When Sterling Gibbs and Shonn Miller arrived at UConn last summer, they brought with them a wave of expectations. The duo averaged a combined 33.1 points, 10.6 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game the season before, each earning awards in their respective conferences.
The Huskies had both a scoring and leadership void to fill with the graduation of star guard Ryan Boatright, and it appeared that Miller and Gibbs would combine to offer the solution.
Statistically, they did. Each averaged 12.3 points per game this season (tied for the third-highest on the team). By Win Shares, Miller was the most valuable player on the team (5.4) and Gibbs was the third (4.2). Their combined rebounding and assist totals dropped to 7.4 rebounds and 2.9 assists per game, but that was much an effect of a more balanced roster than a reflection of individual performance.
This year’s roster was an experiment. Never before — at least at UConn — at a team with Tournament aspirations imported two veterans players and slid them into the starting lineup. It was impossible to know how the team would react. Would the presence of so many veterans accelerate the timeline in which players learn to trust and depend on each other? Or would the arrival of players who experienced success at other schools throw the existing dynamic out of whack, creating a power struggle for touches on the court and leadership duties off of it?
With the season fully in the rearview, it seems apparent that the on-court chemistry took a while to develop. This team had difficulty settling into their roles. Up and down performances by much of the roster slowed the process of figuring how who was supposed to take the big shot and who was supposed to defer to others.
It wasn’t until the AAC Tournament that the team seemed to truly coalesce and sacrifice on behalf of the team. Of course, it helped that Daniel Hamilton asserted himself as the best player on the court for a weekend.
We’d been hearing since before the summer how much this team enjoyed being around each other, including from Gibbs and Miller. Most of the roster was on campus in June and July, before the rest of the study body arrived, and they often claimed to have formed the famous UConn brotherhood. We heard that repeated as they won games, but also as they lost them.
By the time the season finally came to a close on Saturday evening, that bond was obvious. As Gibbs and Miller concluded their brief UConn careers, each was forlorn; distraught that their time with this team team, and this university, was coming to end.
Gibbs broke down during the postgame press conference. The next day he tweeted, “You accepted me, you embraced me, you loved me…Thank you Uconn [sic]. Best decision of my life.”
Miller sat at his locker looking like a kid who’d lost his puppy.
While their run at UConn lasted only nine months, and into only the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament, Gibbs and Miller left an impact on the program because of their commitment to the team and their teammates.
As the saying goes, grad students today, Huskies forever.
