The Mighty Underdog
UCONN Basketball’s rise through the eyes of an unlikely fan
It was a warm, spring night in late March 1999.
My beloved Connecticut Huskies were playing for their first national championship against the vaunted Duke Blue Devils in a stadium thousands of miles away.
And I was at a band concert.
Of all the nights, my eighth-grade musical showcase happened to fall on the same night of the 1999 NCAA Men’s Basketball championship game. As much as I tried to wiggle my way out of it, I wouldn’t be watching — I’d be playing percussion on a stage behind 30-or-so of my classmates.
These were the days before smartphones, or Tivo, or even consistent internet connection. So I simply had to wait to find out who won the game after the concert was over, and then look forward to watching the recording on the VCR my dad had helped me set that afternoon.
The game was all I could think about. I probably didn’t play the timpani real great that night.
After all, UCONN was having a magical season. The Huskies owned an impressive 33–2 record, having won the Big East conference regular season championship and the Big East tournament title. They had been ranked the №1 team in the country from late November to early February. They had multiple All-American candidates, led by star swingman Richard “Rip” Hamilton and larger-than-life point guard Khalid El-Amin.
And yet, the Huskies came into the title game as underdogs. Big underdogs.
Duke was listed as a 9.5-point favorite, due mostly to their incredibly dominant run through the NCAA Tournament, having won their first four games by an average margin of 30.25 points, then dispatching of a talented Michigan State team in the national semis.
This Duke team was loaded with star power. Names like Shane Battier, Elton Brand, Trajon Langdon, Corey Maggette. You could trip and fall over an NBA prospect on Coach Krzyzewki’s roster.
So despite the incredible season, the Huskies were expected to lose — and perhaps lose convincingly.
But as I stood there on stage at the Union Colony Civic Center in Greeley, Colorado, I believed. I knew we could do it. I had faith that we could be the national champions.
I just had to wait until after the last song to find out.
— — — — —
How does a kid from Colorado become a UCONN fan, anyway?
It’s a great question, and one I’m asked often.
Anyone who knows me will tell you how much I love sports. And pretty much all my other teams reside in my home state of Colorado. I love the Broncos, the Avalanche, even the Rockies (though this is getting harder by the year).
But as a kid, my favorite sport to play was basketball. And the game that resonated the most to watch was college hoops. There was an energy to it, a passion, a sense of pride in the way these guys played for the school written across the front of their jerseys. And unlike the NBA, the game felt accessible. It didn’t feel too different from the kind of basketball I was playing in Junior High.
And of course, there was nothing like March Madness. The NCAA Tournament had already become one of my favorite yearly events. Filling out a bracket in March felt as ingrained in the calendar as making a Christmas wish list.
But as I watched more and more college hoops I realized something was missing. I needed a team. I needed a program to follow, to root for, to identify with.
In the 1990’s, the only national college basketball you could reliably catch on TV was Top 25 action. So my team (if I wanted to watch them) needed to be pretty good — a team that mattered in the national landscape, that found its way onto ESPN and CBS regularly enough. (Apologies to my alma mater, Colorado State, which wasn’t quite breaking on to SportsCenter just yet).
But there was absolutely no way I was going to root for Duke. Everybody liked Duke. They were the new kings of the sport. Coach K was the best coach in basketball. The Blue Devils had won back-to-back titles in ‘91-’92, the first team to do it since John Wooden’s UCLA dynasty in the ‘70’s. They were the bandwagon team, and I wasn’t jumping on.
I had no interest in North Carolina or Kentucky either, the “big brand” schools of college basketball. Kansas was sort of interesting, and at least regionally closer to me, but it just didn’t feel right.
Then one day, sometime in 1994, I saw the University of Connecticut playing. I can’t tell you exactly when it was, or who they were playing, I just remember noticing UCONN for the first time.
They were pretty good. They had this Ray Allen kid who looked as good as any college basketball player I had seen. He moved on the court like a Bob Ross paintbrush on the canvas. Smooth, artful, joyful. Happy little jumpers.
They had a fiery coach by the name of Jim Calhoun, who seemed to know exactly what he was doing at all times, and a whole lot of passion and confidence that bled through the TV screen.
