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UConn quits, gets run off the court by St. John's

I love Jim Calhoun, but he didn't follow through on his promise to bench the seniors. And true to recent form, those seniors came up with a whole bunch of nothing. (Neither did anyone else, but the kids weren't the ones Calhoun called out on Saturday).

St. John's 73, UConn 51. It's not hyperbole to call this the program's lowest moment in years. UConn's record is 17-15, the worst (win-percentage wise) since 1987, Calhoun's first season, when UConn went 9-19. An NIT invite isn't guaranteed, and I'm not even sure Calhoun should waste his time trying to coach this group for another two weeks.

Maybe later we can talk about where it all went wrong this year. Maybe later we can speculate on the future of Calhoun, the recruiting class, the hopes (or lack thereof) for next year.

Today, I'd prefer to exert exactly as much effort talking about the game as the team did playing the game.

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He should have benched them. The young guys play with heart.

Don’t worry. Even without a stellar recruiting class, we have a group of maturing guys who want to play together.

by 1c3creamcake on Mar 9, 2010 7:38 PM EST via mobile reply actions  

Not just the Coach

Yes, Uconn has a joke of a coach but their team isnt that great either. The number highschool nation team could probably beat them.

by OHIOnMIZ ZOU on Mar 10, 2010 10:18 AM EST reply actions  

three final fours

and two championships in ten years and he’s not a great coach? Among the top ten in winningest coaches in NCAA history, most of them coming with UConn, and he isn’t a great coach? Only missing the tourney 4 times in since 1990, 12 times making it to the Sweet 16 or further, 10 regular season championships, 6 Big East Tournament championships and he’s not a “great coach”?

Tell you what, you explain to me what qualifies someone as a great coach? I guess you don’t consider Roy Williams to be a great coach either? Almost every other school out there would jump at the chance to hire Calhoun (those that don’t have their own HoF coaches already)

Your argument doesn’t even make sense. You insult Calhoun and then siad his team wasn’t good. Well no sh*t sherlock. A coach is only as good as the players on his team. They’re not giving out many coach of the year awards for teams that finish under .500.

by Fergy on Mar 10, 2010 10:42 AM EST up reply actions  

Just look...

at that idiots username. He is obviously not a BE basketball fan. As a WVU fan I wish UCONN was in the NCAA’s, I have never liked Calhoun, but have respected him as a coach. Hopefully UCONN will bounce back and be more competitive again next year…

by WVU_BILLS on Mar 10, 2010 1:05 PM EST up reply actions  

The Number Highschool Nation

He does make a good point about the number highschool nation team:

“The number highschool nation team could probably beat them.”
 
But he rudely failed to capitalize the name of this proud nation.

The Number Highschool tribe, whose original lands were unfairly overtaken as a result of abuses from the Homestead Act, were during the 1800s forcibly relocated to an incredibly flat, treeless area that happened to be tiled with hardwood. Anyway, they began playing basketball as a diversion, but when crops failed to grow (or as Frederick Jackson Turner glibly rhymed in one of his later, more embarrassing essays, “germinate through the laminate,”) they turned to basketball as an economy.
The Number Highschool tribe’s economy was surprisingly complex for a purely agricultuLayups were the base currency while midrange jumpshots and long distance shots (They had no three point line per se, but records indicate the long range shot on Number Highschool lands was about a foot behind the an NBA three). The exact exchange rates of the shots are not recorded, but easier shots were generally worth less. Shots could be exchanged for rebounds blocks and steals, which were used for food and shelter.

As you might imagine, this basketball lifestyle made the Number Highschool tribe really pretty damn good at balling. As modernization creeped westward, though, their particular way of life was seen as incompatible with a growing need for farmland, industry, and commercial ventures. And as members of the tribe began to assimilate into mainstream American culture, the appeals of a money-based economy based on the exchange of goods and services that included consumable food eventually put an end to the purely basketballin way of life the Number Highschool tribe had developed over the century since their initial relocation.
Today the Number Highschool Nation is one of the more prosperous first-peoples. Their hardwood homeland proved the perfect location for the world’s biggest outdoor furniture store, and revenue from this enterprise funds many of the nation’s projects and services, including college tuition for young people. The basketball heritage, though, was not abandoned. Basketball is the official sport of the nation, and several informal leagues exist.
The Number HighSchool national team, which I believe the commenter was referring to, takes the best players from these leagues and provides professional coaching and decent facilities for the team to train in. They play against teams from outside the Number Highschool reservation and perform reasonably well against local Division III programs and small state schools. Their basketball instincts are amazing, but the pure athletic talent on the team is not high. Certain genetic traits among the Number Highschool nation, including a max height of about 6-4, and relatively thick frames make it difficult for the Number Highschool National team to keep up with the limber bodies of elite amateur programs such as those in the NCAA or playing at the Hartford Armory over the summer.

The truth of the matter is that to say UConn would lose to the Number Highschool Nation team is not wholly an inaccurate statement. UConn is playing pretty poor basketball right now, and the Number Highschool national team is having a strong year. The comment was likely meant as an insult, true, and a loss to the Number Highschool nation team would be a bit embarrassing for UConn, but the match could help the Number Highschool nation team get some of the recognition it deserves and certainly help elevate the importance of the Number Highschool nation in the history of basketball. (They invented— and this is documented by John Muir, who was a sports writer before he became a nature writer—the pick and roll and the off-the-backboard-alley-oop)

I believe, then, that a match should be scheduled between the Number Highschool National team and UConn. It would be much more interesting to watch than any NIT game, would give UConn a real chance to win a game, and, win or lose, would help the Number Highschool Nation get the recognition it deserves.

by ponta on Mar 10, 2010 2:03 PM EST reply actions  

I don't say this lightly

But this is one of the greatest things I have ever read, and arguably among the best things ever to appear on this blog.

Orange Bowl/dual Final Fours or bust in 2011. We're going all-in.

by Kevin Meacham on Mar 10, 2010 5:39 PM EST up reply actions  

This is amazing.

Fold the football program, and deposit monies previously budgeted for said program into a savings account in Coach Calbertus Magnus's name.

by gxpanos on Mar 10, 2010 9:01 PM EST up reply actions  

as a long time uconn blog lurker (stalker?)...

i must say this is the greatest post in the history of posts, and the greatest burn since the back and forth on the beginning of ‘m.e.t.h.o.d.. maaaan’.

plus, i was tossed out of the jungle, so i have street cred (and i landed in 3-d carriage house….mo’ street cred).

by pmac06340 on Mar 11, 2010 10:55 AM EST up reply actions  

I believe they call this

a Comedy Pyramid. “I’ll fuckin…” indeed!

Just an outstanding comment section. Applause all around.

Fold the football program, and deposit monies previously budgeted for said program into a savings account in Coach Calbertus Magnus's name.

by gxpanos on Mar 11, 2010 6:50 PM EST up reply actions  

Oh hey thanks y’all. The paragraph breaks are off because it got to the point where I was writing this out in a word document at work and had to copy it over. So, there’s that.

by ponta on Mar 14, 2010 10:55 PM EDT up reply actions  

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