Most of the same players who attended the event two years ago are expected to play in the 2010 Jim Calhoun Charity All-Star Game on Saturday, Aug. 7, at Mohegan Sun.

That is to say Rip, Ray and Emeka, two Browns (Taliek and Denham), two Williams (Marcus and Murray), two Marshalls (Donyell and Donny), a Butler (Caron), a King (Kirk), a Knight (Travis) and appropriately, considering the venue, a Gamble (Phil) are expected to be in the house. New UConn assistant Kevin Ollie and Ricky Moore, who was recently named an assistant at Dartmouth, will also play.

And a few newcomers to the game are expected, as well: Jerome Dyson, Jeff Adrien, Craig Austrie and Stanley Robinson.

About the only big-name player who participated two years ago who won't likely be there next week is Rudy Gay, who seems on the verge of earning a spot on the Team USA roster.

The game starts at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $22 and $29 and are available by calling 800-745-3000, or visiting the Mohegan Sun box office.Ticket revenues go to the Pat and Jim Calhoun Cardiology Center at the UConn Health Center.

After the game there will be an autograph sesson on the floor of the arena.

Let's see, where do we start? Ahh, let's not. Let's congratulate Jerome Dyson, Stanley Robinson and Gavin Edwards on their good, four-year (with a couple of road bumps) careers at UConn and not talk about the past.

The future, Conan? Umm ... that could be troublesome.

For one, it may or may not involve Jim Calhoun. In a long, rambling way as only he can, Calhoun addressed a report Monday on SNY that he was contemplating retirement after this season.

"I was made aware of the story, and it has nothing to do with anything and was not based on any substantive fact … Like everything else, I'm in the business of trying to recruit players to UConn. I love the school, and I still love coaching. It couldn't be farther … when I saw or heard a couple of facts about me talking to certain people, who I haven't had a word with, it was unfortunate. I haven’t had a word with one for one year and the other for eight months about the situation. And yes, there is a contract offer out there. I haven't seen the final copy, but it's out there, yes."

Calhoun apparently was referring to UConn president Michael Hogan and athletic director Jeff Hathaway, and seemed to be addressing a rumor a few weeks ago that he is balking on retirement because he won't be allowed to select his successor.

***Calhoun also made what I think (and I could be wrong) a veiled reference at how next year's cupboard could be bare when he talked about the Johnnies.

"They certainly have a bright future ahead of them," he said of the Red Storm. "(With returning) juniors and seniors, they'll be one of the better teams in the Big East, certainly top five or six next year. Today the team I saw today from St. John's was terrific. The team I saw from Connecticut today was not very good at all."

***Then there was another veiled shot at Hathaway. When asked about accepting a potential NIT bid, Calhoun said: "I guess I have to talk to the athletic director, and I'll talk to him. Obviously, he makes the final judgment. He runs the athletic department. So, obviously, I have to confer with him."

***So, if asked (and to me, that's up in the air), will the Huskies accept an NIT bid?

"I have great respect for (the NIT)," Calhoun said. "I never thought about turning it down. I think it's a good time to sit down with myself and my staff and think about what we want to do going forward. Particularly after (Tuesday's game) … it's a good time to sit down and think about closing the curtain for this year or continuing on, if we have the opportunity."

Calhoun said his team won't practice for a couple of days, at least. "Then, I don't know if we will practice or not."

***Back to Dyson for one minute. When asked what's been wrong with the senior guard the last three games (16 points, 6-for-26 shooting, 16 turnovers, one second-half benching), Calhoun shrugged: "He hasn't played well. He's played very poorly. If I could explain it, I would try to do something about it. He's played very poorly."

George Blaney gave a more in-depth answer: "It's like a batter that gets in a slump, that can't get himself out of it. He tries everything, he goes hard, he goes soft, he does everything, but nothing works. In fact, you start to look worse. That's what slumps are."

***OK, I'm getting a bit tired of this. I have now covered the Big East tournament seven times -- four times covering Providence, three covering UConn. I have seen the respective teams I've covered win exactly once -- Providence in 2002 or 2003 (can't remember, too lazy to look it up). This despite both PC and UConn have been No. 1 seeds (PC in 2001, UConn in 2009).

I'm a real rabbit's foot, aren't I?

George Blaney and Jeff Hathaway met with the media for about 10 minutes this evening to address the last 24 hours. Not a whole lot new was learned: Calhoun's medical condition is still undisclosed, and there is no timetable for his return.

"I have nothing to share, really," said Blaney, regarding Calhoun's health situation. "(It's) exactly what the doctor said. The doctor told him to take time off. (Calhoun) said, 'he finally told me I needed to do this … I'm listening for once.' It's not heart, it's not cancer."

Added Hathaway: "There's only one timetable here, and that is when Dr. Schulman talks with Jim and tells him that it's OK to go back. That is our primary concern, that's Coach Calhoun's primary concern. He has tremendous trust in Peter Schulman as a physician. When he and Dr. Schulman feel they're at the point of a complete recovery, he'll come back. Until then, George will coach the team, and we'll put no artificial deadlines on anything."

Hathaway did add that he has no reason to think that Calhoun's ailment is career-ending.

