2009 UConn women: Greatest college team ever?

I realize the men's and women's games are two different sports, but there's always seems to be a comparison between coaches. If you can compare coaches, why can't you compare teams?

 

The 2002 UConn women's team would beat this team by at least 10 maybe 15 points and the USC teams with Cheryl Miller, Cynthia Cooper and the McGee twins was better and the Texas team in 1986 was better.

This team was great but I'm not sure it was in the top five in terms of best women's teams ever.

And to even try and compare it to mens is a silly and futile excercise.

 

But that is wrong as well - the 2002 team won on average by more points per game than this year's team did, so even the gap between them and everyone else was larger than this year.

 

So, it's kind of like old-time college football when Oklahoma and the like stockpiled talent?

 

Junkie - Here is the scariest thing -- the Huskies have won five of the last ten national titles -- and had it not been for major injuries in 2001 and in 2007 they likely would have won seven.

 

Actually, the level of development and competitive balance between men's basketball in the early 1970s and women's basketball now is probably somewhat comparable.

Both sports had been in existence as a reasonably-popular public attraction for about 25-30 years. Each of them, just about every season, have one titanically dominant team and a group of maybe a dozen other teams which could conceivably win a title if the juggernaut were to somehow slip.

UConn and Tennessee have won 10 titles over the last 12 years, exactly equivalent to UCLA's men from 1964-1975.

No college basketball team, either men's or women's, from the 1980s, could touch any team today. They'd get run off the court. Run. Off. The. Court.

One funny thing about having the Big Ten Network is that to fill the huge gaps of time when they have no live action, they run tapes of old, old games. They showed the 1979 Bird-Magic game last week.

Not one single player, aside from Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, on either roster, could start for a top-20 team today. Only a handful could even make a roster as the 10th man. The 12th man on North Carolina's roster last night would have been the third or fourth-best player on the court in the Bird-Magic game.

They also showed the Michigan-Seton Hall game from 1989, and the talent disparity is pretty dramatic there too. Glen Rice would play today, Terry Mills would be a marginal starter. Once again, hardly anyone else would set foot on the court.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with how dominant these teams were in relation to their own competition.

 

Andrew Gaze may have made it today just for his perimeter shooting.

 

The Jordan-Worthy-Perkins teams couldn't touch any team today?

How about the Ewing-David Wingate-Reggie Williams team?

Clyde Drexler-Hakeem Olajuwan-Alvin Franklin teams?

You really think teams today are running Derrick Colemon, Sherman Douglas, Rony Seikly, Steive Thompson and Greg Monroe off the court?

How about Nick Anderson, Kendall Gill and Marcus Liberty and Kenny Battle at Illinois? Or Rumeal Robinson, Glen Rice, Loy Vaught, Terry Mills from Michigan?

Give.Me.A.Break.

OK

Give.Me.A.Break.

Ain't none of those teams getting run off the court by any of the teams in this era, I don't give a shit about better weight training. Some of those teams might have lost to the best teams of this era, but not by much and seven game series would have gone seven.

For one thing, most of those teams were senior laden -- those guys for the most part stayed around.

For another, the sport had already begun the transition to the more athletic version of today and all of those teams were loaded with athletes.

And if you really believe the USC team with Cynthia Cooper -- who by the way dominated the best players of this era for about ten years in the WNBA -- and Cheryl Miller -- who was 6-foot-2 and played like she was 5-foot-11 -- would get run.off.the.floor. by these teams today, you really are pretty clueless about just how good -- and athletic -- they really were.

That 2002 Connecticut team is the best team ever, this year's team ain't in the top five.

 

Hard to judge without tournament play. The 1972 UCLA team only won the championship game by five. Then again, Indiana '76 beat Nos. 2, 5, 7, and 9 to win, which no team will ever have to again. Me? I'll take the first Alcindor UCLA team, but this UConn women's team pretty much crushed the world.

 

Comparing coaches is stupid, too.

 

Terry Mills was a marginal starter then too.

But I can't believe you would think that Greg Kelser or Sam Vincent wouldn't start on a top 20 team.

 

Then again, if those guys were playing today they'd be on their high school teams 2 AAU squads and would be just as good as the current players.

Different era.

It's just like how there were sportswriters who had job security 20 years ago. Now you need a degree, 4 internships, 2 years of work experience and you still get laid off.