A Perfect End to an Imperfect Season

Uconn's Season Ended The Way it Should Have...With a Heartbreaking Loss

Everything was there for a semi-magical end to the season: the other team that has been berated in the media for their bad performance, UNC, was knifing through the NIT, their main man Jerome Dyson was finally playing like he had millions of dollars riding on the line with his last couple of games and the ball was in the most consistent player of the year, Gavin Edwards, with a chance for a win... and it all came "rushing" down.

Everyone that cares about them knows that the University Connecticut MEN'S basketball team had underperformed all year. Something was missing from this team; to most that watched it was leadership. Jerome Dyson was supposed to be the leader for this Final Four caliber team, but when they needed him most, he failed, and failed gloriously.

From average games, to poor games and then finally at the end of the regular season and Big East tournament, to bad games for Jerome Dyson, it was clear that something was amiss and the team took the brunt of his bad play; Uconn dropped from NCAA tournament consideration to maybe on the outside of the NIT.

The leader for the team by the end of the year (and for at least one more to come) was clearly Kemba Walker; he had been playing out of his mind and it was clear from simple facial gestures that Walker has a killer's heart and should be something to behold next year when he finallly has his mad rushes under control.

It was those same mad rushes that made Uconn so dangerously good...and so dangerously bad. When the team was on, nobody could stop them (just ask Texas, Villanova and West Virginia), when they were off, anyone could beat them (just ask Providence, Michigan and St. John's). Uconn could run any team off the court, including themselves.

There were times this year when you would just marvel at Jerome Dyson barreling into the key and drawing the foul, but they were other times, too numerous to count, where Dyson or Walker would be barreling down the court and chuck an ill-conceived alley-oop for Stanley Robinson or simply lose control of the ball.

They were an enigma; at times both beautiful and painful to watch, and it all came to a head at the Virginia Tech game.

They showed their experience by not being phased by an unusually large NIT crowd, but showed their complete lack of leadership and true experience by not being able to handle a 2-3 zone (the same zone they dismantled only a month before at the Carrier Dome). The player lost in all of this is Stanley Robinson, who himself was more of a riddle than anyone else.

Robinson could take a game over with his thunderous dunks and streaky three-point shooting, but then fade into obscurity as fast as his leaps to the rim. He never really learned how to dominate in the low-post against smaller players nor how to drive past faster players; it will only be in the NBA where people will see just how great of a player he can be (my only reasoning being I have seen him play for three and a half years and know how good he is, he only has to develop that killer instinct that the entire team seemed to lack).

But with all the problems of this year's team there was one great story, Gavin Edwards and his meteoric rise as one of the most consistent, if not best, sixth men in the country. Edwards morphed from a shaky bench player to almost a certified double double man every game. His defense was spectacular and he was the only man on the team that could score in the pain with ease.

That is what made the last sequence so perfectly imperfect...

Down by one with about ten seconds left in the game, Kemba Walker drove a little too far, took an ill-advised jump-shot... the shot was blocked, but, like so many times before, he fought for the ball, got it back, drove again, and, with about four seconds left, made a beautiful pass to Gavin Edwards who took the pass in mid-air with no one around him and time on the clock....

But like seemingly everything else that went wrong this year for the Huskies, he rushed when he did not have to; Edwards, most likely thinking there was less time on the clock, caught the ball in mid-air, spun towards the hoop and shot, without ever touching the ground. The end result was a missed lay-up, maybe the only thing Edwards did not do right during the game. The shot clanked off the rim, but there was still time for a rebound and put back, but again, the team that seemed plagued all year was yet again plagued, but this time by the hard-work that eluded them most of the year.

Edwards went for the rebound and had position, but Kemba Walker, who had never given up on the play, unknowingly battled Edwards for the rebound and it bounced off both players and right into the hands of Virgina Tech. One for two at the line for Tech left Uconn with a sliver of hope, 0.7 seconds, and the last desperation heave fell short.

For a team that rushed through their season at a somehow breakneck, but snail-like speed, the Edwards hasty and ill-fated shot was the perfect way to end the season... It was just an imperfect ending for the team and their fans.