Blaney said Calhoun called him yesterday and told him he was going to take practice off, and probably the St. John's game, as well. After Calhoun was told by Dr. Schulman to take time off, he called Blaney back.

Blaney first broke the news to Jerome Dyson, Kemba Walker, Gavin Edwards and Stanley Robinson, and asked them to help explain the situation with the younger guys, "because they'd been through it before, they knew the program the best. We went out and practiced, and it was fine."

Blaney said of the players' reaction: "I think some of them were very surprised, but they were very good, as I would expect they would be. It's his team, he has shown them how to deal with adversity. I think that's what each kid will pick up right away. They'll learn how to deal with something that's hard. That's one of the lessons he teaches as well as anyone in the country."

And how did Calhoun sound?

"He was his usual cantankerous self. Don't print that, please."

Sorry, George.

Hathaway spoke to Calhoun today, as well.

"His status is same as any other coach who wants to be coaching his or her team, but understands that his health is the most important thing right now," said the AD.

Both Hathaway and Blaney said they saw no signs of any medical situation with Calhoun coming. Hathaway wouldn't elaborate on where things stand with a potential contract extension with Calhoun.

"People that cover this beat know, when we have contracts that are signed, we release them," he said.

Director of basketball operations Beau Archibald has been bumped up as an assistant for the time being.

The press conference was held where the media usually does its pregame dining.

"I understand that this is the room for the food," Blaney said at the start. "That's why everybody showed up. I'll buy cheeseburgers for you if you're really hungry."

Assuming Jim Calhoun's current ailment isn't too serious -- and we're told by a university source who spoke with Calhoun Tuesday night that it doesn't appear to be -- we feel comfortable bringing up this point: UConn often seems to play a bit more relaxed and at ease with George Blaney patrolling the sidelines in Calhoun's stead.

This is not to take anything away from Calhoun, a Hall of Famer with two national titles and 816 career victories under his belt. If he is gone for a long time, the Huskies are in some serious trouble. But they can survive -- perhaps even thrive -- for the short term.

UConn is 17-4 in games Calhoun has either missed or left early due to illness (as documented in an only-at-UConn chart the school has on file). The Huskies have won seven of their last eight contests that Calhoun has either missed or left early (and, in two instances, returned). The one loss was a 72-69 heartbreaker two years ago at Georgetown (remember Roy Hibbert's game-winning 3-pointer?).

UConn has won the last two Calhoun-less contests by a combined 87 points. Granted, the opponents were Rutgers and Chattanooga (the latter an NCAA tournament first-round game last year at Wachovia Center in Philly). Still, UConn looked much freer and easier in those games. Likewise in a Dec. 6, 2007 win over Northeastern from which Calhoun was ejected. The team played much more relaxed in the second half under Blaney.

Again, this is not to suggest that UConn is better off without Jim Calhoun. But there's a good chance that, at least tonight, the Huskies will be a little less inclined to be looking over their shoulders each time they take a bad shot or give up an offensive rebound.

***UConn had announced in an e-mail sent out on Monday that Calhoun would not be available to reporters prior to Tuesday's practice, and that the practice would be closed to the media.

Calhoun apparently had a routine medical exam on Tuesday, and it was there he was told he should take the medical leave of absence.

When Blaney spoke to reporters Tuesday at 12:30 p.m., the school had yet to announce Calhoun's situation, and Blaney may not have known himself.

Here's some of what Blaney had to say about the team in general and St. John's in particular:

“Most of Jim’s teams have gotten better from mid-January, late-January on. That’s when their teams really start clicking and really start moving. It seems to me it’s going to be the same this year. “

Blaney, who won 459 games in 30 seasons as a collegiate head coach, also pointed out that two “really, really good” teams last season – Norte Dame and Georgetown – got caught in a rut but could never get out of it. Both teams were picked to finish among the Big East’s elite, but both missed the NCAA tournament altogether.

“Right now, we’re a little caught,” Blaney admitted. “But we can get out of it, I think.”

***Blaney was asked if the team felt a sense of urgency right now.

"The urgency word is a word we use to get them to play every play. The urgency word, the way it sounds like you’re using it, is, ‘Are we afraid or nervous about where we are?’ We know we’re good, I think the kids know we’re good. We’ve not played the full 40 minutes in almost every game this year, to be honest with you. That’s what we’re trying to correct, and what we’re trying to get the players to really zero in on ... We’re not in a situation where things are bad. We’ve lost a couple of games, and they just need to play longer periods of time."

***Blaney on Kemba Walker's recent struggles:

"The only thing that Kemba seems to be doing is he’s passing up really good open jump shots, which he worked so hard on this summer. He’s coming right into the paint, and he’s pretty open. Now he’s taking one or two more dribbles in, and trying to create contact or trying to get to the rim. Quite honestly, it’s Kemba’s first year as a point guard. He really was not the point guard last year, he was someone that came in and gave us really good minutes pushing the ball. Now, he’s got to be a point guard where he’s got to make more and more decisions."

Walker, for his part, recognizes his struggles.


"I can’t get too deep in the paint. Sometimes I go a little too far, guys are collapsing on me and I don’t have enough room to pull up for a jump shot."

