And breathe. Go kiss your wives, hug your children and relax. The 2009-2010 season is over, and for that I am thankful. It didn’t turn out how any of us wanted, but that doesn’t mean we shoud lose perspective. The Huskies reached the Final Four just last season…it’s not something that comes along everyday, and it’s not something you can sit around and be angry about everytime we miss. You think it’s easy to win consistently at this level? If it was, everyone would do it. It only shines the light brighter on the brilliant job Jim Calhoun is doing, and has done over the years. Seven 30+ plus win seasons, three Final Fours, two National Championships. Breathe.
Jim Calhoun isn’t going anywhere, nor should he be. He’s a boxer that got punched in the nose this season, and nothing more. He’ll be back…we’ll be back. Let’s let the recruiting chips unfold before we pass judgement on the 2010 class. Sip some wine, have a frosty beverage and reflect…we aren’t going to the tournament this season. Is that really any more disappointing than going and getting knocked off in the 2nd round? Really? This wasn’t our year; the team chemistry was wrong, the bench was too young, and the team’s on-the-floor leader was too young to get the older players to fall in line. It happens…and it will be different next season. Jim Calhoun is fighter, as is next year’s floor general, Kemba Walker. If anyone talks smack, tell them to kiss the rings.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
I didn’t imagine this outcome even as part of my worst case scenario.
9 turnovers for Dyson! UNREAL.
Happy to put this one to rest. Hopefully Jimmy C clears up his situation quickly so we can move forward on the recruiting front.
Mike special thanks to you for doing a wonderful job with this site. You kept things in perspective and were always thinking with your glass half full and staying positive in a year that we will soon forget. As a life long fan I was pretty disapointed with the season (thats an understatement) but I enjoyed all the information and the time and effort you put into keeping the fans informed and educated. NIT here we come and this might be good for the young players to get some time and experience in a tournament where we belong. Best of luck to you Mike nice job this year
My pleasure Jim, and thanks for the kind words. Spring football is around the corner!
What do we know about Cleveland Melvin decommitting, and Selby cancelling his planned trip to Storrs? Also it looks more and more like Knight is not coming and Cory Joseph is far from being a lock.
Next year’s team looks more suspect than it did a month ago.
5. Don’t clump Stanley in with Jerome. I half think JC benched Stan and Gavin along with JD the first time because he didn’t want to embarrass just Jerome. Look at Stan’s numbers from the last game. Not horrible at all. Sure, he COULD have done more, yada yada. Guys looking to pick him apart are looking in the wrong direction. He is the guy who carried us to the FF. Think about it. Stan was misused at UConn, and like I’ve said since day 1, the reason was obvious. JC loved Dyson and made Dyson the go-to guy ahead of Stan. The only time he didn’t adhere to that was when we went to the FF – because he had no choice. Oh well. Calhoun paid dearly for this mistake. Stan will be fine, and my guess is that he will be a solid NBA player once you put him on a team with a point guard who can get him the ball where he can do something with it on a regular basis.
6. Oil is depleting right now. 5$ gasoline is right around the corner. 10$ will be here within a few years. Bank on it. Take care. This officially ends my UConn fan life. It was a great ride – From Cliff Robinson to Stanley Robinson. Thanks to all the players and to the coaches for some great entertainment. Good luck
4). JC should retire. Right now. Forget the NIT. Retire, and give the program to a guy who can recruit. Right now. If Tom Moore got the job, for example, he could potentially start landing guys who think CT would be a great place with a new, young coach.
Yeah, I know – bad way to go out, he built the program, he’s a lion. That’s all well and good, but, just like I told you Dyson was a chemistry killer, I’m telling you right now that the road ahead is filled with land mines. After this season, recruits are going to avoid UConn like a disease. They’ll ask “Has JC lost it? WHY was the team so bad? WHY did it underperform? WHY did its alleged leader utterly FOLD in the last weeks of his last season?” It all stinks, and even dazzled high school kids can smell it. The last 4 years have been a disaster with a nice FF run mixed in. Take off the homer goggles if you don’t see this. A DISASTER. 2 NO dance and 1 64 team exit. NOT elite. NOT good omens. If you think things can’t get worse, you’re looking through the goggles. IF and WHEN Smith backs out, then the recruiting class drops to DePaul level. With only Kemba having real talent and skills, combined, it would be easy for next season and the next to be worse. Much worse. Even IF Kemba is here in 2 years, which I strongly doubt. As in the aberration of this year becomes the norm for a few years, and UConn becomes a laughingstock. A has been. With an ancient coach.
