Conventional wisdom for the past couple of weeks has been that Saturday night's game with DePaul at Gampel would be the perfect time for Jim Calhoun to return to the sidelines. Makes sense in a lot of ways: home game, lesser opponent (though the Blue Demons have beaten Marquette and had a 19-point lead before being edged by Syracuse, and are only two games behind UConn in the Big East standings), etc., etc.

And when, for I believe the first time since Calhoun went on medical leave, we got an e-mail today from UConn's men's basketball SID that didn't specifically state that George Blaney would be meeting the media before practice on Friday (rather, simply that "availability will follow at the conclusion of practice,") it made me wonder.

But conventional wisdom doesn't apply in this case. Calhoun's doctors are going to tell him when he's ready to return, and they're probably not looking at the Huskies' schedule to make that determination.

Blaney just said on this week's conference call that he's assuming that he, not Calhoun, will coach the team against DePaul.

"It’s day-to-day, we’re waiting for he and the doctors to decide when is the right time for him to come back," said Blaney. "He seems good, he feels good, he’s feeling better, but we don’t have any timetable on when he’s coming back."

Asked if it's likely Calhoun will return for a home game rather than a road contest, Blaney said: "When they decide he’s ready to come back, I don’t think it will matter if it’s a home game or road game for him. He wanted to come back two weeks ago."

Blaney said the team had an "incredible" practice on Wednesday.

"But you’ve got to translate that into the game," he pointed out. "I told them yesterday, we would have won some games yesterday, but you’ve got to carry that over into Saturday ...."