He also acknowledges that he has to be a better floor leader.

"It definitely has to be me. I’m the point guard, I’m the team leader. Of course Jerome and Gavin and Stanley have to step in and be leaders (also)."

***Blaney also noted that the team simply has to get Stanley Robinson the ball more often.

"It’s a priority all the time. It does sound like it’s easy. You also have to remember that, normally, the best or second-best defender is guarding him, and they’re not usually allowing him to do as many things as you would like. But we do have to get him the ball. I would like to see us get him the ball curling into the middle of the paint, where he’s so difficult to guard in that area."

***At first blush, it would seem the Red Storm would be the perfect antidote for UConn’s recent troubles. The Huskies have won eight straight against St. John’s, dating back to an overtime loss at Madison Square Garden in 2002.

But the Red Storm (12-5, 2-3) are an improved team from recent years. Still a tenacious defensive team under head coach Norm Roberts, they’ve got now got some offensive punch, led by talented junior forward D.J. Kennedy (15.4 points per game) and the recent return of oft-injured Anthony Mason, Jr., who is still trying to ease his way back into the rotation after returning three games ago.

"I think St. John’s has improved a great deal," said Blaney. "They’re playing exceptionally hard, they’ve always played good defense. And now they have some offensive answers – Kennedy, Horne, Burrell, and now Mason coming back, Hardy. And he’s playing 10 or 11 guys. They’re not slacking off the defense at all, they’re really coming at you hard. This will be a very, very tough game."

***Games which Jim Calhoun has missed or left early due to illness:

1. December 23, 1990 vs. Fairfield (HCC) W, 94-70 Chest-pain, flu-like symptoms
2. February 22, 1993 vs. Maine (HCC) W, 108-72 Food related
3. January 29, 1994 at Pittsburgh W, 88-67 pneumonia symptoms
4. February 1, 1994 at Syracuse L, 108-95 pneumonia symptoms
5. November 24, 1998 vs. Hartford (HCC) W, 95-58 intestinal virus
6. March 11, 1999 vs. UT-San Antonio W, 91-66 intestinal virus
7. January 3, 2000 vs. Sacred Heart (HCC) W, 83-56 stomach cramps
8. February 3, 2001 vs. Virginia Tech (GP) W, 85-72 light-headedness, flu-like symptoms
9. February 5, 2002 vs. Providence (HCC) W, 67-56 food related
10. February 5, 2003 at Virginia Tech L, 95-74 prostate surgery
11. February 8, 2003 at Providence W, 84-68 prostate surgery
12. February 10, 2003 vs. Syracuse (HCC) W, 75-61 prostate surgery
13. February 15, 2003 at Villanova L, 79-70 prostate surgery
14. February 19, 2003 vs. Rutgers (HCC) W, 87-70 prostate surgery
15. March 20, 2004 vs. DePaul (left and returned) W, 72-55 flu-like symptoms
16. January 16, 2006 at Syracuse W, 88-80 dehydration
17. January 13, 2007 at St. John’s (msg) (left and returned) W, 68-59 flu-like symptoms
18. January 8, 2008 vs. St. John’s (left game) W, 81-65 dehydration
19. January 12, 2008 at Georgetown (missed game) L, 72-69 dehydration
20. January 3, 2009 vs. Rutgers (GP) (left after halftime) W, 80-49 illness
21. March 19, 2009 vs. Chattanooga (missed game) W, 103-47

Jim Calhoun has been insisting for a while now that he sees things in practice from Charles Okwandu and Ater Majok that fans and media aren't seeing in games.

"Suuuure you have, coach," has often been the collective (if unspoken) thought among UConn's media horde.

On Saturday, Calhoun's practice-time observations finally proved not to be fables – at least in the case of Okwandu. In the "where-did-that-come-from?" dept., Okwandu scored 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting, had five rebounds (three offensive) in 14 minutes and – perhaps most stunningly – only committed two fouls.

Okwandu, a raw, 7-foot junior center who had seen exactly one minute of action over the prior four games and didn't even make the trip to Cincinnati on Wednesday due to an intersession class, checked into the game just over four minutes into the action after Majok picked up his second foul. He immediately scored on a short lane jumper, and two minutes later, grabbed a rebound and hit a jump hook, then followed that up with putback.

In that four-minute span, Okwandu had matched his entire scoring output for the entire season.

Okwandu wound up hitting a 12-footer before the half ended and scoring off an inbounds pass early in the latter half.

"He shocked us a little bit, no question about it," Notre Dame coach Mike Brey confessed. "They can run a lot of bodies at you like that and run you down. He happened to really deliver. He did a good job getting on the backboard, made a couple of 10-foot jump shots. I didn't know if he could do that, and he did that today. It really hurt us."

Calhoun, however, wasn't as shocked.

"He's looked so good in practice," said the coach. "You wouldn't believe the two great days he had. I think the positive it does, it gives us another big guy, and it gives Ater somebody now, instead of worrying about what he has to do to help this team win, he has to work harder to get playing time over Charles. And that will be good for Ater."

It was enough to earn Okwandu what had to be another first: an invitation to the postgame media room.

