UConn plays in-state rival Quinnipiac tonight at 9 p.m. in the Paradise Jam semifinals. Follow Kevin Duffy live from the University of Virgin Islands.
Archive for November 18th, 2012
New Mexico advances to championship game in a thriller
Just the way Steve Alford drew it up, I’m sure.
Trailing 69-64 with 17.7 seconds remaining, New Mexico hit back-to-back 3-pointers — including the game winner by junior guard Tony Snell — to escape with a shocking 70-69 victory over George Mason in Sunday night’s semifinal.
Junior Kendall Williams hit the first 3-pointer — a 25-foot pullup in transition — and the Lobos forced a turnover on the ensuing inbounds pass to set up Snell for his game-winner, a wide open look from the left wing with 1.8 seconds remaining.
“I honestly thought we had a good chance (down three) because they had a short point guard taking it out and I was hoping (my length) would affect him on the play and it did,” said Snell, who scored a career-high 27 points.
With 53 seconds left, Snell fouled George Mason guard Sherrod Wright on a long jumpshot that became a 4-point play. That shot gave the Patriots a 67-62 lead.
“I don’t think we’re particularly playing good basketball,” said New Mexico coach Steve Alford. “That’s one early season game and we’re playing really good opponents, but we’re fighting, and that’s the thing. When you compete for 40 minutes, good things happen.”
New Mexico plays the winner of UConn and Quinnipiac in Monday’s Paradise Jam championship. Tip is set for 10 p.m. EST.
A look at Moore, rest of Calhoun coaching tree
Quinnipiac coach Tom Moore, an assistant at UConn from 1994-2007, faces some old friends tonight when the Huskies and Bobcats get together for the Paradise Jam semifinal.
It’s Moore’s fifth year on the Quinnipiac job, and though he’s been very, very close, he still hasn’t sniffed the NCAA tournament. Moore says punching a ticket to the Big Dance is his top priority.
Let’s examine Moore’s post-UConn career with other Jim Calhoun assistants who became head coaches.
TOM MOORE
UConn assistant: 1994-2007
Career path: Took the Quinnipiac job in 2007 and is currently 95-66 for his career…Has posted back-to-back 20-win seasons.
Jim Calhoun (AP)
KEVIN OLLIE
UConn assistant: 2010-12
Career path: Best winning percentage in school history (minimum three games).
GLEN MILLER
UConn assistant: 1986-1993, 2010-present
Career path: Became head coach at Connecticut College, then moved on to Brown, his teams set school records for wins in a two-, three-, four-, and five-year span, as well as most Ivy League wins in a season…Took the Penn job in 2006 and took the Quakers to the NCAA tournament in his first season…Returned to UConn in 2010 and is now the associate head coach.
HOWIE DICKENMAN
UConn assistant: 1982-96
Career path: Became head coach at Central Connecticut in 1996 and hasn’t left since. He recently notched his 250th career win…Has taken the Blue Devils to the NCAA tournament three times.
KARL HOBBS
UConn assistant: 1993-2001, 2011-present
Career path: Took the head coaching job at George Washington in 2001 and was released from contract in 2011. He won 166 career games, including a 27-3 season in 2005-06 that ended in the NCAA second round…Returned to UConn as an assistant in 2011.
STEVE PIKIELL
UConn assistant: 1991-92
Career path: After serving as an assistant at Yale, Pikiell — a former UConn point guard – became the interim head coach at Wesleyan in Middletown. He later had assistant jobs with Dickenman at Central and Hobbs at George Washington…In 2005, Pikiell was named head coach at Stony Brook, where he’s made the NIT twice but failed to qualify for the NCAAs.
TED WOODWARD
UConn assistant: 1986-89
Career path: Served as an assistant at Harvard, Central Connecticut and Maine before earning the promotion to head coach in 2004…Has compiled an 81-125 record at Maine.
DAVE LEITAO
UConn assistant: 1986-1994, 1996-2002
Career path: Left for the Northeastern job in 1994, only to return to Storrs two years later. Since 2002, he coached at DePaul (58 wins in three years) and Virginia (63 wins in five seasons)…He’s now an assistant at Missouri.
Ex-UConn assistant Moore has Quinnipiac moving forward
ST. THOMAS, U.S. VIRGIN ISLANDS — In his last few years at UConn, Tom Moore felt like a woman in her late 30s.
Don’t know where this is going? Perhaps that analogy merits some sort of explanation.
“I had been an assistant (at UConn) for 13 years,” Moore said Sunday morning. “You talk about women having a biological clock to have a baby. I felt that it was my time (to become a head coach).”
Regarded as an ace recruiter who helped lure NBA talent to Storrs, Moore had been on several interviews before he decided on Quinnipiac, a relatively new Division I program that the pieces — facilities, budget, support from the administration — to take a step forward.
So far, so good for Moore, who, like many in the Jim Calhoun coaching tree, has branched off to his own Division I job. Quinnipiac, which faces UConn tonight in the Paradise Jam semifinal (9 p.m., CBS Sports Network), has posted back-to-back 20-win seasons and has significantly upgraded its talent. Still, the Bobcats have fallen short of Moore’s one and only short-term goal.
“Just to go to an NCAA tournament,” Moore said. “This school so deserves one and is so ready for one. I felt like when they hired me to do this job, that’s part of what they hired me for. I put a lot of internal pressure on myself to that.”
For three seasons, Quinnipiac has been good enough to fulfill that goal: The Bobcats fell 52-50 to Robert Morris in the 2010 Northeast Conference championship game, the potential game-winning 3-pointer blocked with 10 seconds remaining. In the past two years, Quinnipiac has reached the league semifinals only to come up two points shy against Robert Morris in 2010-11 and three points short versus top seed Long Island last March.
That’s life in the Northeast Conference, a league that simply does not receive at-large NCAA bids. It’s like this: You play the 30-game regular season to find a spot in the league tournament. From there, as Moore has learned, an entire season can hinge on one possession.
“Coach (Howie) Dickenman is a valued friend of mine, and I remember watching his great—and I mean truly great—Central teams going 18-0 or 17-1,” Moore said. “And I remember going ‘he’s not going to get a bid unless he wins these 120 minutes.’ My stomach used to churn for him, and now I’m here in the exact same situation.”
So tonight’s game versus UConn — just the fourth of the year for both teams — will by no means decide the future of Quinnipiac basketball.
But, from an exposure standpoint, it can sure help.
Twelve hours before tip-off, Tom Moore was interviewed by CBS Sports Network, the network that will nationally broadcast tonight’s Paradise Jam semifinal matchup: The basketball Beast of the Northeast against a private school from Hamden with a 6,000 undergraduate enrollment and zero NCAA tournament appearances. The name “Quinnipiac” probably means very little outside of our Northeast college hoops bubble, and this game — UConn is the only ranked team Moore has faced in his tenure — could play a part in changing that.
“We’ve talked about enjoying the experience (at the Paradise Jam), what a great commitment it is from the administration but we also talk about the history of Quinnipiac basketball,” Moore said.
As of now, that’s a pretty short conversation.
“Some people wouldn’t have thought 10, 11, 12, 15 years ago that we would be in the NIT or the CIT or been in a tournament like this,” Moore said. “Coaches are impatient. We like to have it happen right away, but it doesn’t always work like that.”
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