The prospects are VERY GRIM, and if you don’t see this, you’re looking through goggles. To the goggle wearers who think Gottlieb was looking for headlines, you may be right, but it doesn’t change the truth of his words. UConn BBall is in critical shape. We are a few bad recruits away from being a cellar dweller. Outside of Kemba, where do the points come from? Majok? Okwandu? Smith? JCM? You are kidding yourself if you don’t see BE basement with that group. The BE is very strong. I was impressed by almost every team I saw this year. Everybody had athletes, shooter, skills. JCM and Smith are not going to get it done. Counting on untested recruits is a mistake.
JC should retire right now – his legacy would be – HOF coach, 2 titles, lots of other things, and a bad season after a FF bid but handed off the team in decent shape with an NBA point guard and some solid prospects. Nice. If he hangs around he will very likely add “old boxer who got his ass knocked out a dozen times because he was too stupid to stop, and was in charge of the program as it plummeted to the cellar of the Big East.”
For his sake, I hope he retires. I like the man too much and owe him too much to bear watching an embarrassing downfall. Good luck Jim. 80% he retires by the end of the NIT bid, IMO. 100% that he should. BTW, him saying that he “would have retired” last year if they won it was a very bad recruiting move. It tells recruits he’s RIPE for retirement.
3). Dyson. I said 4 years ago – the kid is not a team player, and we should not be relying on him. We were better without him on day 1, and when we went 8-1 w/o him when he was boozing, and when we went to the FF w/o him, and when the scrubs came back w/o him. When I posted this thought on R.com and S.com I was gang beaten. So how’s that taste now boys? How’s it taste to know that Frank was right all along? I hope it tastes good. I don’t wear homer goggles, no matter how much I love the team. Dyson’s stats were always misleading, because they never showed how much damage his style of play did to team chemistry.
Why did Dyson fold so heavily at the end? For all the same reasons. He was never a team player. People confused his hard work with team play. His hard work was his nature because he was always doing it for the same reason – himself. It is no coincidence that Jerome folded at exactly the time when Kemba started to take over. It’s as if the harder Kemba pulled, the more Dyson dragged his feet. I suspect that JC had told Dyson to follow Kemba’s lead, and after that, Jerome just didn’t care anymore. Me or nothing. Hard to otherwise explain 9 TOs in his last game. It was his way of saying F you to everybody who was telling him to take a back seat and stop killing the team.
Look at it this way – I’ve read about 30 or 40 Dyson quotes over the last 4 years. Not one ever made me think the guy cared about UConn. The one that really bothered me was when he said, earlier this year, that he thought NBA guys weren’t giving him credit for his all-around game. Woa. Waaaaay too much thinking about it JD. Play hard, do your best to help the team win, and let the NBA guys think what they want. The recent quotes about other guys not thinking about what he was were just icing – same “all about Jerome” as always.
That’s it. My last words on the guy. Didn’t like him on day 1. Didn’t like him on day 1400, and didn’t like him any day in between, as, even when he had good games, the win-killing games were sure to follow. Goodbye Jerome. By the way – I also said the guy was not a good shooter and proved it with numbers last year and got KILLED for it on the boards. Guy shot 28% from 3 this year. Worse, he shot more threes than Kemba and Stan, both of whom shot it at a higher rate. Not a good call Mr. Calhoun.
I’ll keep this as simple as possible, which is not very simple.
1). Should say “No” to the NIT, but it’s a decision driven by money. NIT in the late 80s was OK. Now, it’s not. A program that is supposed to be a top program should not attend an inferior tournament. As a side note, does anybody want to see Dyson in a UConn uniform again? As for “getting the freshmen some run time,” it’s not going to happen. Why? Because JC will play to win, and to him that will, mistakenly, mean to play Dyson.
