By PHIL CHARDIS

Special to uconnhuskies.com

HARTFORD – It was a UConn basketball scrapbook come to life.

Emeka Okafor. Ben Gordon. Rashad Anderson. Josh Boone. Taliek Brown. Charlie Villanueva. Ed Nelson. Assistant coaches Andre Lafleur, Clyde Vaughan, George Blaney. And, of course, Hall of Fame Head Coach Jim Calhoun. To diehard UConn fans, basketball royalty was in the XL Center Sunday.

Twenty years after their own National Championship season, the members of the 2003-04 UConn men's basketball team got an up-close look at what they hope will be another Husky title team. Sitting en masse in the first row behind the UConn bench Sunday before they were introduced at halftime to the sellout crowd at the XL Center, the 03-04 Huskies were treated to a virtuoso performance as the current No. 1 Huskies dismantled Xavier, 99-56, for their eighth straight victory.

The roll that the current Huskies are enjoying (18-2 overall, 8-1 BIG EAST) reminded many of the former Huskies of their own magical season, which included a 33-6 overall record, the Natty, a BIG EAST Tournament title and playing 13 games as the No. 1-ranked team in the country. In fact, many of them said that they count their cohesiveness as a team as the best thing they remember about 2003-04. It a trait on which the current team also prides itself.

"What I remember most is the camaraderie we had ... we were very, very close as a team," Anderson said. "I was a clown, so I used to always have people laughing, just being myself. I learned when to turn it on, when to turn it off. We just held each other accountable more than anything. It's probably the closest team I've ever been on in my life."

"I remember how much fun we had with each other," Okafor said. "It was a very special team. We clicked on the court and clicked off the court as well. We enjoyed being around each other. We enjoyed playing basketball with each other, we enjoyed just hanging out. There were no egos involved, everybody knew their roles, everybody was cool. That's why we had so much success and why to this day, we're still a pretty tight group."

For others, a certain time of the season or a particular game sticks out in their memory. Boone brought up the NCAA Second Round game when the Huskies faced DePaul under former UConn assistant coach Dave Leitao.

"Coach Leitao had recruited me (to UConn)," Boone explained. "We had the same plays as them. But it was like the junior varsity against the varsity. We were saying, 'They're runnin' our stuff, but they're not running it right.' "

For Taliek Brown, now a St. John's assistant coach, it was a loss in late January that comes to mind.

"We lost to Providence and played badly and Coach was all mad at us," he said. "So I came in and gave these guys a speech and they were talking about it to this day. That was my coaching moment … that was the day I knew I wanted to be a coach."

Not surprisingly, all remember their 79-78 victory over Duke in the National Semifinals much more vividly than their 82-73 triumph over Georgia Tech in the championship game.

"Once we won that Duke game, the Georgia Tech game was an afterthought," said Okafor, who was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four. "Georgia Tech had got us early in the year, when we weren't our best selves. We just knew we were going to take care of business. But the Duke game was some battle. First of all, just playing against Duke, that jersey… and being down eight with under 3 (minutes), that's intimidating. To battle out of that, the frenzy in the locker room afterward, that's one of my most vivid basketball moments – just pure elation."

The memories from Sunday are also something the 03-04 team won't soon forget. Greeted by the loud cheers from the sellout crowd as they were introduced individually at halftime, watching their younger counterparts excel on the court, then going into the Huskies' postgame locker room, where each member of the 03-04 team said something meaningful to their younger brothers.

And, after watching 11 Huskies score against Xavier, it brought up another similarity to the team of 20 years ago.

"It started in the preseason and how hard we would compete against each other in the pickup games," Godon said. "Honestly, we really felt like we had two starting fives … with Marcus Williams and Denham Brown and Charlie Villanueva (coming off the bench). We were very confident that if one guy didn't get it going, somebody else could come right in who was willing and ready and probably wanted more shots. We were a highly-motivated team."

Sounds familiar, no?

"This team had a lot of talent, but the pieces have to fit," Calhoun said of his 03-04 team. "I always thought that we were good, but I really thought that this team -- if we don't get hurt, if we stay together – was special. Everybody fit into a slot and it doesn't always happen that way."

If it continues to happen that way for the current Huskies, start planning the reunion for 2044.