"I just needed to come out of my shell and play very hard," said the soft-spoken big man. "I haven't been playing good from the beginning of this season, but I kept working hard. They keep telling me to work hard, and I did. When you work hard, it pays later. I think today was the day."

Calhoun isn't the only one who's noticed Okwandu's prowess in practice.

"He makes great moves in practice, makes that elbow jump shot that he made today," said Jerome Dyson. "It was really just a point of getting him in there. In past games, he's been in foul trouble. Today he played good defense, stayed on the floor and showed what he's capable of doing."

So, has Okwandu raised the bar to where Calhoun will expect this kind of performance regularly?

"I've always expected, both he and Ater … to break through. This is his breakthrough night, Ater hasn't had one. I fully expect Ater to have one. Ater does some things in practice, we aren't imagining them, we see them. I always think Jerome plays better in games than he does in practice. Charles and Ater always play better, up to this point, in practice."

Ah yes, Ater. After being replaced by Okwandu four minutes into the game, he didn't returned, finishing with zero points and no rebounds.

***Stanley Robinson sat in a chair in the interview room sporting a green hooded sweatshirt with a shamrock on it under the word "UConn." A "tribute" to today's opponent, Notre Dame? Nope.

"Ray Allen," Sticks said of the ex-UConn, current Celtic star.

If Robinson keeps playing like this, he'll be in the NBA next year with Allen, perhaps after being selected in the draft lottery.

Robinson is currently not only one of the best players in the Big East, he's one of the very best players in the entire country.

"He's got elite talent, he's starting to become an elite player," said Calhoun. "He's playing terrific. He feels good about himself.

Said Brey: "Jim's done a great job teaching him how to play and become a better basketball player. He was always a great athlete. He was probably a great athlete in sixth grade. But he's become a very good basketball player in their system, not forcing things, taking what the defense gives him. And I think this year, you can tell he leads this group. He's talking in the huddles and is setting a good tone with a lot of young frontline guys. Definitely one of the better players in the league and in the country."

As for "The Play" – Robinson's one-handed putback dunk of his own missed 6-footer off his own missed free throw 5 ½ minutes into the second half:

"That seems to happen almost every game. I can tell when I'm going to miss the shot, I can tell it's going to come back to me," Robinson said, with a shrug. "I missed the shot and I got the rebound back, missed that one, and I just stuck with it."

Calhoun was more impressed, but Dyson not as much.

"We've seen that from him before, it's really nothing you're kind of in awe (about), because you know he's capable of doing anything."

By the numbers:

***Thanks to Edwards and Okwandu (and two from Jamal Coombs-McDaniel), UConn's bench outscored Notre Dame's, 25-0.

***Luke Harangody scored a game-high 31 points on 14-for-27 shooting, but had just two free throw attempts. He was averaging more than 7 trips to the line per game.

***UConn outscored the Irish 50-28 in the paint.

***The lead changed 17 times in the game before the Huskies went ahead for good on Robinson's putback with 10:11 left.

***Dyson and Kemba Walker each had 10 assists, the first time a UConn duo has ever notched double-figures in assists in a Big East game.

***Robinson (22 and 16) Dyson and Walker each notched double-doubles.

***Robinson also helped hold Farmington's Tim Abromaitis to eight points on 3-for-9 shooting.

In the sporadic yet often spectacular history of UConn-Duke warfare, this one won't go down as one of the most attractive or memorable battles.

But Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski will take the victory just the same.

Some numbers to chew on:

***Duke shot just 28 percent from the floor, including 8-for-29 in the second half.

***The Blue Devils outrebounded the Huskies 56-43. A whopping 25 of Duke's boards were on the offensive end.

***It was enough to have Calhoun grasping to put the loss into historic – if not exactly positive, or accurate – perspective.

"The last time we gave up 25 offensive rebounds was to Georgetown with Alonzo (Mourning) and (Dikembe) Motombo, who are a little bit bigger than Duke was," Calhoun noted.

Actually, that's not true. Last season, UConn surrendered 26 offensive boards in a game with Providence. Still, the Huskies easily won that Jan. 31 contest, 94-61.

"The last time we've lost a game holding a team to eight field goals in a half and 28-percent shooting," Calhoun continued. "I can't remember."

***Here's one Calhoun likely remembers: the last time Duke had defeated the Huskies was on March 22, 1991 in a Sweet Sixteen matchup. Since then, UConn had won four straight – including the 1999 national championship game and a 2004 Final Four contest.

Duke now holds a 5-4 all-time advantage over the Huskies. With Mike Krzyzewski and Calhoun at the respective helms of both teams, UConn still owns a 4-3 edge.

***Calhoun and Coach K had combined for 1,647 wins entering Friday's game, setting a new NCAA record for most wins by opposing coaches. That total now, of course, is 1,648 – with 839 for Coach K and 809 for Calhoun.

Prior to the opening tap, NIT chairman and fellow Hall of Famer C.M. Newton presented the two coaches with commemorative basketballs in recognition of the accomplishment.

***UConn hit a mere 15 of 28 free throw attempts. Jerome Dyson was 3-for-9 from the charity stripe.

"I really can't explain it," said Dyson.

