What do you want to know about Wagner, UConn's opponent tomorrow night? Here's all you probably need to know: the Seahawks are coached by the Brothers Hurley: Dan, the former Seton Hall guard, and Bobby -- yes, that Bobby, of Duke fame. Not to be confused with Duke Fame from a little thing I like to call the greatest movie ever made, 'This Is Spinal Tap' ("Duke Fame has this much talent!")
(By the way, I'm still not 100-percent sure why UConn fans hate Duke so much. Please feel free to explain, if you'd like).
Anyway, Wagner returns all five starters from last year's 13-17, 9-9 (Northeast Conference) team. The Seahawks had a nice win in their opener on Saturday, popping Princeton on the road behind 15 points from Tyler Murray, a 6-5 senior guard, and 14 points and nine rebounds off the bench from Josh Thompson, a 6-5 junior forward.
UConn should get a boost from the return of Niels Giffey, who fully participated in both practices this weekend and has been cleared to play tomorrow night. Tyler Olander aside, the Huskies will need to improve their frontcourt play, however.
And the Huskies also have this on their side: they haven't lost a regular season, November or December game in Storrs since Dec. 5, 1973 – a streak that spans 100 games. UConn has never lost at Gampel Pavilion in November or December. That’s 55-0, people.
Who says there's no such thing as a little home cookin'?
Multiple generations of UConn fans have experienced differing levels of misery at the hands of the hated Dukies. They knocked us out of the tournament on 3 different occasions ('64,'90,'91). 64 ended the original dream season. '90 ended the actual Dream Season, and in '91 they ended our cinderella 11 seed story.
ReplyDeleteMore than that though, it's what happened AFTER those seasons that caused the hate to truly develop. Suddenly Duke became the face of ESPN as their college basketball coverage began to hit its stride. They seemed to fall in to #1 seeds in the tournament year after year a Vitale screamed praises of the sainted Coach K. During this time Duke developed its national fanbase as well as scores of Duke haters. UConn fans were a part of this group, but we had a head start on everyone else.
The victories over them in '99 and '04 went a LONG way in exercising those old demons, but those of us who experienced the birth of Husky Nation in '89-'90 will NEVER truly get over that horrible afternoon in East Rutherford. Hence our hatred.
UCONN is playing in a Duke world. That's why. They get the high seeds without earning them, don't typically play hard schedules, and ......everyone hates Duke. We are the late bloomers in the Kentucky, duke, north Carolina, kansas, UCLA, and Indiana basketball royality so naturally we feel we have to hate those above us because we as competing with them for championships.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the feedback. Gives me a little bit of a better understanding. I get that Duke is kind of like the Yankees, in that everyone either loves them or hates them, no middle ground.
ReplyDeleteAs for hanging on to losses from 1964 (!), and even 1990 and '91, I guess I'd say: Get over it!!! As a Red Sox fan, I was completely over 1918 and 1949 and Bucky Dent and Aaron Boone after the 2004 ride. But that's just me.
I think of UNC as being the equivalent to the Yankees not duke. UNC has an enormous fan base, a lot of which seems to be because of Jordan going there or that they always win.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone hates duke because their players are annoying, they usually have a majority of goofy white kids playing on their team. Also their fan base is annoying as hell. Duke always gets a special treatment from ESPN and guys like Dickie V.
They are an easy team to hate and everyone gets pleasure out of them losing, much like the Yankees BTW. Is it that hard to see why fans hate a team from a school of arrogant rich kids?
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