They also had this sophomore guard from Israel named Doron Sheffer. Immediately, I was drawn to how he played the game. He wasn’t the flashiest or the most talented on the floor, but he played with intelligence and grit. He handled the ball like it was his prized possession. His movement on the court was strategic and controlled.
I decided to pattern my own basketball game after Doron Sheffer. He was my new favorite player. (You can watch a short video of his story here).
Oh, and there was one other thing. As a 9-year-old kid, I loved dogs. My parents hadn’t gotten us one yet, but I loved them and dreamed of having one someday.
So I loved the mascot — the Huskies. That old-school, white mascot with a handsome, stately, kind-but-confident face stood out to me. It looked like a dog that I might befriend. It looked like a dog that was out to prove itself to the world. Maybe it reminded me a little of myself.
That day, I became a fan of the UCONN Huskies. And I couldn’t have picked a better time.
— — — — —
Can you really call UCONN an underdog? After all, even back in the mid-90’s, the team was recruiting elite talent and regularly finding its way into the Top 25 rankings.
Fast forward to April of 2024, and the Huskies are getting set to play Purdue for a second consecutive national title, and their sixth in the last 25 years — the most of any program in America. More than Duke, Kansas and Kentucky combined over the same stretch.
Underdog? Really?
Let me explain. The University of Connecticut — for all intents and purposes — didn’t have a nationally relevant men’s basketball program until the late 1980s. Oh sure, they laced it up starting back in 1901. And there were some stretches of success on the way — including its run of 10 consecutive Yankee Conference championships in the 1950s.
But after that, UCONN mostly didn’t matter in the national conversation. After joining the brand-new Big East Conference in 1979, they played their way to five losing seasons in eight years, and never earned a berth to the NCAA Tournament.
The Huskies were essentially a punching bag among the giants of the Big East.
Then along came Jim Calhoun. Hired in 1986, the surly, experienced basketball coach had earned accolades for his job at Northeastern University, which achieved sustained success during his 14-year tenure.
Truth be told, Calhoun took a calculated risk in taking over at Connecticut. This was a program that was struggling to get out of the cellar of the conference standings. Coaching against elite programs like Georgetown and Syracuse and legendary coaches like John Thompson and Lou Carnesecca was no small task.
But Calhoun proved up to the challenge. After a rough first year, the Huskies worked their way to a winning record and a berth in the NIT in the 1987–1988 season.
Two years later, UCONN reached an unprecedented level of success, posting a 29-win season and advancing to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, the high-water mark for the program at the time.
How did Calhoun do it? It was a mix of undeniable basketball intelligence, competitive grit, and an honest, blue-collar approach to recruiting.
Donny Marshall, a standout forward for the Huskies from 1991 to 1995, tells the story of his first face-to-face meeting with Calhoun as a high school senior. After being visited by some of the top coaches in the country (who often rolled up to his mom’s apartment in fancy Cadillacs and with four or five assistants in tow), the Connecticut boss arrived one morning in a taxi cab.
After some conversation and a VHS tape showing some highlights of the program. Marshall wondered what was next — considering the coach had no vehicle to exit with.
“When are you going to leave?” the young Marshall asked the coach.
“I’ll leave when you want me to leave,” Calhoun responded.
The Coach stayed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And by the time he left, Marshall was convinced he wanted to be a Husky.
Marshall wasn’t alone. As the talent started rolling in — Allen, Hamilton, Knight — the wins followed. A national title in 1999. Then again in 2004 thanks to the play of dominant center Emeka Okafor and sharp-shooting guard Ben Gordon.
By the mid-2000s, UCONN basketball wasn’t just on the national map, it was a national powerhouse.
And yet, the program still wasn’t mentioned alongside the “blue bloods” of college basketball. Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, UCLA. UCONN was still considered in the “next tier” of hoops programs.
Maybe that’s just the way Calhoun wanted it.
His recruiting seemed to reinforce that fact. While he continued to bring in some of the country’s top talent. Calhoun had an incredible eye for the “next tier” of recruits as well. Guys like Caron Butler and Jeff Adrien and one Kemba Walker — whose incredible March run led the Huskies to their third national title under Calhoun in 2011.