2). Extremely disappointed in JC. It took him 4 years to bench Jerome, and when he finally did, the scrubs fought back. So what does JC do? Starts Jerome the next game. Jerome promptly has 2 TOs and a several other flubs to help the team get off to a poor start. Pull Jerome out in the 2nd half, team starts to play better. Robinson in particular – gets pass from Walker for dunk, nice dribble move to the rim. Boarding. Put Dyson back in, 7 more TOs, innumerable run killers. JC has gotten what he has deserved on this one. Dyson should never, ever have been more than a 15-20 minute a game sub. I’m not sure if we lost any recruits because they were told they’d play behind Dyson, but this is an example of reaping what you sow. JC SHOULD have stood on principle and kept him benched. By playing him, JC gave in and went for, what he thought, was a better path to the win. Wrong for the last time on that one coach.
Adm, the recruiting outlook doesn’t appear to be the greatest right now, but we don’t get the whole story. Roscoe Smith was rumored to be heading to Georgetown, right before he committed to us. We have to wait it out, it will all work itself out by next month. About Melvin…it was as simple as the staff believing he was a 4, and Melvin believing he is a 3. A difference of opinion, and Melvin wants to go somewhere to play the 3. The staff was upfront with him and they parted ways. I don’t know if we will look to fill that roster spot or not…because, gulp, Jonathan Mandledove was granted another year of eligibility.
Coombs-McD
Darius Smith
Jamaal Trice
Kemba Walker
Alex Oriakhi
Ater Majok
Charles Okwandu
Michael Bradley
Jeremy Lamb
Roscoe Smith
Jonathan Mandledove
Donnell Beverly
That’s 12…barring any transfers, we only have room for one more.
Frank, things are never as bad, or as good as they seem. About Tom Moore…I am in favor of bringing Moore back now, as the Associate Head Coach, and Head Coach in waiting…but Jim Calhoun can retire whenever, and however he wants. He’s done enough for the program that he’s earned it…and he’s also earned some restraint from the fanbase. Trust the guy, he’s got the jewelry that proves he knows what he’s doing. And if the run is indeed over like you say, then so be it…but he’s our coach, and I’m standing behind him. Did he put too much faith in Dyson? Absolutely. Should he retire because of that error? Nonsense.
Of course not. I’m with you on this – He should coach as long as he cares to, and UConn should provide the home for him. We agree on that.
My point wasn’t that we should force him out – that would be wrong.
The point is, he should retire because the road only gets worse from here.
Let’s let the recruiting chips all fall before we pass judgement on how bad next season will be, is all I’m saying. As currently constituted, yes, I believe next year could be difficult…but things can change in a hurry with the addition of a player or two.
Mike – I’m not passing judgment – just pointing out that there are many potential mines out there. Bottom line is, if JC is going to retire, he really needs to do it sooner rather than later. It’s not fair to the next guy or the program if he retires at the end of summer or midseason.
With regard to recruits, what one guy is going to make a difference? Who is the last freshman we had who would have taken us from a cellar dweller to a contender? Ray Allen? Butler?
Even the Okafors and Gordons and Donyells needed some time to get going.
Point is, you look at the core right now and it’s very weak, and that’s all I have to say about it. It’s fraught with peril, and JC needs to keep that in mind. Last year, when the year was out, he looked forward and he has – Stan, Dyson, and Gavin as Seniors, an improved Kemba, a MAA in AO, Majok, and he thinks, “I can make a run with this team.”
There is NO WAY he’s saying that right now. And Kemba is definitely gone after next year.
So when’s the next time JC might have a team that can finish in the top half of the BE? 3 years? 4? But only if he recruits quality guys now. But quality guys aren’t kicking down his door.
So JC should really, really consider how he wants the tail end of his legacy to read.
Guest, please identify yourself…outstanding post.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with anything that you are saying…certainly you raise valid concerns…but put a little faith in the ol’ Lion of Storrs. We’ve missed the tournament before..in fact on average I believe we miss it about every 5 years without looking it up. It’s easy to go all doom and gloom after a loss and a disappointing season. You can come back and tell me you told me so if we miss the tourney again next season…I will reserve the right to say the same when we make it. You don’t win 800+ games and two titles by knowing less than some internet savy members of the fanbase. He doesn’t have to go anywhere…if anyone can turn it around in one offseason it’s Jim Calhoun.
Come on, Frank! This doesn’t end your Uconn fan life. We all know you will be back next year and I for one like the craziness you introduce into our fandom.
Ha. Danny Boy, you are obviously more familiar with Frank than I but I hope what you say is true. I like Frank’s commentary & he seems like too big a fan to walk away.