NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 26, 2003

Jim Calhoun

JIM CALHOUN: Well, we came in here and really probably from the opening two or three minutes, got our butts kicked physically and mentally. Georgia Tech came in to win the game, and I just thought that they handled us in every single way. I thought two of our guys looked like Connecticut players and that was Denham Brown, struggled but kept working at it and tried to do the best job he possibly could and Emeka was obviously suffering, he still could shoot foul shots. I think he could do an awful lot better job than that. Beyond that I just thought we got our butts kicked in every which way. This is the same team, except, really, starting lineup except for Hilton, for Josh Boone and after the Texas game last year where we were down 12, 14 points, came back to go ahead. And tonight, with eight minutes to go, obviously as a coach I thought we could win, but we were playing like we weren't going to win. Georgia Tech had got into us and we didn't respect good defense. We didn't respect -- I'm not talking about taking them lightly. I'm talking about them conversely taking to us. We didn't respect good defense, so we took bad shots. We thought the answer was a quick three. Marcus Williams in practice shoots 18 percent from three-point lane. Tonight he was -- he decided to unveil his three-point shot. He's a freshman but can't do that. Rashad depended upon making three-point shots. Ben got locked up. Neither pointguard playing particularly well. And, you know, at times they had a very small lineup up there and they mismatched us. But the surprising thing was they didn't mismatch us just because of their quickness, because of toughness. We were not a tough basketball team tonight, something we were known for over the years and apparently right now as we get into playing Utah on four o'clock on Friday, we don't -- we aren't playing as a tough basketball team and that's clearly what beat us tonight. Toughness is two things: It's fighting your way through a screen. Toughness is diving on the floor for loose balls. Toughness is making that one extra at the point to help a teammate out. If you don't get through on screen, continue. And toughness is staying with what you have and continuing to run through it, as opposed to just throw the first shot that shows, not the best shot and running something else. It was never, ever a question that we were going to let that shot clock get down. So we gave in, or were made to give in -- better term would be, we were made to give in by Georgia Tech's perimeter defense which took everything away from us. That's really disappointing to us. And my congratulations to Georgia Tech and to Paul Hewitt and his team. They did a terrific job and clearly outplayed us. If by some fluke we had won that game, I mean, last five minutes, something crazy happened, maybe lights in the building went out or something and they scored where they couldn't see us, we didn't deserve to win that game. They just outplayed us and outhustled us and outworked us. I've been upset many times because I demand a fairly high standard of work but tonight, it was an exceptional night in the sense of -- negative night for us. Exceptional in the sense that we did not work hard and we quit on what we were doing both physically and mentally, and they made us do it. They did a terrific job.

JIM CALHOUN: That's one of the guy that is they imposed their will upon us. I love Ben to death, he comes down has a nice open three and kicks the ball to Shamon and that was very typical. When I see a guy do that -- I saw a kid today from Ohio State, I was talking about it on the way over. Ohio State is up one and the shot clock is going down and he threw to a big kid with three seconds left on the shot clock. Kid turned it over and as fate would have it, unfortunately, Villanova in our league, missed one-on-one. You might remember the play if you happened to see the end of that game. I thought that was the type of play where you didn't necessarily want the shot as badly. Denham wanted the shot. Denham wanted to try to do things, turned it over a few too many times, but at least he was trying to attack people and go after somebody. You have to take it off to Emeka. He never felt good tonight, he begged us to play. We told him: You don't have to, you have a full season but the doctors assured us he's not going to do any permanent damage. He blocked shots. Obviously his time offensively and certainly everything else was thrown off, but those are the two guys who got passes. The rest of team were taken out by Georgia Tech. I hate coaches that come in that say: "We had a flat game, we took them for granted." We didn't take them for granted. We had a tough basketball game. We were outtoughed and outplayed tonight. That's what happened to us. The other team came in and took away things that we have done well with this team last year. And certainly in parts of the Nevada game, probably a good team, comparable to this team, maybe Georgia Tech is a little better, I don't even know that. They are comparable teams and there was no comparison to the way we handled both of those situations.

JIM CALHOUN: I haven't experienced too much of that. I think -- I think it does deflate a team. I think when you're 4-for-16 at one point, that you go down, you have an empty trip after empty trip after empty trip, that deflates a team. What a great team does, make a few more stops. Instead of the score at half-time, give them 20, give them 30 -- maybe we only have 26, don't rush our offenses, we only make 26 because we can't make a foul shot, but there's a different kind of feeling. We allowed the foul shooting, and once again their will to be imposed upon us and that's something we try to do upon other teams.

JIM CALHOUN: I don't really know how to answer that question. We can get beat again on Friday or bounce back, and I assume we bounce back, but once again, I was deflated myself, and I very rarely get deflated. I get upset, I get angry, I get all of those other emotions. But tonight I was deflated because it's easy to clap for kids when they are doing all the right things working their butts off and it doesn't happen. That's happened to us. But we were getting dunked on, we were getting beat down the floor sometimes four-on-one. Those are the effort kind of things, scared me. Once again, it's a long basketball season. Certainly not writing the story of Connecticut basketball for this year on one game. I just didn't like what I saw there.

JIM CALHOUN: I thought that we played good against the Yale team that would be the worst possible matchup for us, a team that holds the ball and they did a wonderful job with that. I thought Nevada had players and just beat UNLV last night or the night before and we handled them, but it was at home on a much more comfortable circumstance. It was a hard game. I thought we played better in a game that really, quite frankly, we had much better talent than -- and then tonight, I have to say I'm more than the most surprised guy in the building, just how we didn't respond. If we lost, we lost, I'd have a whole different kind of tune. But the way we responded, the fact the ball was not going in the hole, couldn't make a foul shot and give up 62 points and scored 26 points in the second half on some really, really just bad offense, there's no other word for it, just awful offense -- and that to me is about will and toughness. If you have to have will if you don't get the first shot, you got for a second shot, you get a third shot. I will agree if you're sitting there missing foul shot after missing foul shot after working hard to get the ball inside or get the ball someplace, it is difficult. But life is difficult, and you have to respond better than we did, and we did not respond very well at all. Once again I said before I think that any team -- and I'll go on record and say it one more time: You're not going to be undefeated, and that's okay. I didn't expect this team to be undefeated. I didn't expect you go to have a game, the fourth game of the year, someone to come in and outwill us. And their backcourt players are very good and he played well together and were terrific. We held them to 43 percent, which isn't that great for us, but not that bad for us. But we put ourselves in such a hole, so mentally we were not tough enough to make five, six, seven, eight foul shots in a row and get close. Every time we with get close, relatively close, we would miss shots. And that's what you need to overcome if you're going to be a great team. We'll have to practice hard tomorrow for an hour, that's all we have, and we'll get ready for Utah.

JIM CALHOUN: Yeah, his ankle he turned his ankle. He had a little swelling.

JIM CALHOUN: Really, it's -- I would assume that he'll play on Friday night.