Tag: UConn

Notre Dame gives out team awards for 2022-23 season

Congratulations to the honorees.

For the second straight season, Notre Dame made noise that forced the women’s basketball world to pay attention to it. The impact this past year was even greater than the year before though. The Irish upset UConn during nonconference play, won the outright ACC regular-season championship and made their second straight Sweet 16. That’s a year almost any program would take.

The book on the 2022-23 season officially closed Wednesday when the Irish held their awards banquet. It had to have been tough for ACC Coach of the Year [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] and her staff to select the winners of these awards. Then again, when you look at who won, you probably won’t be surprised. These winners embodied the very things they were honored for, and if the awards had to be voted on again, it’s likely the same results would have come out.

Here are the players who shined the most for the Irish this season:

Ray Allen on his time with the Seattle SuperSonics, UConn Huskies

The Celtics alum recently spoke on his time on the court before he got to Boston.

Many of us basketball fans in southern New England remember Hall of Fame Boston Celtics shooting guard Ray Allen for his time playing basketball at the University of Connecticut or for winning titles in green and white near the end of his career.

A not-small contingent of Celtics fans are not over his decampment to the Miami Heat, but others think fondly of his arrival from the (then) Seattle SuperSonics to complete the star-studded cast that hung Banner 17 back in 2008. Jesus Shuttlesworth had game long before he got to Boston, even if that’s where he won his first ring.

The South Carolina native recently appeared on the “Dan Patrick Show” to talk about his time with the Huskies and playing ball in the Pacific Northwest as UConn worked toward winning the program’s fifth national title.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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Chantel Jennings: Notre Dame will be No. 1 ahead of ’24 NCAA tourney

Think the Irish can achieve this next season?

Naturally, it’s way too early to predict how the 2023-24 season will go, but that’s not stopping people from doing it anyway. The most recent episode of the podcast “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” wrapped up with predictions of which team will be the top ranked heading into the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Deitsch is picking UConn, a popular answer for such a question in any year. But Chantel Jennings, the senior women’s basketball writer for The Athletic, went out on a different limb.

In her attempt to win a coffee bet, Jennings predicted that Notre Dame would be the country’s top-ranked team right before the next edition of March Madness. She cited her belief that [autotag]Niele Ivey[/autotag] will acquire a lot of talent in the transfer portal. However, she also pointed out that it might not happen because of Notre Dame’s academic standards. Either way, it’s nice to know hopes for next season’s Irish are high for at least one prominent writer.

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Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Bengals fan Dan Hurley wins NCAAB National Championship

A Bengals fan nets a big win.

Big-time Cincinnati Bengals fan Dan Hurley led his college basketball team, the UConn Huskies, to a National Championship, beating San Diego State 76-59 Monday night.

Hurley and the Huskies won every game they played in March Madness by
double digits.

Hurley and his family posted a video on TikTok of their reaction to the Bengals beating the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship in 2022.

After the video went viral, Hurley said that he has been a Bengals fan since the Freezer Bowl in 1981 because he liked their uniforms and he thought they were tough.

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UConn is so much better at winning titles than everyone’s favorite college basketball teams it’s not even funny

And the stats back it up, too

Every year in March, we’re always talking about the same teams regarding the NCAA Tournament.

It’s Duke, Kansas, North Carolina, Kentucky and the like. All the schools everyone loves to call the “bluebloods” of college basketball. Each of them has a rich, storied history in the sport, so it’s reasonable for people to hold them in reverence.

But when you look at the numbers, it’s hard to figure out why newly minted national champion UConn is never included in so many conversations.

The March Madness champion will (almost definitely!) be one of these 8 NCAA men’s teams

With Monday night’s championship win, UConn’s men’s basketball team has truly begun to run laps around everyone’s favorite schools. The school has won five championships in the last 25 years.

The school stands alone in that. 

Three of those titles came within the last 12 years, including the 2011 Kemba Walker run.

It’s also worth noting that the school has managed to do this under the leadership of 3 different coaches during this run. Jim Calhoun, Kevin Ollie and, now, Dan Hurley.

That’s some pretty incredible stuff. Let’s be honest — it’s probably much better than what your favorite school has done in the same time.

If you didn’t consider UConn a blueblood of college basketball before, you absolutely have to now. It’s impossible to deny the program’s success — especially when you stack it up against the schools that we consider the creme of the crop in college basketball now.

UConn is not only among the best, but it’s better than the best. Next time, if we treat them like it, we might not be so surprised if the school makes another title run.

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Watch: 2023 edition of ‘One Shining Moment’

The wonderful NCAA Tournament tradition continues.

Notre Dame fans were disenchanted by their team’s season, but they could make up for it with the craziness that is the NCAA Tournament. March Madness lived up to its name with a vengeance this year, and people couldn’t get enough. But when it all was over and UConn was the final team standing, the time came for the annual tournament montage known as “One Shining Moment”. If you somehow weren’t able to see it live, we have you covered right here:

There is no shot of new Irish coach [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] in his Penn State wear, but maybe that’s for the better. No Notre Dame supporter wants to see him in anything but Irish garb now. More importantly, they want to see him do everything to get the Irish back in the montage someday. It might take some time with all the work he has cut out for him, but the Irish will return to the tournament someday, and it will be glorious.

Contact/Follow us @IrishWireND on Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Notre Dame news, notes, and opinions.

Follow Geoffrey on Twitter: @gfclark89

Why Bill Murray has been at UConn’s March Madness games

Here’s your answer!

