Calhoun: 'Truth Will Win Out'

If Jim Calhoun is worried that the NCAA will come down hard on UConn, he’s hardly showing it. And it doesn’t appear to be simply a brave face he’s putting on. Calhoun seems to sincerely believe his program will come out of this without any crippling damage.

“I truly believe at the end, when it’s all said and done, the truth will win out,” he said at Tuesday's 25th Franciscan Sports Banquet, held at Southington's Aqua-Turf Club and his first public appearance since Friday‘s press conference. “I don’t go into this with great fear. There was an article written (by Yahoo ! Sports), the NCAA came in, looked at us for 15 months in every aspect of our program and made certain allegations. At the end of the day, I’m not telling you everything is going to be just fine and dandy, but … I think we had one of the better recruiting classes we’ve had in quite some time. People in our program our positive. A few mistakes were made, and we’ll go forward.”

He added: “There is nothing else to do in life, whether you fall off a bike and break a couple of ribs, you’ve got to get back on it. You’ve got to know who you are and what we’ve done. I know who I am, and I know what we have done. Do I know every single intimate detail? Obviously not. But I truly believe I know who I am …”

Numerous celebrities from the sports world were on hand on Tuesday, including Hamden’s George Grande, the former ESPN anchor and longtime baseball play-by-play man who received the Saint Francis Award. ESPN anchor Chris Berman, former UConn assistant and current CCSU head man Howie Dickenman and UConn athletic director Jeff Hathaway were there, as well.

Oh, and this was interesting: also in the house was was Quinnipiac head coach Tom Moore, the former UConn assistant.

There seems to be no ill will towards Moore, and no visible panic from Calhoun or Hathaway about the program’s future. Rather, Calhoun is upbeat about the future -- some of which has already arrived in Storrs.

Calhoun wouldn't comment on colleague Dave Solomon's report that UConn is set to hire Kevin Ollie as an assistant to replace Patrick Sellers, who recently resigned.

“We’re not discussing any personnel matters. Right now, I think the job was posted. We’ve got to hope over the next 10, 11 days, we’ll have an opportunity to name somebody as an assistant. That’s the first place we’d head. I think we’ll have to look at that director of basketball operations position a little bit different. They have more contact with the university. We have some very experienced and very good people in their own positions right now.”

“It’s procedural right now, and any comment by anybody could hurt the process, because what happens then, someone could feel it was an unfair search. That’s happened before.”

“Right now, no one has been offered the job, no one has been named … I think we’re going to do a good job of replacing Pat, who I love dearly, and then Beau’s position will be replaced second.”