Big game -- the last truly big game of the season for UConn -- on Wednesday night at Gampel, when No. 7 Georgetown ambles into town.

The Big East player of the year race may be over (G'town's Otto Porter has all but sewn that up), but coach of the year is still somewhat open, and two of the three favorites (Kevin Ollie and John Thompson III) will be on opposing sidelines. Incidentally, he Republican-American's Ed Daigneault polled 13 out-of-town college hoops writers on Big East player of the year and coach of the year. Porter was unanimous for player and, surprisingly, JTIII got all but two votes for coach of the year. Ollie and Buzz Williams split the other two. It's possible the league's coaches (who actually vote on the award) could see things differently.

About 300 tickets were still available for the game as of Tuesday afternoon.

Here's some of what Ollie and Shabazz Napier had to say before Tuesday's practice at Gampel.

OLLIE:

(On Georgetown)

“I don’t think we’ve seen a team – probably since some of Coach (Calhoun’s) teams that went 16-2, 17-1 in league – both offense, defense, field goal perentage. They’re doing it on both ends of the table. They’re a great team – long, athletic. Can’t let them get out in transition, can’t give up easy buckets, and we’re going to have to guard them for the whole 35 seconds.”

(on Otto Porter)

“He’s just a great player. He’s a typical wing player, can put it on the floor, can shoot at a high rate … long, gets offensive rebounds, can go down on the block. Anything else I missed?”

(Ollie said it’ll be a group effort trying to stop Porter)

“Just like our guards. They don’t put one guy on Shabazz or one guy on Ryan (Boatright) … Otto’s gonna be a concentrated effort by all five of our guys in the paint, loading up, making sure he’s not on his sweet spots, distorting his catches, and making sure he sees a lot of UConn players and not getting a lot of easy buckets in transition.”

(on Omar Calhoun)

“He’s passing the ball a little more because of the wrist. It’s a good thing. He had to alter his game by default.”

NAPIER:

"I love Gampel. If I had a chance to pick our home games, they would all be at Gampel. The crowd is so right there on you, it can be devastating for the other team. It helps when we go through spurts where we don’t score, and when we go through spurts when we do score. I just really appreciate Gampel.”

(on what happens if DeAndre Daniels guards Porter)

“DeAndre always comes up big in games where we need him to come up big.”

(on the possibility of winning their 20th game of the season on Wednesday)

“It would be a lot. We’ve been through so much, and not one day have we allowed excuses to overcome this team. We’ve continued to fight and be resilient.”

(on how big a game Georgetown is)

“This is, I guess you could say, a championship game, in a sense.”

*** A heavily-bearded Stanley "Sticks" Robinson was at Gampel on Tuesday. He's taken a break from hoops after suffering an Achilles tendon injury, living in Willimantic and working at Prime Materials, the scrap-metal place at which he worked while sitting out the first semester in 2008-09.
Always good to see Sticks.

*** The UConn athletics department and office of environmental policy will host a Green Game Day on Wednesday night. As part of the event, fans are encouraged to bring any lightly-used sneakers to donate for reuse – especially children’s shoes. These shoes will go to Kicks for Africa, a UConn student-run organization whose mission is to donate lightly-used shoes to less fortunate children in Africa. The shoes will be collected at all entrances as fans enter the game.

As you prepare to get on your New Year's Eve buzz, remember that there will be no Buzz to UConn's Big East opener tonight at Marquette (8 p.m., ESPNU).

Marquette coach Buzz Williams will be serving a school-imposed, one-game suspension for a recruiting violation the program self-reported over the summer, per the Journal-Sentinel's Michael Hunt. Williams wound up firing an assistant for the violation.

Williams, who can't have contact with his team either Monday or Tuesday, did have this to say about UConn: "I think they're extremely fast. Like, really, really, really fast. They pressure you defensively, put pressure on you offensively because of their speed ... We'll have our hands full, but we can't make it into a track meet because we'll lose. We have to handle their speed. We have to make them guard us inside."

No word yet on who'll coach the Golden Eagles. It's possible former DePaul head man Jerry Wainwright could take the reins.

*** Tuesday's game will be a homecoming for UConn freshman Phil Nolan, a Milwaukee native. It's a sort of homecoming, as well, for Kevin Ollie, who spent much of the 2002-03 season playing for the Bucks.

In fact, as I explain in this feature story I did on Nolan back in June, it was the friendship that Ollie had with Trevor Trimble, stepfather of one of Nolan's good basketball buddies, that helped lead Nolan to UConn.

Nolan told me over the summer that Marquette offered him a scholarship back after his sophomore year in high school, but ultimately the school was "a little too close to home."


But, he added: "There weren't a lot of people from the inner-city who were Marquette fans. It wasn't like Marquette was like UConn is."

*** Although Ollie only spent about half a season with the Bucks before being traded (with Ray Allen) to Seattle, he made plenty of friends in his relatively short time here (not surprisingly). That was evident when the bellman at the team's hotel, the Phister, greeted him with a hug as the team arrived.