It’s possible that if you’re reading this, Bill Murray is in the stands at UConn’s championship game against San Diego State. As a certain character of his might say, it’s been a real Cinderella story for the Huskies, and as you’ll see below, Murray has been in attendance for a bunch of the team’s games in the 2023 NCAA men’s tournament.

But why, you ask? Wasn’t it only a few years ago that Murray was a Xavier superfan? Well, yes! And the reason is the same!

Murray’s son Luke Murray was an assistant coach at Xavier … and now he’s an assistant under Dan Hurley.

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There you have it! Check out some photos of the elder Murray rooting on his son from the 2023 tourney:

Celtics champion Ray Allen on how a hotel burglary made March Madness malicious

The former Celtics shooting guard shares a story of how a UConn postseason run went awry off of the court.

Making the NCAA Tournament is more often than not the memory of a lifetime for a young basketball player. However, former Boston Celtic Ray Allen’s crack at the “Big Dance” was memorable for all the wrong reasons.

When he was representing UConn in the NCAA Tournament, Connecticut’s hotel rooms were burglarized while the team lost to UCLA.

“We get back to the hotel and somebody broke into our hotel and stole all our stuff,” said Allen in a recent interview with the “Dan Patrick Show.”

“Everything that was of value to me at that time was stolen from me,” explained the South Carolina native.

To hear the tale in full, listen to the clip embedded above to hear how one shining moment can occasionally turn into one major inconvenience.

Listen to the “Celtics Lab” podcast on:

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3zBKQY6

Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3GfUPFi

YouTube: https://bit.ly/3F9DvjQ

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UConn’s Andre Jackson shockingly said Russell Westbrook is his choice for NBA MVP

UConn’s Andre Jackson may have raised some eyebrows with this answer.

Before facing Miami in the Final Four of the NCAA men’s tournament, UConn’s Andre Jackson Jr. said something very surprising.

Jackson, who has played very well for the Huskies in the postseason, is one of the most intriguing NBA draft prospects who will play in the Final Four. He recently showed that he has an interesting perspective on the game and that he isn’t afraid to stray from the norm.

When he and other players in the Final Four were asked by Bleacher Report who they thought should win the NBA’s Most Valuable Player, the 21-year-old junior confidently said L.A. Clippers guard Russell Westbrook.

@bleacherreport Final Four teams weigh in on NBA MVP debate 👀 #marchmadness #mbb #nba #basketball ♬ original sound – bleacherreport

Most of his teammates and opponents predicted frontrunners like Nikola Jokic, Joel Embiid, and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Other past winners like Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant were mentioned as well.

Westbrook, who was named the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2017, has missed three consecutive All-Star games. He had trouble finding his role in the rotation for the Lakers and his teammates reportedly looked at him as a “vampire” in the locker room.

He was often used as a scapegoat when the organization struggled, it seemed like he was a frustrating teammate for LeBron James, and he got in a heated exchange with Lakers coach Darvin Ham before he was eventually traded.

Westbrook’s fall from league MVP to NBA journeyman is sad to watch, but it makes sense why Jackson is a fan. At the peak of his powers, Westbrook was one of the most athletic players in the game and he is currently the NBA’s all-time leader in triple-doubles.

UConn’s Dan Hurley has described Jackson as the “best athlete” he has ever coached. He has approached recording a triple-double in all four games that UConn has played during the tournament, notching 8 points with 9 rebounds and 10 assists in the Elite Eight.

Here is a fun stat to further illustrate the comparison: Jackson’s assist percentage (36.8), defensive rebound percentage (13.7), and true shooting percentage (53.4) in the tournament are all nearly identical to Westbrook’s assist percentage (39.1), defensive rebound percentage (13.7), and his true shooting percentage (55.2) on the Clippers.

Jackson is also averaging nearly as many assists in a transition offense (1.3) this season as Westbrook (1.5) in 2022-23, per Synergy. According to Hoop-Math, the UConn junior also assists on approximately as many 3-pointers per 40 minutes (2.7) as Westbrook (2.5) does as well.

Defenders also guard Jackson relatively similarly to how they currently defend Westbrook, sagging off when both are on the perimeter. More than 60.0 percent of Jackson’s jump shots are uncontested, according to our AI-Powered statistics provided by Stats Perform.

Jackson, however, has maintained a low usage rate while in college which lowers the risk of his team getting hurt by his scoring inefficiency.

Maybe a low-usage version of Westbrook isn’t exactly an unfair player comparison for Jackson, and perhaps the choice isn’t so shocking after all.

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UConn mascot Jonathan the Husky finally made it to the Final Four despite flight drama

UConn’s very good boy has made it to Houston.

Fret not, UConn fans and animal lovers: Jonathan the Husky has made it to Houston for the Final Four.

The Huskies are the only team left that has not only made a Final Four, but also won a men’s NCAA title. Connecticut’s last men’s basketball national championship came under Kevin Ollie after an unprecedented run in 2014.

The live mascot of the University of Connecticut — officially named Jonathan the XIV — seemingly wasn’t going to be able to take the trip due to being just a very big boy with lots of fluffy fur. A tweet from the official account of the mascot shared a picture of a very sad Jonathan.

Immediately, the powers that be mobilized. Just three days after the initial tweet, the same account shared a smiling Jonathan aboard a flight to Houston, thanking UConn, the NCAA and Delta for making his pooch dreams come true.

Since arriving in Houston, Jonathan has become a tourist and has taken to the streets to see all the sights.

Congrats on the biggest win of the tournament, UConn. Here’s hoping Jonathan has the absolute most fun.