These guys were really good players, but weren’t the nationally-known, slam-dunk future NBA stars that the blue-blood programs were attracting. Which meant they were hungry, motivated, out to prove they belonged at the table with anyone in college basketball.
“We had to (recruit) a different way,” Calhoun told ESPN in a recent interview. “I used the Big East as much as anything else. Play in Madison Square Garden, play against the best programs and players. The whole idea was to go all over the country. You want to play in that league? How about you come play for us and beat them.”
In other words, Jim Calhoun turned UCONN into a success by bringing in the type of player that mirrored the program: talented, tough, and a little bit overlooked.
The underdog, if you will.
— — — — —
Maybe that was a big part of what I loved about being a UCONN fan. Maybe I even identified with the underdog role to some extent.
In the mid-90s, I was still a shy, quiet and unassuming kid. Rarely did I speak up or make waves. My own game of basketball was developing, but nothing to stand out from the crowd.
Being a UCONN fan made me stand out, even if no one understood it at the time.
I remember wearing a Connecticut shirt to school one day and my friends teasing me about being a Husky fan. Who likes UCONN anyways? Why not root for one of the big programs like everyone else?
Before March of 1999, none of my friends had heard of Jim Calhoun. Most of them hadn’t heard of Rip Hamilton either. My older brother — a diehard North Carolina fan — loved to make fun of Jake Voskuhl’s hair and Calhoun’s funny New England accent. (This is the kind of stuff older brothers are good at.)
But I loved the Huskies. They were great, even if they weren’t the greatest.
And more than anything, they were my team. No one else at my school or in my family or in my world was a UCONN fan. Just me.
That’s what made it all the more intense when the Huskies found their way to that ’99 title game against Duke.
I can still hear my friends airing their opinions of what would happen.
“Duke is gonna kill ‘em!”
“UCONN doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Elton Brand will score 50!”
“At least you have a band concert, so you don’t have to see your team lose.”
Little did they know, it only added fuel to my fire. It only made it more awesome to be a UCONN fan. It was the Huskies against the world, and I was part of it.
— — — — —
Following the 2011–2012 season, Coach Calhoun decided it was time to step away. The legendary coach retired as a Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer, and handed the keys to the program to a former player from the early 1990’s and a member of his coaching staff, Kevin Ollie.
Ollie was the obvious choice, having played under and coached alongside Calhoun for years. And the early results were promising, despite a strange move from the Big East to the American Athletic Conference, thanks to the shifting sands of college football and league realignment.
In just the second year of the Ollie era, the Huskies went on another magical March run, this time led by senior guard Shabazz Napier. Another diamond in the rough (Napier was ranked just barely inside the top 100 recruits in the country coming out of high school), he sparked a team that was just-okay during the regular season to a suddenly red-hot behemoth capable of winning it all in March.
Sure enough, Shabazz and co. tore through the Big Dance. After defeating Kentucky in the final, the 7th-seeded Huskies became the highest seed to win a national championship since Villanova pulled it off as an 8-seed in 1985.
If you’re looking for a microcosm of the UCONN story, that team was it. A new, unproven coach. New, unheralded conference. A team that looked mediocre at best for most of the year. A 7-seed in the tournament.
And in the end, another piece of hardware to take back home to Storrs.
But after 2014, things got murky. The Huskies failed to back up their 2014 title, missing the 2015 NCAA tournament. The following year was improved, but UCONN only managed a 9-seed in the Big Dance, and bowed out with a second-round loss to Kansas.
The following two years saw the program hit rock bottom, or something close to it. In 2017, UCONN finished with a record under .500 for the first time since Calhoun’s first season in ‘86-’87. They followed that up with a 14–18 record in the 2018 campaign. And all of this in the AAC — a league where Connecticut was supposed to be the beast, not an also-ran.
To make matters worse, Ollie and the program were hit with NCAA violations related to recruiting and unsanctioned team activities, leading to results from the ‘16-’17 and ‘17-’18 seasons being vacated. (Ask any UCONN fan, and they’ll tell you they aren’t particularly sad about those two seasons being erased from the official record).
These were dark days for a program that cut down the nets in the Final Four just a few years back. And so the program parted ways with Ollie, resulting in an ugly legal back-and-forth between the school and the former coach that wasn’t resolved until 2022.
