UConn basketball: Calhoun Tells Courant He's Not 'Feeling A Lot Better' - Courant.com
Coach Jim Calhoun, who has been on medical leave since Feb. 3, said he will see his doctor Wednesday to evaluate his course of treatment. "We might make a decision then," Calhoun said Tuesday in a brief phone interview. "I can't say I'm feeling a lot better, I'm still in a lot of lower back pain, but we found the problem area and we seem to be moving in the right direction."

UConn Women: Huskies Hammer Panthers In 1st Game After St. John's loss - Courant.com
Poor Pittsburgh. Oh yes, poor Pittsburgh. The Panthers did what they could to hold the Huskies back, which really wasn't much after the first three minutes. Highly motivated to tighten its loose bolts, UConn roared to an 86-37 victory before a sparse crowd of 2,095 at the Petersen Athletic Center.

The Day - UConn women bounce back in big way | News from southeastern Connecticut
Connecticut began the game with a 29-4 run that included 10 straight points from Mosqueda-Lewis. Tiffany Hayes added 13 points for UConn.

Huskies Show Improvement In Shots From Perimeter - Courant.com
UConn's win Tuesday means it still hasn't lost consecutive games since 1993, when it lost in the Big East tournament and a first-round NCAA game against Louisville. That streak is now at 683 games. But the St. John's loss also ended a 173-game winning streak against unranked teams, dating to its loss at Arizona State on Dec. 21, 2004, an 18-game Senior Day winning streak, dating to 1993 and a 166-game streak in CPTV games, dating to a loss to Michigan State on Dec. 29, 1994.The 25 Greatest Sneakers in UConn Basketball History | Complex

Shabazz Napier lifts UConn to OT win over Villanova - BostonHerald.com
Lamb finished with a career-high 32 points, including 10 of UConn’s 13 in the extra session. Napier took care of the final three, capping a rather eventful couple of days for the sophomore point guard.

jeff jacobs uconn basketball: napier three pointer in final second wins game for uconn - Courant.com
This was Jeremy Lamb's game. He scored a career-high 32 points and took a career-high 21 shots. When UConn fell behind, 26-8, through a horrendous first 12 minutes, it was Lamb who decided he would change the course of this night. And this was Roscoe Smith's re-emergence story. After playing no more than 19 minutes in any game since late November, Smith was used at small forward, played 40 minutes and did a taxing defense job on JayVaughn Pinkston. Yet make no mistake about it. This was Napier's moment.

UConn men's basketball: UConn beats Villanova in overtime, 73-70 - Courant.com
It would have been no mistake had Napier passed up the shot and gotten the ball somehow to Jeremy Lamb, who had already scored all 10 of UConn's points in the overtime period. But Napier, the Huskies' lightning rod in good times and bad, dared his detractors and put the ball up. "Of course I thought it was going in," he said. "I don't take shots to miss."

The New Haven Register Blogs: UConn Men's Basketball Blog: Shabazz Has Pizzazz
"At the end of the day, we definitely didn’t need that from Shabazz, or from anyone," said Roscoe Smith. "But, I kind of think he knew that he messed up. But, as a team, as a unit, we didn’t have any type of judgment on him. We still accept him with open arms, continue to keep our heads up." Added Jeremy Lamb: "The team looked at it as, ‘Let’s just respond.’ We didn’t try to dwell on it."

TMA: Shabazz's shot of the season - College Basketball Nation Blog - ESPN
Where does UConn go from here? We'll see. It's possible, of course, that this was merely a shot, not the shot -- the one that will change this team's season, alter its trajectory, send it rocketing toward NCAA tournament glory. And, yeah, this was still Villanova, a team UConn should probably beat by 20. But whatever. It's what the Huskies needed in the moment, and Napier gave it to them. And, in the process, earned one of the best uses of Raf's "ONIONS!" in the history of the form. No matter where the Huskies go from here, that's an awfully good night.

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Big East Notebook: No. 12 Marquette plays the UConn men on Saturday - Courant.com
At the outset of the season, Marquette was a team with two huge bodies at the post position. Eight games in, 6-foot-11 junior center Chris Otule sustained a season-ending knee injury. So 6-8, 290-pound sophomore Davante Gardner took over the position and Marquette altered its game. But after 14 games, Gardner injured his knee and the lineup got smaller. For the past four games, Marquette has used an undersized lineup and that's what UConn will likely face Saturday, when the Golden Eagles visit the XL Center.

UConn men's basketball: More Playing Time For DeAndre Daniels - Courant.com
"He'll deserve more playing time, based on his play," said associate head coach George Blaney, who will be subbing for Jim Calhoun for at least the next two games. "He blocked a shot, had four rebounds. He gives you that length. He's playing full speed. … DeAndre has tremendous upside. We try to get him to believe in it a little bit more."

