STORRS — The floor at Gampel Pavilion was the original, the finishing touch when the building was new in 1990. A lot of history was pounded into that hardwood, before it was deemed too worn out to refinish and its pieces were sold off as souvenirs.
The old floor was the stage on which everything changed. The new floor, laid down this summer at a cost of $688,000 and open to the public Friday, needed to reflect that, and in the most succinct way.
The words “Basketball Capital of the World” are emblazoned in white on the sideline, in front of the scorers’ table for all to see, fans in the building, as there were thousands on First Night to cheer as the players and coaches were introduced, TV viewers, recruits. Let the world know it.
“I love having ‘basketball capital’ on the court, because it’s accurate,” Dan Hurley said, twirling the massive ring he earned with the national championship last April. “If it were delusional, I would’ve been against it.”
Geno Auriemma, who has held up his end, defies all who would debate.
“That decision was made when we said, ‘What differentiates us from other schools?’” Auriemma said. “And that’s the biggest differentiator right there, and if we’re serious about it, then let’s put it on the court. Are people going to argue about it? Is somebody going to start a campaign, ‘No, you’re not, we are?’ It is what it is.
“That’s what our fans say, that’s what we always say, so then say it, do it. So we did it.”
As Auriemma recalls it, the capital of the world concept came out of the student section, “and it just kind of stuck.”
The ring pic.twitter.com/SIxUnJ9vpa
— Dom Amore (@AmoreCourant) October 13, 2023
Of course, there are places in the country where basketball tradition stretches back to earlier decades, before UConn’s three-decades-and-counting of preeminence in both men’s and women’s basketball began. Maybe in one or the other, there are schools that can compare their history to UConn. But not both. No, that is the biggest differentiator.
“You just look at everything the last 25, 30 years on the men’s side,” Hurley said, “that’s couple more (championships) than anyone else. Then 11 on the women’s side, the Olympians, Hall of Famers, the most famous women’s basketball players of all time — it’s incredible how many of them are UConn Huskies.”
First Night fell on Friday the 13th, so if you’re superstitious, maybe you wonder if the old floor should have been changed. Neither program had been to a Final Four before the original hardwood was put down. With that floor as the foundation under them, the men have been to six and won five championships. The women have been to 22 and won 11 titles and most important, both can take the new floor knowing they are in the middle of the conversations about championship contenders in 2024.
Superstitious? Thirteen may be unlucky, but years ending in four have been harbingers of good fortune for the Huskies, and if there is a new floor, the old ceiling cannot hold the expectations for UConn men’s and women’s basketball.
First Night seemed like as good a time as any to reflect on all that has happened here, including the two magical years when both programs won championships, 2004 and 2014. Too many All Americans to name them all, but two coaches, Auriemma and Jim Calhoun, and three players, Rebecca Lobo, Swin Cash and Ray Allen, in the Hall of Fame.
“It’s funny, and maybe Jim feels the same way because he was here a long time,” Auriemma said. “But if you said, let’s go back to 1985 for me, and 1986 for Jim and said, ‘Let’s do it all over again,’ you would say, ‘It can’t be done.’ But it did happen.
“If you’d have asked me then if I ever envisioned anything like this happening, I’d have said, ‘You’re crazy. Let’s finish in the top four in the Big East.’ The goals were so modest then, that this could have never been imagined, not in a million years. Not what’s happened here.”
UConn men’s First Night: Huskies grab their championship hardware before taking center stage
After the women missed the Final Four for the first time in 15 years, there was absurd talk of a dynasty in decline. With the offseason to digest it, expectations for Auriemma and his program are right back in the stratosphere, a team expected to win the championship, or pose the toughest obstacle to whoever would win it.
The men will be trying to do what hasn’t been done on their side since Florida in 2007: repeat as champions. They have enough talent returning, and coming in, to be contenders.
So at this point in time in Storrs, up in the thick of our land of steady habits, the modest goals are long gone, the modesty could be tossed out with splinters of the old floor because “It’s not bragging,” Muhammad Ali famously reasoned, “if you can back it up.”
