This may be the most in-depth mailbag we’ve ever done. Our buddy @TCF_15, mastermind of UConnHuskyGames.com, and Peter fill up your viewing schedule. And we discuss underperforming UConn teams.
Remember: If your question wasn’t answered or you’ve been living under a rock and are just hearing about this, you can submit your questions here or on Twitter (@ADimeBack).
Jon asks: I have a mailbag question for you and @UConnHuskyGames: If I wanted to watch each senior’s best game, which game should I watch?
Nnamdi Amilo
Date: 12/23/2015
Opponent: Central Connecticut
Nnamdi’s only field goal during his senior season at UConn against CCSU with 2:46 remaining in the game.
Omar Calhoun
Date: February 13, 2013
Opponent: #6 Syracuse
Man, looking back at Omar’s freshman season just brings up thoughts of what could have been if it weren’t for hip and knee injuries. Omar averaged 11 points a game as a freshman, joining Nadav Henefeld, Donyell Marshall, Doron Sheffer, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Khalid El-Amin, Caron Butler, Ben Gordon, Rudy Gay, Jerome Dyson, and Jeremy Lamb as the only freshman in the Calhoun/Ollie eras to average at least 11 points as a freshman. His best game came during his freshman year against Syracuse, scoring 15 points (with three 3’s in the second half), helping Kevin Ollie achieve his first win over a top 10 team as a head coach.
Sterling Gibbs
Date: 1/9/2016
Opponent: Memphis
After a season sweep last year, UConn was out for revenge against Memphis. Thankfully, Sterling Gibbs was around this time and poured in 26 points, going 5-7 from three-point range.
Shonn Miller
Date: 1/23/2016
Opponent: Georgetown
Shonn Miller made his mark on the UConn-Georgetown rivalry with 15 points and seven rebounds to help UConn beat Georgetown for the first time 2011.
Phillip Nolan
Date: 3/30/2014
Opponent: Michigan State
Although best games are often determined by statistical output, the stat line for Phil Nolan’s game reads 27 minutes, four points and four rebounds. Within those 27 minutes, however, Nolan put on one hell of a defensive performance, helping limit Michigan State’s Branden Dawson (averaging 11.9 points on .535 FG%) and Adreian Payne (16.4 points on .503) to a combined 18 points on 4-17 shooting (.294) en route to UConn’s fifth Final Four appearance.
Tom (yes, Tom gets to both answer and ask questions) asks: top 5 Wesley Snipes movies.
In addition to creating the best UConn site on the Internet, folk hero TCF has now asked the greatest question in the history of the ADB mailbag. For those of you who do not know, I am a bit of an action movie junky. To the point where I make a custom wall calendar for my office every year, each featuring an action star from my formative years. Past years have featured Keanu Reeves, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and of course, the great Kurt Russell. This year, by some amazing serendipity (or maybe you knew about this, I don’t know), my pin-up boy is none other than Mr. Snipes himself.
Creating a top-5 for Wesley Snipes is tough, as he’s a talented and versatile actor with wide-ranging appeal. Your opinion on his best films may vary based on whether you prefer action, comedy, or action-comedy. But for my own personal tastes, here’s a top-5:
1) Major League – a straight comedy film in which Snipes was only a supporting character, Major League may be my favorite sports movie ever. It has heart, it has pluck, it has Charlie Sheen offering to drag a douchebag outdoors to kick the shit out of him. Snipes primary role is to provide comic relief alongside the more serious Tom Berenger and the volatile Sheen, and he performs admirably. His value became clearer upon the release of Major League 2, when his character of Willie Hayes was played by Omar Epps to disastrous and embarrassing results. Not a joke, I literally tear up at the end of the movie when Jake wills his battered, broken-down body to first base despite brutal knee pain. And I’m a Yankee fan.
2) Demolition Man – ostensibly a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone, Demolition Man sees the much more entertaining Snipes stealing every scene he’s in as semi-futuristic super-criminal Simon Phoenix. It’s one of the more rewatchable 90s action-comedies, and Snipes’ brutality mixed with his unique flair is the biggest reason for its incredibly entertainment value.
3) White Men Can’t Jump – one of the great buddy comedies of all-time, White Men Can’t Jump sees Snipes teaming with Woody Harrelson for the second time (after 1986’s Wildcats, before 1995’s Money Train) as LA court hustlers relying on the fact that nobody respects white basketball players (with good reason). They form an uneasy alliance of sorts, though with a fair amount of backstabbing, and a tremendous amount of laughter. Rosie Perez gives the performance of her life as Harrelson’s not-that-annoying girlfriend who inexplicably puts up with what a reprobate he is.
4) Blade – Blade is, in my opinion, the most underrated comic book movie. It gives Snipes an opportunity to showcase his formidable martial arts talent while wearing black leather and just generally looking like a huge badass. It’s dark, it’s violent, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
5) New Jack City – As the nightmarish drug lord Nino Brown, Snipes again steals the show by just being a horribly bad dude. New Jack City is more of a crime thriller than a traditional action movie, but it does have some great action sequences.
Honorable mentions go to Passenger 57, Drop Zone, and Rising Sun, for their contributions to the “big, dumb action movie” genre and also for Sean Connery.
Ben asks via email: Where does this year’s team rank in terms of underperforming UConn teams in the championship era? We’ve seen some up and down seasons before but not with this much talent on the court.
There’s varying levels of underperformance at play here, right? There were teams that had great seasons with incredibly disappointing or frustrating tournament performances (think 1996, 2006). It’s hard to get too worked up about those years (not that I wasn’t worked up in 2006), because a handful of made/missed shots would have completely changed your perception. The teams that have truly underperformed are the ones who never managed to pull their talent together over the course of a full season. This year’s team is a great example of that and, depending on what happens over the next two weeks, could end up near the top of the list.
However, the two teams that really stick out in mind are 2010 and 2012, for similar reasons. We’ll start with 2010, the less egregious of the two because the Final Four team of 2009 lost a shitload of talent in AJ Price, Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet. The returning roster included Jerome Dyson and Stanley Robinson in their senior years, and a plucky sophomore named Kemba Walker. That trio never found a way to coexist, with Dyson maintaining a stranglehold on the offense, and they limped to a 18-16 finish.
The champ of this category though is the 2012 team. As you may have heard, Walker piloted the 2011 team to a ring, then left for the NBA, leaving behind four of the five starters. The Huskies also brought in the best recruit in the program’s history, Andre Drummond, accompanied by highly-touted freshmen Ryan Boatright and DeAndre Daniels. On paper, the 2012 team is one of the most-talented roster in the program’s history (2006? 2004?), yet they lost 14 games including a first-round blowout in NCAA Tournament at the hands of Iowa State.
As for this year’s team, we’ll get back to you.