***Although there were a total of 80 missed shots – not counting free throws – Stanley Robinson, UConn's 6-foot-9 jumping jack forward, had just four rebounds in 35 minutes. At one point, Calhoun took Robinson out of the game and gave the senior an earful.


"I told him to get his (rear end) going and try to play some basketball," Calhoun said. "He didn't. He did defend, he played a very good player (Kyle Singler) and didn't give him any open shots. But for him to play 35 minutes and get four rebounds in a game of (90) misses? It just can't happen. And he's a terrific rebounder.

"Charles (Okwandu) couldn't do it tonight, the game was too sophisticated for him. Gavin (Edwards) should have rebounded more, but I can't fault Gavin coming off the bench, he only played 24 minutes. But I can fault Sticks, because I've got to rely upon him. He's supposed to be one of the premier players in the league, if not the country, but he certainly didn't play that well tonight on the offensive end."

***Sticks did hold Duke All-America forward Kyle Singler to six points on 2-for-12 shooting.

***The Huskies didn't hit a single 3-pointer. Heck, they only attempted four of them.

***UConn shot 37-percent from the floor.

***Dyson finished with 15 points, Edwards added 12 off the bench and Robinson netted 10. Alex Oriakhi had eight points to go with his game-high 13 boards, and Kemba Walker had nine points, nine assists – and six turnovers.

Elsewhere:

Normally, it's Calhoun who disses a media member over a perceived dis of his own. On Friday, it was Coach K.


Informed that ESPN analyst Doug Gottlieb had labeled Duke "alarmingly unathletic" two nights earlier, Krzyzewski countered:

"Well, he should be an expert on 'alarmingly unathletic, so I'll have to take a look at that a little bit closer. If it comes from an expert who knows what it's like to be alarmingly non-athletic … actually, we're pretty athletic. We're just not as athletic as Connecticut."

Later, when asked how he would have felt felt had someone told him prior to the game that his team would shoot 28 percent against UConn, Coach K said: "I would have been very worried, and mad at you. I would have told you to go talk to Doug Gottlieb. You don't have to do that, by the way. I won't punish you."

Ouch!

***Edwards was called for a flagrant foul – his fourth – as Duke's Lance Thomas went in for a post move with 7:29 to play.

"Apparently, it was a flagrant foul because I went up for the shot fake and fouled him," Edwards said. "That's a flagrant these days, I guess. I don't really know, (the ref) didn't say anything to me. I didn't really know what was flagrant about it."

***Second best quote of the night comes from Robinson.

"We outplayed ourselves," Sticks said.

Somehow, that made about as much sense as anything else on Friday night.

Some interesting tidbits surrounding Friday's UConn-Duke showdown:

***Mike Krzyzewski (837) and Jim Calhoun (809) have combined for 1,646 career victories. Friday's contest will mark the first meeting between a pair of 800-plus win coaches in college basketball history.

***The teams are 4-4 in their all-time series. Here's the game-by-game history:

March 16, 1964 Duke, 101-54 NCAA tournament, Elite Eight
Dec. 14, 1976 Duke, 64-59 (OT)
March 24, 1990 Duke, 79-78 (OT) NCAA tournament, Elite Eight
March 22, 1991 Duke, 81-67 NCAA tournament, Sweet Sixteen
Nov. 29, 1994 UConn, 90-86 Great Eight tournament
March 29, 1999 UConn, 77-74 NCAA tournament, Championship Game
Nov. 12, 1999 UConn, 71-66 Coaches vs. Cancer tournament
March 3, 2004 UConn, 79-78 NCAA tournament Final Four

***UConn is 7-5 at Madison Square Garden during in-season tournament play -- including that Nov. 12, 1999 win over Duke in the coaches vs. Cancer IKON Classic.

***Including Friday's bout with No. 7 Duke, UConn is slated to play against six of the current top 10 teams in the rankings: Texas, Villanova, Kentucky, West Virginia and Syracuse are the others.

***Duke is 26-2 in in-season tournaments over the past nine seasons. The Blue Devils have won 10 straight in-season tournament games.

***Duke is 24-14 all-time, including a 19-6 mark under Coach K, at Madison Square Garden. The Blue Devils have won four straight and 11 of their last 12 games at MSG.

***The Blue Devils are 101-10 in the month of November under Coach K. Duke has won 21 straight games in the month, dating back to a Nov. 21, 2006 loss to Marquette.

***The Blue Devils have won six of their last nine games and are 104-44 all-time against current Big East teams.

***The Huskies' four wins over Duke have all come by single digits, by an average margin of 3.3 points.

***Despite losing Hasheem Thabeet to the NBA, UConn is averaging 10.3 blocked shots per game, including 26 in the past two contests. Gavin Edwards leads the way with 14 rejections.

***Duke point guard Jon Scheyer has turned the ball over just twice in 171 minutes of action thus far.

***Stanley Robinson is ready to rumble: "I always wanted to play against Duke as a kid. If you didn't want to go there, you'd at least want to play them. It's awesome just to be in this atmosphere."