And the quality of life in Connecticut is better for it, certainly a lot more fun, year after year after year.
“We’ve done something no other school has ever done,” Auriemma said. “And we’ve done it twice. So we have a reason to brag about it, because it’s true. We’re not being arrogant about it. We’re just telling the truth.”
Glens Falls native Bill George looks back at 21 seasons with Coast Guard football https://t.co/HmUkXO500r via @poststar @CGA_Football #518football
— Pete Tobey (@ByPeteTobey) July 26, 2020
Autumn Reading
There’s a new book coming out, and it’s rather unique as sports books go. “Home Fields,” by former Coast Guard football coach Bill George, is a memoir with multiple layers of compelling stories intersecting in 2014, the 16th of his 21 seasons as coach at Coast Guard. George is telling the stories of his father, 87 at the time, and his memories of World War II, while coaching and raising his young daughter, who is getting to know her grandfather.
The book covers, “coaching football, the challenges of caregiving while being first-time parents and the loving interactions between an eighty-seven-year old man in hospice care and his red- headed granddaughter,” George writes. His message for readers: “Life is so very short for those whose dreams are cut short by fate and tragedy.”
A portion of the proceeds will benefit Lauren’s First and Goal Foundation, which raises money for brain tumor research and helps families dealing with cancer. The book is due out in November.
Sunday short takes
*Giants fans aren’t looking for silver linings right now, we get that, but in Connecticut, after a tough week at Windsor, let’s celebrate alum Jason Pinnock’s 102-yard pick six against the Dolphins.
Jason Pinnock 102 yard interception return touchdown!!!!! pic.twitter.com/CwFkKdpSCl
— Bobby Skinner (@BobbySkinner_) October 8, 2023
*Fifty years ago Sunday, I was among 70,168 at Yale Bowl watching the Giants lose to Washington, 21-3. Chris Hanberger took the ball right out of Norm Snead’s hands. (Dammit!). This reminds me: If you’re a Giants fan of a certain age and Bob Tucker wasn’t your favorite player, we cannot be friends. … Not even acquaintances.
*Hartford Athletic management wants you to know, with the courtship of Brazilian goalkeeper Renan Ribeiro, they are not messing around when it comes to improving the on-the-pitch product.
*UConn baseball assistant Jeff Hourigan was inducted into the Masuk High (Monroe) Hall of Fame. Can’t fathom a more deserved honor.
*Wouldn’t want to have been the first ballcarrier Dick Butkus saw up there.
*Timing Is Everything, the professional timing service, is working with the CIAC and the state’s high school coaches to run a series of clinics, teaching time-keepers how to manage the shot clock as it is introduced in high school basketball this coming season. Clinics currently planned are for Ledyard, Oct. 17 at 6:30 p.m.; Hall-West Hartford, Oct. 25 at 7 p.m., Woodland High Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. and Litchfield High Nov. 15 at 6 p.m.
The logos for the teams remaining in the MLB playoffs spell PHAT pic.twitter.com/OjIRwW1Bm8
— Baseball and Ice Cream (@Count2Baseball) October 13, 2023
Last word
Couple of thoughts on the MLB playoffs. In 2009, when there was a screwy October schedule with too many off days, then-Angels managers Mike Scioscia would say over and over, “This is the wrong template for baseball.” So true in 2023, with the teams with the top five records all done before the league championships. Bye weeks are not an advantage in baseball, and can be a disadvantage.
And this: The ostrich-size egg laid by the AL East, the Orioles, Rays and Blue Jays all swept, shows the division, while strong top to bottom, is not top-heavy with greatness. No reason the Red Sox and Yankees can’t make worst-to-first kind of moves in 2024 with the right kind of offseason change.
For both, especially the Yankees, that means staying away from long contacts of $100 million or more with one player, but spreading resources to fill half a dozen needs with solid veterans and short-term, relatively team-friendly deals, a model the Red Sox used to go from worst to first in 2013.
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