Jeff Jacobs On The NCAA and UConn - Courant.com
Of course, it's better to have consequences of behavior tied to the year you most recently report it. Yet it also comes down the rest of Harrison's quote that night: "The problem is the logistics are complicated." That's right, folks. In the end, UConn's most righteous and best chance for the 2013 tournament is about data processing. It's as cold and boring as all that. And when the Committee on Academic Performance meets Monday, it is incumbent on its members to be in position to prove any and all obstacles to the fairest execution of the APR numbers. Not some disjointed, convoluted academic mumbo jumbo, and certainly not because it is too lazy, intransigent or vindictive to address a change. UConn can get in the tournament if the latest data 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 is used. That simple.

UConn Coach Paul Pasqualoni Addresses Jerome Junior Dismissal | UConn Football
"Yeah, the message is that we have program policies, we have a very, very high level of expectation of our players in many areas and one of those areas is behavior – whether it be on campus, off campus, in the meeting room, on the practice field, at the game we’re not going to accept anything but appropriate behavior," Pasqualoni said. "It was a violation, for me, it was a violation of what’s expected here in the football program and we can’t accept it."

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The Day - Blaney explodes, and so does UConn | News from southeastern Connecticut
"He really got into us," sophomore Shabazz Napier said. "It was kind of surprising because he doesn't usually yell. I took the guys to the side before we went out for the second half, and (said), 'you understand what just happened? Coach Blaney just yelled at us. That just means something. He never does that.'

Inspired by Allen, UConn rolls past DePaul - Connecticut Post
On Wednesday, though, there wasn't a hint of selfish play. Quite frankly, there wasn't much defense by DePaul, either.

UConn routs DePaul - BostonHerald.com
Napier had 14 points and 11 assists and Oriakhi had 14 points and 10 rebounds. Andre Drummond, after a slow first half, dunked the ball with authority in the second and scored 15 points to go with nine rebounds. It was one of the most balanced UConn offensive performances of the season, and of the best ball-movement the Huskies have shown.

The New Haven Register Blogs: UConn Men's Basketball Blog: Jim Who? Blaney's Halftime Rant Fired Up UConn
UConn's first 10 baskets of the second half were all either dunks or layups. Andre Drummond had five dunks alone in that span; the Huskies wound up with 10 overall for the game. They actually had fun tonight, and it showed. When Drummond hit a rare free throw, the Gampel Pavilion crowd let out a mock cheer and Alex Oriakhi couldn’t contain the wide grin spread across his face.

Jeff Jacobs: the trouble with tweets - Courant.com
UConn associate coach George Blaney said the men's staff has discussed the use of Twitter. Now, there are some awkward conversations. But I'd say a 56-year-old sports columnist talking Twitter with a 72-year-old basketball [coach] is up there with us discussing rap music or the world of high Parisian fashion. "Jim has talked to them about using it privately," Blaney said. "I have no idea what Twitter is even. But apparently you can use it privately [protected tweets]. Tyler made a mistake. He knows about it. He shuts his thing down."

UCONN MEN: Struggling Huskies get a visit from an old star- The New Haven Register - Serving New Haven, Connecticut
"He said you’ve got to bring it every day," said freshman guard Ryan Boatright. "Just because we’re down right now doesn’t mean we can’t turn it around. He gave us two examples: the team last year with Kemba, and the New York Giants. They lost four straight in the regular season, now they’re the Super Bowl champs. He told us to keep fighting and we can turn this whole thing around if we come together as a team."

UConn Men's Basketball Notebook - Hartford Courant
"It was vintage Ray Allen," said associate head coach George Blaney, still subbing for the ailing coach. "It's an example of what Jim has built here, the family atmosphere in this gym, the kind of players he has had here that want to give back. Ray touched on a lot of things … What do you do when you're having trouble? How do you respond? Sometimes you get mad at each other, whatever it is you need to do to get everybody on the same page. Whenever you lose, you lose a little bit of that. And that's what you have to get back."

The New Haven Register Blogs: UConn Men's Basketball Blog: UConn Players Inspired by Ray Allen's Talk
As for UConn's walking wounded, Jeremy Lamb's sprained right toe has improved, according to trainer James Doran, and he was expected to give it a go at practice today. Same with Drummond, though the team is being more cautious with him.

Blaney: Jim Calhoun’s Pain Has ‘Intensified’ | UConn Men
"I speak to him every day," said George Blaney, who will coach in Calhoun’s stead again against DePaul on Wednesday. "He’s still hurting. In fact, it sounds like the pain has intensified."