Here's the game story for tonight's 76-67 win over Hofstra:

By David Borges
Register Staff
STORRS --- Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind" blared on the Gampel Pavilion p.a. prior to UConn's NIT Season Tip-Off tournament bout with Hofstra on Tuesday. Soon after, the Huskies' travel plans to New York City nearly got re-routed to a more distant outpost.

No. 12 UConn narrowly avoided a major upset – and its first-ever November/December loss at Gampel during the Jim Calhoun era – by rallying over the final minutes and gutting out a 76-67 victory over the Pride.

Hofstra led by nine (54-45) with 9 minutes, 10 seconds left, and still had a 62-61 lead with just over 4 ½ minutes remaining, causing worry in the crowd of 8,713.

"Down nine with nine to go in your own building, I think is tougher than being down nine on the road," Calhoun noted.

But Jerome Dyson scored on a putback of his own miss with 4:16 left to put UConn up for good, Stanley Robinson hit a driving bank shot, and the Huskies canned nine of their last 10 foul shots – and 17 of their final 18 overall – to seal the victory.


UConn (3-0) wins the tourney's North region and now moves on to the semifinals next week at Madison Square Garden. It will face Louisiana State on Nov. 25, then play again – possibly against Duke – two days later.

Had the Huskies lost, they would have played Monday and Tuesday – almost certainly on the road – against two of the other losing teams from the three other regional rounds.

"I would rate it as a very good win, in the grand scheme of things," Calhoun said. "Because things can slip … next thing you know, you end up Monday and Tuesday in Charlotte or Western Kentucky. We planned on going to New York, as you should if you set your aspirations high."

Indeed, while Calhoun has hardly hid his frustrations after the Huskies' first two victories this season, including Monday night's 77-63 win over Colgate, he put a surprisingly positive spin on this win.

"I'm proud of how hard we played," he said. "The long rebounds killed us, we all agree with that. We're not going to break this one out as a teaching tool. But … collectively they did some good things. They showed some toughness that they're going to need on the road."

Certainly, there were some things not to like. For the second night in a row, UConn was outrebounded by a far smaller, less athletic team – 43-39, this time. Hofstra (1-2) grabbed a whopping 19 offensive boards, and even outscored the allegedly run-first Huskies 30-16 on fast break points.

Still, the Huskies were in control for much of the contest, leading by as much as 12 in the first half, and maintaining their seven-point halftime lead five minutes into the latter frame.

Then, the Pride caught fire, nailing four out of five 3-pointers ("on the move," Calhoun pointed out. "NBA teams sometimes don't do that") during one two-minute stretch that turned a 43-42 Hofstra deficit into a 54-45 lead.

At that point, the Huskies huddled on the floor and made their determination to win the game clear.

"When we were down, it was the most excited we were on the sidelines," said Calhoun. "I'm not used to that."

Added point guard Kemba Walker: "We said, 'It's time to strap up.' And that's what we did. 'Rome just took over."

Dyson scored 15 of his team-high 23 points over that final span – 11 of them from the foul line. He also picked up a key charge on Hofstra star Charles Jenkins with 50 seconds remaining, shortly after picking up his fourth foul.

"I was just playing solid defense and trying to keep him in front of me," Dyson said. "I saw him going to the basket with his head down. I kind of took a chance there with my fourth foul. We got some energy and fed off it."

Walker had picked up a charge on Jenkins with 1:58 left and the Huskies clinging to a 65-64 lead.

Robinson added 15 points for UConn, Walker had 16 to go with seven rebounds, Gavin Edwards had 10 points and Alex Oriakhi eight points and a game-high 14 boards. Dyson shot just 4-for-11 from the floor but made all but one of his 15 free throw attempts.

UConn shot 30-for-36 from the charity stripe, Hofstra just 10-for-12.

"That's a big-time crew, they're all good officials," said Hofstra coach Tom Pecora. "We had the opportunity to take the game and we didn't. A few more stops and we could have played small, but we weren't able to put together that three-minute stretch. I don't think the officials made a big difference in the game."

Jenkins led all scorers with 25 points and Cornelius Vines added 18.

A few other notes & quotes:

Calhoun:

"Technically, it wasn't a great game for us. We held a team to 32 percent and really won in the last minute of the game."


(on the team's early-season rebounding woes)

"I know we're facing all spread teams, and we won't face teams like this in the league. The ball's still there and we're doing a bad job."

"An 18-point turnaround in the last (9 minutes), some good things must have happened. This particular group had a real big-time gut-check. We didn't want to be in Charlotte playing two teams next week. We wanted to be in Madison Square Garden."

(on Oriakhi)

"He played like a freshman, but didn't rebound like a freshman."

(on Edwards)

"I thought Gavin played well, and I just saw he had three rebounds. That can't happen."

"I’m going to classify this as a good win, at a time when this team is still trying to find its identity."

***Early in the second half, Calhoun called a timeout after a Hofstra 3-pointer and charged out on the court to get in Robinson's grill. On his way out, he collided with Hofstra's Cornelius Vines. Referee Jamie Luckie signaled a technical foul on Calhoun, but when he realized Calhoun had called the timeout, he waved off the "T."

