UConn sports

UConn guard A.J. Price was named Wednesday as one of 10 nominees for the U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s player of the year award. The winner receives the Oscar Robertson Trophy.

The players are: D.J. Augustin (Texas); Michael Beasley (Kansas State); Chris Douglas- Roberts (Memphis); Shan Foster (Vanderbilt); Tyler Hansbrough (North Carolina); Luke Harangody (Notre Dame); Robbie Hummel (Purdue); Kevin Love (UCLA); A.J. Price (Connecticut); D.J. White (Indiana).

From the list of nominees, finalists for each award will be announced later this month. The presentation of the award will take place at the USBWA’s annual awards breakfast at Sunset Station in conjunction with the Final Four in San Antonio. Each award is voted on by the entire membership of the association, which consists of nearly 800 journalists.

The following coaches have been nominated for the Henry Iba Award (best coach): Rick Barnes (Texas); Keno Davis (Drake); John Calipari (Memphis); Mike Krzyzewski (Duke); Lon Kruger (UNLV); Sean Miller (Xavier); Matt Painter (Purdue); Bruce Pearl (Tennessee); Rick Pitino (Louisville); Bo Ryan (Wisconsin); Herb Sendek (Arizona State); Kevin Stallings (Vanderbilt).

The Oscar Robertson Trophy is awarded to the USBWA’s player of the year. It is the nation’s oldest award and the only one named after a former player. The legendary Oscar Robertson was the USBWA’s first player of the year in 1959. The USBWA renamed its player of the year award the Oscar Robertson Trophy in 1998.

It’s rare that a team openly admits it is out for revenge.

It’s an extremely common motivational factor in sports, but few teams talk about such things with media types like myself before a game.

So when UConn coach Jim Calhoun came out Wednesday to discuss his team’s matchup with Providence the following day, it came as no surprise that he downplayed the issue. Providence hammered UConn 77-65 on Jan. 17 in Hartford, but Calhoun said revenge wouldn’t be a factor Thursday.

“They’ll say it’s payback and all that stuff, but it really isn’t,” Calhoun said.

That comment should have prepared me. Calhoun was sort of letting it slip that his players certainly felt differently.

When reporters were given a chance to speak with the Huskies, that was clear. The UConn players felt they were disrespected in that game and that the Friars did too much talking and laughing at UConn’s expense.

“They don’t know how to win, in my opinion, and it showed,” A.J. Price said.

“We’ve been thinking about it since the last game,” Doug Wiggins said.

Price went so far as to wish for a blowout.

“I usually have a little more respect for teams,” Price said. “But they didn’t show a lot of respect last time.”

UConn forward Jeff Adrien said there were “a lot of things said” that upset him the last time the Huskies faced Providence. Like what Jeff?

“The kind of thing I can’t say on camera,” Adrien said. “Maybe I’ll say it in the game.”

Adrien was then asked if the Huskies would respond to their earlier treatment by keeping their mouths shut and playing really hard this time.

“I don’t think there will be any mouth-shutting,” he responded.