Khalid El-Amin ESPN news segment from 1997
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A winner at every level of basketball- championships in high school, college and in multiple professional leagues of Europe. He was very good as a freshman and UConn went from NIT before his arrival to Elite 8 his first year and NCAA championship his sophomore year. Probably the best traffic ballhandler ever to play at UConn. He proved it in the 1999 championship game.
KSTW, u got me thinking about that 1999 team...it was amazing on a few levels.
1st off it was our 1st, like your 1st time gettin it done
you never forget.
It was unforgettable cuz it was against Duke, the team that broke our hearts during the dream season run.
The roster was filled with...non-NBA players. I think this was a discussion maybe Blades started a few years back about having a recipe of a few NBA level players surrounded by solid role players...let's call it the Core/Satellite model (sorry Blades if i'm off on this). But think about it, it was Rip....Voskuhl (unbelievably played 9 yrs in the NBA), then they had a bunch of non NBA pro players (not dissing them, just stating a basic fact) El Amin, KFree, Saunders, Ricky Moore, Rash Jones, Albert Mouring, Justin Brown, EJ Harris...am i missing anyone? I think the model is still the same...or at least similar.
If i remember correctly, our bench outplayed theirs. Not bad for a program that John Thompson & Rollie M used to laugh about back in the day. More depth than Duke? Imposserous. Esp when Duke had a future 1st rounder in CMaggette & we had SWane. Great coaching, great teamwork, great win!
Wow, so after putting all the names down here, i just realized almost every player played professionally at one level or another. But again, only Hamilton was a star, and to be honest not sure most people thought he would do as well as he did in the NBA.
Ok, back to 2016-17...
1st off it was our 1st, like your 1st time gettin it done
you never forget. It was unforgettable cuz it was against Duke, the team that broke our hearts during the dream season run.
The roster was filled with...non-NBA players. I think this was a discussion maybe Blades started a few years back about having a recipe of a few NBA level players surrounded by solid role players...let's call it the Core/Satellite model (sorry Blades if i'm off on this). But think about it, it was Rip....Voskuhl (unbelievably played 9 yrs in the NBA), then they had a bunch of non NBA pro players (not dissing them, just stating a basic fact) El Amin, KFree, Saunders, Ricky Moore, Rash Jones, Albert Mouring, Justin Brown, EJ Harris...am i missing anyone? I think the model is still the same...or at least similar.
If i remember correctly, our bench outplayed theirs. Not bad for a program that John Thompson & Rollie M used to laugh about back in the day. More depth than Duke? Imposserous. Esp when Duke had a future 1st rounder in CMaggette & we had SWane. Great coaching, great teamwork, great win!
Wow, so after putting all the names down here, i just realized almost every player played professionally at one level or another. But again, only Hamilton was a star, and to be honest not sure most people thought he would do as well as he did in the NBA.
Ok, back to 2016-17...
Shaggy,
You are correct that the 1999 team was very deep. One could argue that was the deepest core of guards UConn ever had. After El Amin and Moore (best traffic ball handler and best defender at point guard in UConn history respectively), Mouring was a very good 3 point shooter, Jones was an excellent defender and a tremendous player in transition, and E.J. Harrison was quite possibly the best walk on player in UConn history (and he played for Western CT as I recall before UConn). Harrison got meaningful minutes in some late season games and played extremely well.
Up front a key reserve was Wane. Although he was never as good as I thought he would be, he was a huge body, and contributed to the win over Duke on offense and on defense. UConn used Wane and Voskuhl to double team Elton Brand and the double teams bothered Brand and disrupted Duke. Edmund Saunders was also a very good contributor off the bench and does anyone recall his dunk against New Mexico earlier in that NCAA tourney? It was a highlight of that tourney. That group of forwards comprised one of the great rebounding teams in UConn history and the ONLY reason UConn beat Gonzaga in the Elite 8 game was superior work by Voskul and Freeman crashing the boards late in that game. The 2004 team may have been a little stronger on the boards, but the 1999 team was an all time great rebounding team. I recall after they lost to UConn, one of the Gonzaga players said to the press, "we could feel them crashing harder on the boards the last 5 minutes......that's where they beat us."
You are correct that the 1999 team was very deep. One could argue that was the deepest core of guards UConn ever had. After El Amin and Moore (best traffic ball handler and best defender at point guard in UConn history respectively), Mouring was a very good 3 point shooter, Jones was an excellent defender and a tremendous player in transition, and E.J. Harrison was quite possibly the best walk on player in UConn history (and he played for Western CT as I recall before UConn). Harrison got meaningful minutes in some late season games and played extremely well.
Up front a key reserve was Wane. Although he was never as good as I thought he would be, he was a huge body, and contributed to the win over Duke on offense and on defense. UConn used Wane and Voskuhl to double team Elton Brand and the double teams bothered Brand and disrupted Duke. Edmund Saunders was also a very good contributor off the bench and does anyone recall his dunk against New Mexico earlier in that NCAA tourney? It was a highlight of that tourney. That group of forwards comprised one of the great rebounding teams in UConn history and the ONLY reason UConn beat Gonzaga in the Elite 8 game was superior work by Voskul and Freeman crashing the boards late in that game. The 2004 team may have been a little stronger on the boards, but the 1999 team was an all time great rebounding team. I recall after they lost to UConn, one of the Gonzaga players said to the press, "we could feel them crashing harder on the boards the last 5 minutes......that's where they beat us."