***One other thing: I'll never ceased to be amazed by the fact that UConn has never lost a non-conference, November/December game at Gampel in now 46 tries. The Huskies are 148-4 at home against non-league foes in those months under Calhoun. UConn has not lost a regular season game in Storrs in November or December since Dec. 5, 1973.

Dec. 5, 1973.

Who says there's no such thing as a little home cookin'?

***Quiz question: Who sang "Thorn in My Pride"?

Sitting here at courtside, just past midnight, putting the finishing touches on my game story of UConn's 77-63 win over Colgate. In front of me is Ater Majok, burning the midnight oil and working on his jump shot. I guess Dec. 20 can't come soon enough for this young man.

As for Monday's game: If you think Jim Calhoun was any more pleased with his team than he was following Friday night's equally uninspired win over William & Mary, think again.

A sampling:

"More of the same. We've just got to hope we play better, and we'll see what happens. The same combination of the other night."

"If we want to get to New York, we've got to play better."

Robinson had 18 points on a perfect 8-for-8 shooting, Walker added 16 points and six assists and Gavin Edwards scored 10 of his 14 points in the latter half to lead UConn. Edwards shot 7-for-8 from the floor.

Freshmen Jamal Coombs-McDaniel added 11 points, including a trio of 3-pointers, and Alex Oriakhi hauled in a team-high eight rebounds. Jerome Dyson chipped in with 10 points, despite 3-for-15 shooting, and six assists.

But the numbers that resonated most to Calhoun were in the rebounds column: UConn 29, Colgate 27.

"Their power forward was 6-2," Calhoun said (a slight exaggeration, we might add). "Our power forward (Edwards) had one rebound at halftime in 15 minutes."

"It's despicable, we only took 10 foul shots. Our four and five men (Edwards and Oriakhi) didn't take a foul shot. Nor did they deserve to take one."

Calhoun did concede: "We made a pretty good stand defensively, Stanley went off, and we won the game."

"We played in a few bursts," he added. "If we do that (Tuesday), we will not be going to New York … Are we in desperate shape? No. Hopefully, we can turn around and be the team we can be."

He continued:

"This is not something I've seen here. I've seen some awful basketball here, and I've seem some incredibly wonderful basketball here. This, I haven't seen ... This Connecticut team has got to start playing like a Connecticut team. One way or another, we will end up this season playing hard. That I guarantee."

Doron Lamb is making an official visit to UConn this weekend. He arrived late last night and will leave tomorrow morning.

Lamb says his list of schools is down to five: Kansas, Kentucky, UConn, Arizona and Oklahoma. He's visited all but Arizona so far, and will be visiting that school soon.

Lamb says he will commit in the fall but wait until April to sign.

"I’m just looking for a good coaching staff, a winning school, good players that I can work around," he said. "A school that's basketball-first."

He added that he doesn't have a frontrunner right now. Lamb is teammates at Oak Hill Academy with Roscoe Smith, whose final three schools are down to UConn, Georgetown and Duke. Smith said last night that he has a frontrunner, but wouldn't hint at who that is.

"He's a good player," Lamb said of Smith. "When he went to Oak Hill, he didn't realize it was strict and all that, in the middle of nowhere. But he realized what he's got to do out there, so he's doing better now."

In other news ...

***While Jim Calhoun noted that the same five players – Gavin Edwards, Kemba Walker, Jerome Dyson, Stanley Robinson, Alex Oriakhi – are likely to start in tomorrow night's 9 p.m. bout with Colgate at Gampel, freshman Jamal Coombs-McDaniel started at small forward in practice on Saturday, with Robinson moving to power forward in place of Edwards.

***Hofstra faces Yale in the opener of the North regional tomorrow at 6:30 p.m., followed by UConn-Colgate. The finals are scheduled for Tuesday at 7 p.m., with the consolation game preceding it at 4:30 p.m. Unless, of course, Colgate manages to spring the upset on UConn. Then, for local television purposes, the Huskies will play the consolation game at 7 p.m., meaning the 4:30 p.m. championship game would actually precede the consolation.

The winner of the region moves on to the semifinals on Nov. 25 at Madison Square Garden. The top seeds in each region are Duke, Arizona State, LSU and UConn, meaning that the Huskies could conceivably face LSU the night before Thanksgiving, then either Duke or Arizona State the night after at MSG.

Friday the 13th. Thirteen 3-pointers allowed. Thirteen offensive rebounds allowed.

Coincidence? Of course. But that didn't stop Jim Calhoun from going all Jason Voorhees after the game and slashing his team – and particularly Gavin Edwards – to ribbons.

"I'd like to congratulate William & Mary for outplaying us," Calhoun said after the Huskies' lackluster, 75-66 win in their season-opener. "They did a terrific job. They beat us on the glass. I know it says 34-34 (in rebounds), but they had a 13-10 advantage on the offensive rebounding."

Calhoun was reduced to quoting an old heavyweight boxer not necessarily known for his verbal skills.

"Mike Tyson has a great saying: 'You don't know how tough you are until someone punches you in the face.' We certainly didn't get punched in the face tonight, but we had someone finally stand up to us, and we didn't react very well. I'm incredibly disappointed."

