Saying Goodbye: Stanley Robinson

In this world of NBA Draft early entry and one-and-done freshman, it is difficult to become attached to a college star. They simply don't hang around long enough. But when they do, there is an attachment to that player that is difficult to explain. For me, there will always be a soft spot in my heart for guys like Kirk King and Khalid El-Amin, as I'm sure there is for any fan of any team.

We reached out to some of the blogosphere's best, and over the next couple of weeks we will be running a series of posts saying goodbye to some of the country's best seniors.

Today, TheUConnBlog says goodbye to Stanley Robinson.

Stanley Robinson is one of my favorite players to don a UConn jersey in the past decade. He’s also one of my least favorite.

Robinson, or “Sticks” as we so lovingly call him, was part of one of the best teams in program history, helping the Huskies come just two wins away from cashing in on a Coach Cal five-year plan in 2009.

But he also played big roles on two of the most frustrating sports seasons I’ve ever had to endure.

Sticks was good for about two of these a game.
(photo credit: Hartford Courant)

The first of which was a bit understandable. When Rudy Gay, Josh Boone, et al. bolted to the pros following the 2005-06 season, purging the roster of virtually all of its talent, Robinson and seven other freshmen were forced to immediately fill the void. And, as you may expect, things didn’t go so well. The Huskies were painful to watch, and although Sticks was the highest-rated recruit in the bunch, he would average just 5.1 points and 4.4 rebounds in 17.2 minutes per game for a team that couldn’t make the NCAA tournament.

But despite being labeled a disappointment early on – earning the title of the world’s most consistently inconsistent player in the process – Sticks would eventually start to live up to his immense talent. After spending the first half of his junior season toiling away in a factory, picking up scraps instead of rebounds, Robinson gave the Huskies the spark they lost after Jerome Dyson’s injury; the then-junior averaged almost 15 points and eight boards in five NCAA tournament games.

But once Jeff Adrien, A.J. Price, and Hasheem Thabeet left the team, the spotlight was put squarely on Robison (and Dyson) again to be a go-to player. And once again, he simply couldn’t do it.

Sticks had by far his best season in 2009-10, averaging 14 points, eight rebounds and a block per game while shooting 52.5 percent from the field and yelling really, really loudly on monster jams. His play even catapulted him into the lottery on some draft boards. But the one thing – perhaps the only thing – he couldn’t and didn’t do was one of the big reasons UConn’s season ended in the NIT rather the NCAAs: lead.

No matter how good he was or will be, Robinson will never be the leader. And because of that, he’ll always have a bit of a black mark on his career, at least for me.

But the stuff he did do –- Shawn Kemp-like alley-oop dunks, getting tough rebounds, growing chinstraps, melting faces with his unnatural athleticism, impregnation -– he did better, and more impressively, than almost every UConn player that came before him.