In fact, Ollie said he lived at the hotel for about a month-and-a-half -- wisely choosing not to setttle down and buy a home in the area. Eleven different teams in 13 seasons will do that to you.

*** Ryan Boatright is a native of Chicago, which is about 90 minutes down the road from Milwaukee. He'll have plenty of friends and family at the game, too.

"When we travel," he said, "we travel in packs."

*** Tomorrow will be UConn's first true road game -- obviously the first ever for freshmen like Omar Calhoun and Nolan.


Added Ollie: “It’s all about growing. You grow in life. This is going to be another growing step for us. I want to see how they respond, of course, I want to see how I respond, our coaching staff response. It’s just going to be a good test … in one of the most hostile environments that we have in the Big East.”

*** Ollie likes the improvement he's been seeing lately from Nolan.

“I’m seeing the consistency now. He’s working, not only the two hours I have him in practice, but he’s grabbing Coach Miller and myself and asking the different nuances of the game and how can I get better. He’s willing to ask for feedback, and I think that’s a great thing for a young player. Instead of just getting in a shell and saying, ‘I’m not playing,’ he’s not doing that. He’s saying, ‘What do I need to do to get on the court, Coach?’ I keep telling him to rebound. That’s what he’s going to continue to do. I’ve seen him start to hit people first in the minutes that he’s got.”

What they were saying after UConn's 61-53 win over Washington tonight:

Omar Calhoun said the team learned about Kevin Ollie's extension at today's shootaround from AD Warde Manuel.

“We clapped it up for him. We were heading into tonight with a positive mindset," Calhoun said. "It definitely feels good. Coach Ollie’s a great guy, he wishes the best for everybody. He’s the guy who recruited me here. Everybody was happy for him.”

Added Enosch Wolf: “We work so hard for him to get that contract. We all know he deserved it, they should have given it to him right away, we all know that. So now we’ve got to prove it that he’s the right guy. We’ve got to go even harder and can’t let down.”

Ollie got a standing 'O' from the crowd of about 6,600 storm-braving fans when he first walked onto the court prior to the game.

“My legs were shaking and everything," he said. "It was like the first game I stepped into the XL Center. I was excited for the moment. I just never thought it could happen for a guy out of South Central Los Angeles. But I’m an unrealistic thinker, just like Coach Calhoun.”


Other coaches weighed in on Ollie's contract.

Buzz Williams, who'll be sitting out Tuesday's game vs. UConn due to a one-game, school-imposed suspension, said: "I think (Ollie) is a stud. I love (the contract extension). I've loved him before he got into coaching. I love his path, respect his path, think he's a star. I think it's hard to follow a Hall of Famer, but I think he has enough bravado to do it."

And Washington's Lorenzo Romar (like Ollie, an L.A. native), said: "I didn't really know him that well until he got into coaching. Right away, when he joined the coaching ranks from the NBA, the way he carried himself, he didn't conduct himself as if he was above anything. He conducted himself as if he was a student trying to learn to be the best. I've just kind of watched him, here and there talked to him ... I've just always been impressed with him. He was a fine basketball player, but I don't know if he was gifted where he was going to be Kobe Bryant. But he played a long time in the NBA because he worked really hard, he was a great teammate, very coachable, highly intelligent, high basketball IQ. All that allowed him to play. His last few years, (veterans) like guys on the team who are like coaches, they police the team. He's that kind of guy. So I thought it was a natural for him to get into the coaching profession ... I'm happy for him."

*** DeAndre Daniels left the game late in the contest after banging his chin against the floor. He'll need some stitches ("battle wounds," according to Ollie), but the coach thinks he'll be ready to go agianst Marquette Tuesday -- provided, of course, that he has no concussion symptoms.

*** On Wolf's press-breaking, alley-oop dunk from Calhoun:

“That was a great dunk," said Ollie. "I’ve seen it a couple of times in practice. Omar did a great job by giving it up and being unselfish. It was a remarkable play. I didn’t like the celebration too much. I’d like them to understand that that’s what they’re supposed to do. But I did like the excitement we played with today.”

Said Calhoun: "I knew he could catch it, I’ve thrown lobs for him before. I thought I was testing him a little bit with that one. He was able to go up and get it, so I was happy for him.”

And Wolf: “When I went up, I didn’t think I was going to get it, but I caught it. I was happy he threw it, so I finally could get one.”

“I was trying to get the crowd going a little bit. (Ollie) said act like we’ve been here before, stay cool, it’s not over yet. He was right.”

*** UConn outrebounded the bigger Huskies, 40-36, just the second time this season its won the rebounding battle.

“That was a real physical game, especially on the rebounds," said Wolf. "Coming in and fixing our biggest problem in this game, I feel really good.”

*** UConn has won 13 straight vs. Pac 10/12 foes, dating back to the loss to UCLA in the 1995 NCAA tournament.

*** There were 12,720 tickets sold for the game, and though UConn said only about 6,600 showed up, it truly seemed like more than that.

Said Ollie: "I know there's a foot of snow out there, and for them to come out and support us like they did, it's exceptional, it's outstanding. They're wonderful people that I love."