Is the Calhoun era at UConn near its end? – USATODAY.com
"I thought I could get through it," he says. Physical therapy helped, but the pain flared up again on a trip to Washington, D.C., to play Georgetown this month. He had planned to return before season's end. "I'm looking at the calendar," he says. "I hope to, but I don't know."

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New UConn AD Warde Manuel "A Rock Star" - Courant.com
"Simply put, here's your lead: This guy's a rock star and UConn got him,' Herbst said of UConn's first African American AD. "Our priorities are his priorities — academics, compliance, philanthropy and needless to say we like to win. A great university can't settle for less than the best in all things, including athletics, and in Warde we got the best."

new uconn athletic director: Jeff Jacobs On New UConn AD Warde Manuel - Courant.com
There is much to like about Manuel and we mean that in the literal sense, too. He goes 6-5 and better than 300 pounds. Yet with every layer you pull away with the Manuel story, there is another layer that seems to gird him even better with the mission of overseeing a premier college athletic department. A department that needs some changes on the inside and some changes in the way people on the outside view it.

Manuel, UConn’s New Athletic Director, Faces Immediate Challenges - NYTimes.com
Manuel oversaw a tremendous turnaround at Buffalo, which had a lean athletic budget, a poor record of academic success among its athletes and a football program that was the punch line of jokes when he arrived on campus.

New AD: UConn not defined by academic issues – USATODAY.com
"UConn is home to 22 different sports played by hundreds of student athletes, consistently wins Big East and conference championships and consistently competes and wins national championships," he said. "A low APR from two years doesn't define a program, an athletic department or a university. It's a hurdle, not a mountain."

The Day - Let UConn play | News from southeastern Connecticut
If the goal is to force a program to take academic achievement more seriously, UConn is demonstrating it got the message. And the NCAA already punished the program with the loss of two scholarships this season. Coach Jim Calhoun, the person ultimately responsible, lost $187,500 in contract penalties. Future and more severe punishment for past crimes appears superfluous.

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The New Haven Register Blogs: UConn Men's Basketball Blog: Drummond Showed Toughness, Character
Indeed, after a poor first half, Drummond came out in the latter and established himself as a major presence down low. He scored eight of the Huskies’ first 10 points on a variety of dunks, spin moves even a couple of free throws. It all came about after some impassioned advice from the coaching staff at halftime.

UConn Notebook: Drummond Says Injury 'Killed' Momentum - Courant.com
The injury, even if its minor, came at a terrible time. Drummond, given the quality of the competition, had played perhaps his best six minutes of basketball. After a half-time talking-to, he resolved to go strong to the basket, and he scored seven quick points to raise his total to 13. "It killed everything," Drummond said. After the injury, he did not score.

As Drummond Goes, So Goes UConn's Future - Courant.com
Make no mistake, when Drummond plays like he did in first six minutes of the second half, UConn is a much more ferocious team. "I was really, really excited about Andre finally going to the rim like we know he can," Blaney said. "And more importantly, really posting in a good position and deep, we were able to get him the ball a number of times. He was phenomenal with how he did that."

Jeremy Lamb's Cold Hand Comes At Bad Time - Courant.com
Steve Sobel, who has coached Lamb in the Greater Hartford Pro-Am League, is known as "The Shot Doctor" and has worked with a number of NBA players and wrote the book "Top Shot - You're Guide to Greatness. He is as familiar with Lamb's shooting mechanics and mind-set and grows concerned as he watched, and offered a prescription. "Great shooters are more susceptible to shooting slumps," Sobel says, "because their mental and physical shooting skills are so finely calibrated that any little thing can affect the outcome of their shot. It is almost like saying that it doesn't take much to make a Mercedes run rough. They are finally calibrated as shooters."

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UConn finally has a permanent replacement for Jeff Hathaway. The school announced today that it has hired Warde Manuel, who was been the athletic director at the University of Buffalo for the past six years. He'll be officially introduced at a press conference tomorrow.

Manuel oversaw the early years of Buffalo's transition to FBS football and is known for his focus on academics. When he arrived at Buffalo four teams -- football, men's basketball, wrestling and baseball -- were below NCAA APR requirements and by the end of 2010 all were back above it.

He played football and track and field as an undergraduate at Michigan and he graduated from the school in 1990. He earned a masters degree in social work from Michigan in 1993 and got a masters degree from the school in 2005. He has a five year contract that will pay him $450,000 a year with options for up to $100,000 a year in bonuses. He is the first african-american athletic director at UConn.

For a Buffalo perspective, check out SB Nation blog Bull Run, which is sad to see Manuel go. UConn's full release is after the jump.

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