hasn’t actually played at UConn. He will, however, become only the fifth player in Husky history with a last name beginning with J. Go figs.
A-Z Tourney: Round 1 -- F vs. J
- Team F (51%, 82 Votes)
- Team J (49%, 79 Votes)
Total Voters: 134
Loading ...Tomorrow the winners of these match-ups will face the top seeds, and four additional contests. Is this fun? Are you having fun? No? Oh.
