NIT SEASON TIP-OFF

November 28, 2003

Jim Calhoun

JIM CALHOUN: Sometimes the lessons that you learn during a basketball season can't be told or can't be spelled out, can't have some coach give a great speech, saying when you go to Madison Square Garden you're going to have a bullseye on your back and secondly you're going to play a terrific team, the best team you've played thus far in Georgia Tech, it needs to be seen and it was seen. They were allowed to run whatever offense they wanted to, even though they only shot 43 percent, they certainly dominated the basketball game. We never got below ten in the second half. It did make a reference point for us over the last day or so. It allowed us to get the kids as I said to Ben, your 12 points tonight was so much more valuable because your defense was so good. Conversely the other night your defense as awful. Taliek the same way. Denham Brown has developed into a pure program player where he defends, rebounds and plays terrifically well. We were not out to make necessarily a statement. They didn't make us No. 1 or 17 or anything. Only thing we did was tell everybody when they asked us, we have good talent on our basketball team. When Emeka is healthy, he'll be better than he was tonight and when we get Charlie back, we'll be even more talented and then the important thing is to play as a terrific basketball team, not just as a talented basketball team. And that's exactly what it was against Georgia Tech; we were talented and didn't use it and allowed Georgia Tech to take advantage of everything we wanted to do. And tonight, conversely, we did the same thing with Utah. If Utah gets a lead on you, because of the way they run their offense, they continue to turn it over and turn it over and turn it over. When we get down 16, 18 points, it becomes a little more difficult because it allowed us to really dig in on defense and obviously when you have a little bit of a lead it's certainly much better. But I would praise the heck out of my kids defensively. I thought we did a wonderful job and I couldn't be happier with their response to having the situation where they got outworked in a basketball game. Tonight, we were the team that I thought really worked well. Plus secondly Rich has an awful lot of young kids, so obviously the situation is difficult. We saw that and we tried to jump all over it. We saw the fact that they had assists and turnovers and we tried to create as much havoc as we could. Even though they only committed 15 turnovers, they had a tough time getting shots off, never mind getting off passes, meaningful passes. I'm really proud of our kids. Normally in a game with only 53 shots we might have struggled but I thought we just really executed exceptionally well. At least we wanted to make a statement to ourselves, that we are pretty good. Tonight, I think against a young Utah team, we made at least some form of a statement, that we can defend, that we can dive for every loose ball and right to the end, Taliek diving and all of our kids going after every loose ball and playing much better basketball.

JIM CALHOUN: He felt great, better earlier. He went over to the New York Athletic Club and got some heat, more heat, and then with about 12, 14 minutes to go it became rather obvious that he was having trouble running so I told Jason, obviously the game was in hand by that time, just to try to save him. He kept telling us and we've taken MRIs, done all kinds of things -- can't hurt himself. It's just -- just doesn't click automatically back into shape. He'll run two minutes, feel real good and then just click out and you'll see him stand up and be in pain. He can't sit down on the bench because it hurts too much, which is. I don't like him on the bench anyways. I will say something, too, about Emeka. I know he's been overpraised, some folks feel. But I've dealt with a lot of kids that are, quote, "lottery selections," and I think that you can all imagine what a lot of kids who would quote, be "lottery selections" think about playing for Old State U in this day and age when they have an injury and may not look at their best. I don't think that even crosses Emeka's mind. So sometimes when you think about Emeka, I think that he's willing to maybe not look quite as good as the player that he is, which is awful good anyway. And yet, there's never any of that kind of discussion. Once the doctors tell him he can't do any more future harm, and the good thing about him, he has no one else telling him in his ear, except his mom and dad, what he should do. He's here to play basketball for the University of Connecticut and that's what he's doing in the year 2003 and that's kind of nice.

JIM CALHOUN: It was painful. You know, I've always said that losing hurts more than a win helps, and I truly believe that. I really thought that Georgia Tech was a good team, a very good team. I think they were a better team than us. No, they were a better team than us but they didn't have better talent. We misused our talent and didn't have our kids as ready as we should have. I tell you, I was never expecting to go undefeated. I'll be very surprised if anybody doesn't get hit two or three times this year, the best teams in the country. I didn't expect to get hit by a team I thought we had good physical mismatches inside. They certainly mismatched us. We should have taken much better advantage. But their guards dominated our guards and we never really stood a chance.

