I slept for maybe 2 hours last night, so you’ll have to forgive my lack of clarity and articulateness. It just seemed weird to still not have posted on here after we won our fourth National Championship.
Yes, I said “we.” I know that it has long been passé to refer to the team for which you root as “we,” but I have a very personal relationship with this program, as anyone who watched me unravel during the game last night could attest. As you’re all likely aware (since most of the people who read this are my friends from college), I went to UConn. Not only did I go there, but it was the only school to which I applied. The same holds true for my sister. I’ve been visiting UConn since I was a small child, as it is the alma mater of both of my parents, who met there and fell in love and schmoopy schmoop schmoop (yeah, this is about to get real sappy, so be ready). The first person I talked to after the game (excluding the random hugging dudes at the bar) was my mother, followed by my sister, followed by my father, who gets so tense during these games that he tried to go to bed halfway through, only to be constantly woken up by my hysterical mother. A hysterical mother who once woke me and my sister up after Tate George made some shot against Clemson.
I’ve felt a strong attachment to UConn longer than I’ve understood what college was. I knew Chris Smith and Rod Sellers before I knew Michael Jordan. I’m hardly unique in this regard, as almost any denizen of the Nutmeg State can tell you that UConn basketball is THE sport in Connecticut. Yeah, you’ve got your fans of various professional franchises, but this is our team, not New York’s, not Boston’s.
This attachment manifests in a number of ways. For example, since the first time I filled out a bracket in 7th grade, I’ve invariably picked UConn to win the championship. That year, I picked UConn over Georgetown in the final, including an all-Big East Final Four, with Syracuse and Villanova also making the final weekend. For the second time in four years, this compulsion (and it is a compulsion – I’ve tried to not do it a couple of times, and it’s impossible) has won me a March Madness pool (note for the IRS: all of my winnings this year were donated to Books For Africa).
So I get to brag that, yes, despite all the evidence, I believed that UConn would win the championship. After all, the evidence is right there in my bracket (actually three brackets, but who’s counting?). But that isn’t the whole truth. My wildest dream for this team was to make it to the Final Four, culminating with a close loss to eventual champ Florida in an instant classic. Dreaming of a championship just felt illogical. But somehow, even though I couldn’t quite visualize a championship, I was incapable of acknowledging that. I had to put UConn down to win. There was no logic. It was all in my heart.
See where I’m going with this?
The players on this team believed in themselves and in their coach, even when logic might dictate that they should have had doubts. Kevin Ollie was clearly outcoached this season by Larry Brown and Rick Pitino, making me wonder aloud if he was good enough to get a team to the Final Four. After all, in order to do that, he’d have to get past at least one or two great coaches. Then he went out and beat Phil Martelli, Jay Wright, Tom Izzo, Billy Donovan, and John Calipari, all of whom have won national coach of the year awards (he also beat Fred Hoiberg, a fine coach to be sure, but not with the same resume as the others). UConn got absolutely embarrassed by Louisville in their regular season finale, calling into question if they had the talent to really take on top teams in the tournament. Then they beat, in order, the Atlantic-10 Tournament champion (St. Joseph’s), the Big East regular season champion (Villanova), the Big 12 regular season AND tournament champion (Iowa State), the B1G tournament champion (Michigan State), the SEC regular season AND tournament champion (Florida), and finally, the preseason #1 team (Kentucky). How did they do it? As far as I can tell, they believed that they could, even when they shouldn’t have. None of this made sense, and that made it all the better.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I wasn’t absolutely ecstatic over the 1999 and 2004 titles, but the underdog stories of 2011 and 2014 bring a special sort of satisfaction. The Huskies’ first two championship squads featured unquestionable NBA talent, with strong depth and versatility. The 2011 team had Kemba Walker and a lot of question marks. This year’s team merely had a solid lineup with decent depth. It didn’t feature a transcendent talent like Richard Hamilton, Emeka Okafor, Ben Gordon, or Kemba Walker.
Right?
Unlike some people (Meghan, Alex, Tyler), I’m not going to get so caught up in the moment as to say that Napier is the best Husky ever. That being said, what this team accomplished this year, with Napier as the unquestioned leader, was amazing. I’m not sure that Napier’s supporting cast was better than Kemba’s, but this definitely felt more like a team than the 2011 team did. And what a team it turned out to be.
Congratulations gentlemen. You’ll be missed.