Needless to say, the shine was completely off the men’s basketball program in Storrs, Conn.
— — — — —
Sometimes it takes a journey through the valley to appreciate the view from the mountaintop.
Sports teaches that lesson as well as anything.
Growing up as a Broncos fan, I thought we’d never actually win a Super Bowl, until we finally did in 1997. The decades of struggle and four heartbreaking Super Bowl defeats made the moment John Elway hoisted the Lombardi Trophy all the more emotional.
Cheering for the Rockies, it seems as if a World Series title is as elusive as a day without traffic on I-25. But it also has made smaller wins like the team’s first postseason berth in 1995 or the miracle run to the Fall Classic in 2007 some of my favorite sports moments to ever witness.
Nothing makes you appreciate winning more than a heavy dose of losing.
So when UCONN hit its mid–2010’s lull, it wasn’t new territory for me as a fan. These things happen in sports.
But it certainly did add fuel to the fire of the UCONN-skeptics. “See,” they’d say, “Connecticut doesn’t belong in the blue blood conversation. They had a nice run under Calhoun, won a couple of surprise titles in 2011 and 2014, but they’re back to being an average program again.”
At the time, us Husky fans — if we’re being honest — feared that this might be true. Maybe the magic really was built on Calhoun’s shoulders alone. Maybe the run was over. Maybe UCONN would never be UCONN again.
What the program needed was someone as familiar with being counted down and out as the program felt at the moment.
And that’s exactly why all signs pointed to one name and one name only: Danny Hurley.
Dan Hurley, the son of legendary high school coach Bob Sr., and younger brother of Duke legend and NBA lottery pick Bobby Hurley, is the epitome of an underdog.
Despite being a standout high school basketball player and being recruited to play at Seton Hall, Hurley lived under the constant shadow of his older brother’s success. Chants of “you’re not Bobby!” followed him from arena to arena. The expectation was that he would be just as good — or better — than Bobby, but he simply wasn’t.
The pressure led to major anxiety, which in turn led to a mental health crisis for Hurley, causing him to step away from basketball for a year.
It was there at Seton Hall that he met a psychologist who began to help him battle through the darkness. It was there that he began to face the demons in his mind.
It was in the valley that he found his strength.
“I was a broken kid in college,” Hurley told the New York Post in 2018. “I was lost at times … incredibly dark mental places at times. So I had to fix myself at a stage of my life, and now I’m kind of addicted to doing it.”
Perhaps learning to “fix” himself gave Hurley just what he needed to fix a program in disarray. And that’s exactly what he set out to do in taking over at UCONN.
It wasn’t easy early on. The program had fallen from its previous heights. Recruiting players to a program in the AAC coming off two straight losing seasons wasn’t easy. But Hurley’s passion and belief in the direction of the program began to catch on, and the talent slowly started to roll back in.
After a 16–17 record in his first season, the Huskies improved in the 2019–2020 campaign, climbing back to a winning record. And had the postseason not been canceled due to the COVID pandemic, the Huskies may just have played their way into the NCAA Tournament.
Nevertheless, the signs of coming success for the program were present. Hurley believed in it so strongly that he made a now-iconic statement following a loss to Villanova in January of the 2020 season.
“People better get us now,” he told the media in the post-game press conference. “That’s all. You better get us now. Because it.. it’s coming.”
And boy did it come.
The talent began building: nationally regarded players like James Bouknight, Tyrese Martin and Adama Sanogo showed up on campus.
The NCAA appearances returned as well, including the program’s first appearance in five years in 2021.
There was even a return to the familiar setting of the Big East. which the Huskies officially rejoined in that same season. Everything started to feel right again in Storrs.
But nothing prepared the college basketball world for what would happen in the 2022–23 season. After a scorching start to the season which included a 14–0 non-conference record, the Huskies struggled through a tough early slate in the Big East, losing six of eight contests.
UCONN got back on course in February and March, falling one basket short of a return to the Big East Tournament championship game, then earning a 4-seed in the Big Dance.
