I’m not trying to rub it in the Husky-nation’s face over this loss. Really. I just find some of the coverage hilarious. I also think their Coach, Jim Calhoun, is one of the most caustic, biting, best quote guy in college basketball.
“Most of the first half we played exceptional basketball in the sense of moving the ball,” Calhoun said. “We did the exact opposite in the second half. We’ve lost four games this year and, far and away, that was the most disappointing. It’s not even close.”
Though, with every coach, the most disappointing loss is always the most recent.
“They didn’t let us run our offense and we decided to take 10 3-pointers because that’s the easy way out as opposed to the best way out,” Calhoun said.
Sophomore point guard Marcus Williams (4 points, 11 assists, three turnovers) and junior Rashad Anderson (19 points on 6-of-12 shooting) both jacked up ill-advised treys that rankled Calhoun.
“We ran a play to go inside and the next thing I know I see Rashad fading away at 23 (feet),” Calhoun said. “It was the last thing we needed, and that’s a junior by the way. Maybe, like when he’s a postgraduate student doing his doctorate work, he’ll pick that concept up. We, as a team, had better do that. We had better realize what we are and who we are and understand we have some very good things about us.”
[Emphasis added.]
Wow. The sports writers covering UConn, must absolutely love this guy for spicing up stories.
But this loss seemed to come suddenly after taking the big lead. And during the big lead, the Huskies were acting like the game was over while mugging it up for ESPN cameras in front of a nationally televised audience.
“We got up 17 points and we were celebrating,” Calhoun said. “But they came back and we lost. We lost at Gampel, where the atmosphere was great.”
Calhoun pointed to the Huskies getting out of their offense in the second half. UConn took 10 3-pointers in each half, but the difference was Rashad Anderson made four in the first half and just one in the second. Anderson was 5-for-10 from beyond the arc, and his teammates were a woeful 0-for-10.
“In God’s name, why do we have to take 10 3-pointers?” Calhoun asked.
You know, I said I didn’t see much of the player celebrating on the TV, but maybe I’ve just become desensitized to seeing players mugging for the camera. It’s not uncommon or original any longer, so it could be I just didn’t notice. I noticed, more the panning to the students.
If you’re Jim Calhoun, though, one of your big guys whining about physical play should be a bigger concern.
“It was real physical in there,” said Villanueva, who had 14 points and 10 rebounds. “Troutman was throwing a lot of elbows, (center Chris) Taft was pushing. It was real physical. We told the refs and they didn’t make the call, but you can’t blame the game on the refs. We had the game in our hands, we just let it slip.”
Sounds like you were blaming the refs.
An article listing the problems UConn showed during the game. This one has Husky players still trying to figure out what happened.
