For those who didn’t watch the game, don’t be fooled by Georgetown’s 74-63 win over No. 2 UConn Monday.
I don’t want to say it wasn’t that close, but sometimes you can be down five or six and the final margin gets to be 11 because of fouls and free throws. This one went in the opposite direction.
UConn was down four with 11 minutes to go then down 17 with four minutes to go. It could have been worse.
A few notables from something of a debacle of a Big East opener:
– Jerome Dyson 1-for-10 from the floor and committed four turnovers. And he probably wasn’t the worst Husky player Monday. There may have been two or three who graded out worse.
“I don’t think anybody played particularly well,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. “If a guy did something he certainly didn’t pass. We had very few assists.”
UConn has six assists and 17 turnovers.
Well, the coach did have one sort-of compliment.
“A couple of the guys like A.J. (Price) were still fighting,” Calhoun said.
– Calhoun doesn’t often apologize…for himself, for his team, for anything. He did so this time, though.
“I apologize,” Calhoun said. “I just don’t know how we could play that poorly.”
– The coach kiddingly encourage a little mid-season draft declaration. Asked if he liked his team’s chances down four with 11 minutes to go, he said:
“I did for a little bit until I looked at the body language of a couple of our big-time players,” Calhoun said. “They should go out right now, matter of fact. It’s probably a good idea.”
– Georgetown was hot at the start. Really hot.
The Hoyas made eight of their first 11 shots. Two were blocked by the Huskies, so they really only “missed” one.
“I was worried that we were making so many shots, they weren’t able to get out in transition,” Georgetown coach John Thompson III said. “I shouldn’t say I was worried about that but sooner or later we’re going to start missing and they’re going to get their transition going. I was worried that our guys would forget that transition defense was key. But in one timeout we said ‘Forget it. Keep scoring and don’t worry about it.’ ”
– Calhoun complained a lot about the officials during the game. After, however, he put most of the blame on his players for failing to keep the Georgetown players out of the lane.
Georgetown, even if it did get a couple calls, made them count by hitting 18 free throws in a row.
That number isn’t too impressive, though, it seems.
“We made 29 in a row at shootaround this morning,” Thompson said.
– Good, loud crowd. Kind of surprising the Huskies didn’t feed off it more.
– Preseason predictions are a tough business when there are 16 teams and probably nine of them are NCAA-worthy and maybe five are top-10 worthy.
Georgetown was picked seventh in the Big East.
“Georgetown is a very good team. They’re definitely in the top five teams in our league,” UConn’s Jeff Adrien said.
– Ater Majok was at the game (yawn). So was former UConn basketball star Kevin Freeman and former football star Tyvon Branch.
A recruit from Los Angeles (now at Mt. Zion in Carolina) named Jamaal Trice was on hand to. I don’t know much about him yet but he seems smart and really wants to come to UConn.
The Huskies haven’t offered him yet but we’ll see.
– OK, time for a little confession.
Half the people in this world think sportswriters like me are the biggest homers. They think we cheer on the sidelines and live and die by every move of the team we cover.
The other half of the people thinks we are maniacal, vindictive curmudgeons that hope everyone stinks up the joint and there is turmoil and controversy all around so we can write about it.
The truth, in more than 90 percent of the profession, is that we all try to be impartial. Sometimes our backgrounds give us a certain slant, but we try our best not to let that influence our work (except for Fox News, of course).
I’m a UConn grad but I swear I don’t root for them. Nor do I root against them, despite being somewhat jaded by the inside look that I sometimes get.
But I will admit that sometimes I get a cheap thrill before a post-game press conference that follows a UConn loss.
Jim Calhoun is always entertaining, usually brutally honest and very hard on his team. But the coach, when he feels his team lost a game it should have/could have won, sometimes is just a joy to be around. (not because he’s happy, mind you, but because his answers and quotes are so on-point yet gruff and complete).
And I’ll also admit that it’s fun to see a fellow reporter get chewed out on occasion. Calhoun has done it to me plenty as well as everyone else on the beat. When some out-of-towner or part-time coverer of the team asks a stupid (and yes, they’re sometimes stupid questions) I get on the edge of my seat waiting for a good Calhoun retort.
Monday was no different.
As Calhoun was finishing his opening statement following the loss, he talked about what he expected before the game.
“There were a lot of things I thought could happen tonight,” Calhoun said. “What did happen I never could have, would have expected.”
Now, anyone who has dealt with Calhoun even once should know that you need a tape recorder and a good set of ears sometimes to get exactly what the coach is saying. He talks fast, he talks with a Boston accent and he sometimes uses words the average joe sportswriter doesn’t know. (Not me, of course, I’m well versed in the English language).
After Calhoun finishes his thought with the “…could have, would have expected” line, a writer from a major Washington daily newspaper asks Calhoun “Could you repeat that last sentence?”
(Edge of my chair time)
“No, I can’t,” Calhoun replies.
Now, come on. You can’t actually expect a coach to repeat himself in a situation like that, can you? He wants to get out of there, he’s ticked off at his team and he doesn’t exactly love your profession to begin with.
It could have been worse for the scribe. In other years Calhoun may have responded with a few more colorful metaphors (Star Trek IV anyone?) or walked out of the room entirely.
As it turns out, the curt response was pretty funny nonetheless. A small taste of Braintree wit on a difficult night for the coach.
- Neill