JIM CALHOUN: In a while. This year certainly. This year, there's not a question about it. I watched the Utah/Minnesota game twice, Minnesota is a pretty good team. They just lock up. They locked up Minnesota, held them to 56 points, something like that. They played good defense. Minnesota, once it got caught into that motion offense, couldn't make adjustments. I thought our big kids, particularly Boone, Armstrong went out and were able to guard smaller people which I think it made it much better for us and that allowed Emeka to stay home. But I think we came out with a sense of purpose. We played Utah with the same approach that Georgia Tech played us, if that makes much sense to you. That's how I felt I could tell right off the bat. And Ben, who played very poorly on defense the other night, he was terrific. He really was good on defense. Taliek was good. Denham was very good. We just overall put together a terrific defensive effort and I think Utah, as they grow, will be, in my opinion, an NCAA Tournament team. This tournament, in some regards, hopefully they will take out of -- because they will be reminded not necessarily about the Utah game. They will be reminded about the Georgia Tech game at times. But they did change practice for tomorrow, because if we had lost today, tomorrow's practice would be entirely different. Instead we'll shoot foul shots. Just so you know, everybody expected me to rant and rave and I did but also have maybe -- kill an hour over here. We shot foul shots for an hour and ten minutes. When you miss 20 out of 30 and your team is banged up, we just shot foul shots for an hour and 15 minutes. But there wasn't an awful lot of Thanksgiving joy. No one was singing "pass me the drumstick" or any of that kind of stuff, no. It was a very serious mode and I told them this is an important game. I think that you leave a tournament like this, you leave losing two games after playing three home games, you need to prove something, sometime to yourself. And this team is fragile enough at times, and I don't know why because you're going to tell me -- I know that the -- aren't these the same five that are on the court with a couple additions? But, I could see it, I don't want to say lack of confidence, but it was taken back by Georgia Tech and the Georgia Tech swagger. I thought we had that tonight and we were able to impose it upon Utah and I thought we played exceptionally well. I thought they never stood a chance because of our defense.

JIM CALHOUN: We won't play a team, at least -- I could go right down the list of who we play, but as much as I'm going to try to fool you and I will, I won't fool you but I'll try, we won't play probably a game, at least that would help us as much or play against a team that's going to be playing national teams until January, maybe Rice. Rice is picked second I think in Nevada's league on January 2, I think that game is. That will be the next time we play a team of this level. So, yeah, it became doubly important for us for a lot of reasons. Not that Iona and those teams can't beat us, but it was important for us to come out of here. It's a swing game. Early in the season, 4-1 looks better than 3-2. We learned something. Good teams learn when bad things happen to them. We weren't bad people, we weren't bad talent; we played a bad game and conversely Georgia Tech played a tough physical game. Georgia Tech didn't play -- they shot 43 percent but they got to us, we missed foul shots, we just did not respond the way typical teams have, not even this particular team that came back, didn't respond. This was their first challenge they didn't pass that one. Tonight is an even harder challenge because you're having your team meal at 12:00 and it throws you off and you know that open friends and relatives are going to be showing up and it's not really for igniting anything in the sense except to try to win a basketball game. So you need to bring a little more sometimes and I thought we did. Once again I'm really happy with the kids. I thought almost to a man, we played great defense. We did what we had to do offensively. We shot the ball very well and distributed very well. We had a good night. I think -- as I said to the kids before the game, this is the most important game thus far you've played this season. Not Georgia Tech. Because you would have gone to the finals but this was the most important game because you go out of here 0-2 and maybe then you have to wait a little while to prove to yourself sometimes. I know it sounds kind of funny but we are at times a team that doesn't have a lot of swagger to us. We have confidence but not a swagger to us. I was really happy. I think hopefully it will bode well for the next month of keeping things in priority and then getting ourselves ready for rest of the season.

JIM CALHOUN: I'm keeping an eye on the 20 percent. Clearly the bulge in the back, and I made a decision last night with that to see if -- I would hope that within the next week, whatever it's going to be, that we could possibly see Charlie. I have no idea because I don't know, but -- so I'm kind of thinking ahead tonight, especially the fact that Hilton played well, Josh Boone has always entrenched himself to be a very valuable player for us. We need to get him the ball for us and I think he can do some better things for us. With all of that in mind, that six games mean clearly could venture at any point in time because there's no doubt in anybody's mind that that back is bad, the bulging disk, you can see it. If we get whole again, we'll consider maybe taking care of that now so he can be ready for next season.

JIM CALHOUN: Certainly after Emeka, hard to make a case, and he's one of the few guys I praised, how to make a case in the five games that we now played that he has not been as good of a player as we've had. He plays the same every night. He rebounds, depends, just got to do a little better job of giving up the ball on the break and last year he even tried making those dribbles. He's a tough, tough player, he's a tough matchup for everybody. He scores on the post, on 3s. We're happy. Sometimes you go away and say, well -- I'm really happy. Not only we won obviously but the way that we responded right off the bat and I think you saw maybe a different Connecticut team than played Georgia Tech.