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NCAA Tournament Discussion Thread - One Shining Moment - UConn Huskies

deacvision7 said:
said with the same confidence as people saying that the United States would win every World Cup if only we put our best athletes on the football pitch
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Wrong thread, but you will never not convince me this is also true, if we started our best athletes in soccer academies at 5 years old or whatever other countries do. I'm sure you're about to lecture me on how Lebron and Tyreke Hill wouldn't have had the mental fortitude or foot-eye coordination for soccer, though.
 
you'd have to assume that every kid in america has a ball at their foot from age six months to truly believe that

and if that were the reality, US could be pretty damn good at soccer
 
tigerswood said:
If we're really going to compare eras, this is going to get tricky. But I have to assume this UConn team would skull-drag 1972 UCLA. The level of athlete is just of a different caliber, and we have elite 3 point shooters (UConn has a few) these days. Not to mention better conditioning, nutrition, etc.
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I don't understand why people get defensive about the idea that athletes today are simply better at their sport than they were 50+ years ago. Shouldn't progress be a good thing?

I suppose people don't like the idea that their childhood favorite player would not be the same level of superstar if he was teleported to today's era.
 
DeacsATS said:
Sure, but it's also silly to assume that those players wouldn't also be better in today's environment.
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I think they would be better, but still not as good. And this assumes they are, in fact, worse than players today, which supports the argument that this UConn team would beat them.
 
catamount is going for the Wooden was coaching plumbers argument.
 
DeacsATS said:
Sure, but it's also silly to assume that those players wouldn't also be better in today's environment.
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I assume everyone thinks previous athletes would be better if they had access to today's resources, of course.

But tigerswood simply said that the 2024 UConn team would blow out a college basketball team from 50 years ago and dv7 scoffed at him.
 
Good chance they lose 4 of their 5 starters and their 6th man. Newton, Spencer and Diarra will be done. Castle and Clingan will likely declare for the draft. They've got some great depth, but it will be real difficult to replace those guys with the kind of system Hurley runs.
 
Castle and Clingan are projected by everyone to be first round picks. They are gone. As mentioned above, three of their biggest contributors are out of eligibility.

Will be a rebuild in Storrs, but with the momentum that the program has, the NIL money rolling in (one of the big UCONN NIL donors is Charli D'Amelio's dad), and the ability rebuild fast via the portal, fully expect UCONN to be really tough next year, but the roster will be totally different.
 
Kareem, Walton, and other era players would foul out within 5 minutes these days.
 
If we prioritized soccer like other countries, we'd win the world cup 4 times every 20 years. But it will never happen. Doubt we'll even get close in any of our lifetimes.
 
WFcatamount22 said:
I think DV7's point basically boils down to "college basketball teams aren't as good as they use to be in general".

I don't think that is true. Actually I think with the transfer portal stuff teams are better. It is really hard to win by having a bunch of freshman burger boys now. You need experience, because teams have gotten better.
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Interestingly, it does appear that one consequence of the transfer portal era is that a lot of teams are better than they were a few years ago. You have kids going to smaller programs and developing into high-major talent and then transferring to a major program where they play for a year or two as older, more experienced players - allowing major programs to essentially consolidate more talent - and more experienced talent. The high level programs are able to recruit really good players out of HS and then supplement their roster with really high level layers from lower level programs that have developed to a high major level.

This is why Duke's "recruit 5+ burger boys every year" strategy may not work anymore - sure they are talented but they are also 18 year old kids. Scheyer has already said they are going to start looking at the portal...
 
JuiceCrewAllStar said:
i don't know man, kareem and bill walton were bad dudes
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Generally modern athletes are certainly better - more skilled, healthier, more athletic. But certain players are generational talent and would be good to great in any era. If you watch tape of Kareem (Lew) I think it is easy to see that he would compare favorably to Edey, for instance.
 
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