And that’s when things really got fun. UCONN overcame a halftime deficit in the first round of the Tournament to Rick Pitino-coached Iona, ultimately pulling away for a 87–63 win. The Huskies pulled off a similar feat in a second-round blowout of St. Mary’s.
Then came the spotlight of the first-ever Sweet 16 and Elite 8 to be held in Las Vegas. The bright lights of Sin City shined on the Huskies as they rampaged past Arkansas and then stunned national title-contending Gonzaga with a 28-point stomping in the regional final.
Getting to UCONN games is tough when you live out west, which is why I haven’t been to as many Huskies games as I would like. But thanks to my brother’s 40th birthday gathering, I was there in Vegas for those historic wins.
And I was among the mass of UCONN fans who crowded around the first-level seats as the team cut down the nets at the T-Mobile center, celebrating a return to the Final Four. And I watched and cheered as Dan Hurley climbed the latter, and took down what remained of the net, turned around and swung it toward the crowd in jubilant — maybe even defiant — celebration.
UCONN was back. Dan Hurley had led them back to the top of the mountain — culminating with a fifth national championship nine days later in Houston.
But I’ll never forget that night in Vegas. I’ll never forget giving Hurley a handshake as he walked past the fans near the team’s locker room tunnel following the celebration. All I could say in that brief moment was, “thanks Coach.”
Because Hurley had done more than lead UCONN back to national prominence again. He had done more than build a great basketball program again.
Hurley had embodied what it means to be a UCONN Husky. His own personal story of overcoming adversity and proving himself against all the doubters in the world and in his own soul — resonated with me in a profound and personal way.
It seemed as though Hurley intersected the moment and this program in a way that even the greatest script writers couldn’t imagine.
It felt like vindication. Proof that the past two decades-plus of basketball was no fluke. Proof that the Huskies could never be fully counted out, they’d find a way to climb the mountain as many times as necessary.
UCONN was back because — thanks to Danny Hurley — it had found its fire again.
— — — — —
The band concert was finally over. It was the last one of my eighth-grade year, thankfully.
I waited in the backstage area, twirling drumsticks in my hand, looking for my parents to come pick me up and head home.
When I finally spotted my dad, my mom and my brother among the families arriving to the pick-up area, I saw smiles on their faces. Something told me that it wasn’t because I had nailed that last part of the theme from Jurassic Park.
They’d heard the score. UCONN had won. We were national champions.
Now all that was left to do was to watch the recording on the VCR at home, which I did at least two times that night.
I’ve been fortunate to celebrate a lot of championships for my favorite teams over the years, but none have been as special or as surprising as that one. My team had won. Despite what everyone said. Despite how great Duke was. Despite the fact that their biggest fan in Colorado was unable to watch the game.
I had picked this team back in 1994, and five years later it was clear I had chosen well. You better believe I held my head extra high at school the next day.
Now my friends knew about UCONN. Now the world knew.
But the truth is, no one jumped on the Husky bandwagon with me, not even after that win. My friends still preferred Duke or Carolina or even UCONN rival Syracuse and their star players like Carmelo Anthony.
Connecticut was still on the outside looking in — just barely perhaps — when it came to the national landscape of college hoops. And despite all the ensuing success, some still doubt that the Huskies belong in the blue-blood conversation.
And you know what? I think that’s just the way it should be.
Because UCONN isn’t Kentucky or North Carolina. It doesn’t have a century of success and championships.
UCONN isn’t UCLA, who rattled off the greatest stretch of championship basketball in the history of the sport.
UCONN isn’t Duke, who finds its way to the top of the highlight shows every time it plays.
No, UCONN is something different. Despite the national championships. Despite all those talented players and NBA draft picks. Despite playing for what would be an historic repeat national championship on Monday.
Despite all the success, they’re still somehow the underdogs. In so many ways they are mighty — yet still often discounted and overlooked compared to the big dogs. Just like they’ve always been.
And that’s what makes it great being a UCONN fan. Because the Huskies will always have that extra motivation to prove themselves, to quiet the doubters, to find the internal motivation to be the best.
The underdog never stops being hungry.
That won’t change even if the Huskies win their sixth championship in Phoenix, which I’ll be watching at home alongside my wife and four little girls — all UCONN fans-in-training.
This time, no VCR will be needed.