It kept coming. Here's Calhoun's synopsis of his players on Friday:

"Stanley (Robinson) had a little problem with my advice when I said stop taking contested shots. So then he passed on four shots and said, 'You don't want me to shoot.' That's a senior … "Stanley was awful, but he had good offensive numbers (17 points, seven boards)."

"Jerome (Dyson) was awful and good, all at the same time. But we needed him tonight. One thing Jerome's not going to do is not stand up when he gets punched."

"Kemba (Walker) was OK, Alex started off well … Jamaal Trice seemed like he was in a fog … After Alex, Darius (Smith) was probably the least bad."

Then there was Edwards, the 6-10 senior forward who was making the first start of his 90-game UConn career. He took just one shot in the first 34 minutes, wound up taking just three, scored six points and grabbed a mere four rebounds.


Worse, he allowed Tribe forward Quinn McDowell to go off for 20 points and put up a host of uncontested shots.

"We don't have a four-man," Calhoun said, never mentioning Edwards by name. "His guy got 20 tonight, because he continues to overhelp, as he's done for four straight years … The kid, McDowell, is still open, I think … the kid, if he's still on the court now, he's probably free."

As Calhoun looked down the list of his starting five by class, he added: "Senior (Robinson), I guess senior (Edwards), freshman (Oriakhi), senior (Dyson), sophomore (Walker)."

Yeah, he was none too pleased with Gavin Edwards. And neither was Edwards himself.

"I don't think I played well at all," he said. "My man averaged like nine points last year and he went off for 20 tonight. I just played terrible defense, and I didn't play very well on offense."

Of course, he wasn't the only UConn player to turn in a subpar effort on Friday.

"This is definitely an eye-opener for the whole team," Edwards added. "There's not any individual person that could really take anything out of this. As a team, nobody really played that well."

***My own analysis:

Robinson did force a few too many shots, but at least he was looking for his shot -- something he didn't do enough of for great stretches last season.

Edwards was as bad as Calhoun said. Appeared at times that he didn't want to be here. Really needs to get tougher.

Oriakhi hit his first three shots within the first 3 1/2 minutes of play, two of them on nice lefty hook shots, then attempted just one more shot the rest of the way as the Tribe collapsed their zone on him. He was 4-for-4 from the floor.

Dyson appears to be the guy UConn will go to when the chips are down. He led all scorers with 27 points, to go with eight assists and four steals. Dyson personally engineered a 10-2 UConn run midway through the latter half, sandwiching a pair of 3-pointers around an alley-oop pass to Robinson, then hitting a slashing lay-in to give the Huskies a 57-43 lead with 11:57 remaining.

"He just sort of took the game over at times," Tribe coach Tony Shaver said of Dyson.

Walker was OK -- 12 points, three turnovers, just two assists. He picked up his second foul 6:01 before halftime and sat out the rest of the half.

Donnell Beverly played three minutes, made one nice pass to Dyson for a basket, then threw the ball away, never to return.

Jamal Coombs-McDaniel had two points and three boards in his first seven minutes as a Husky.

Trice did nothing. Smith hit a key trey early in the latter half after the Tribe had closed to within four points.

Charles Okwandu? Three minutes, bagels across the board.

UConn had an open practice and media availability today, in advance of Friday's season-opener vs. William & Mary. Here's what we learned:

Jamal Coombs-McDaniel will see some time at the four on Friday and will likely continue to see minutes there until Ater Majok is eligible on Dec. 20.


The reason: 7-footer Charles Okwandu simply isn't getting the job done, and Jim Calhoun doesn't want to move Stanley Robinson from the three – where his open-court skills shine – to the power forward position.

"It doesn't matter," shrugged Coombs-McDaniel, who was known for his versatility while starring at the Tilton School in New Hampshire. "My whole goal is just to be out there, whether it's the five or the one, it really doesn't matter. I'm just going to play hard."

Coombs-McDaniel is listed at 6-foot-7 but actually seems taller than that when you're standing next to him. He's a solid 210 pounds, and should certainly be able to handle the position against weaker foes like William & Mary on Friday.

"The teams that we play right now aren't really that big, we won't have that big an issue," said Jerome Dyson. "It's just like Stanley being there sometimes, we'll be able to get up the floor faster and do different things."

Calhoun's assessment of Coombs-McDaniel: "He's a good athlete, certainly not a great one. But he's effective, he's got a nose for the ball. His instincts are very good, his basketball IQ – he's learning, like a lot of kids, how to fit into the system. He's tough, he goes after the ball. He's one of those guys that can get two 3-pointers, two offensive rebounds, a couple of garbage points on drives, get ahead of the field. That's what I see him as, not just a shooter, not just a rebounder, not just a passer."

Coombs-McDaniel had to sit out UConn's first two exhibition games but was cleared by the NCAA Eligibility Center on Monday. He said one of his summer classes had to be "re-activated," and it took some time to get the paperwork through.

"I think it set me back a little," he admitted. "I've just got to keep working harder to try to beat out some guys for some minutes. We have a little rotation going, so it's going to be tough to break into the rotation. But once I break it, I'll find myself in there."

Added Calhoun: "He wants to be a basketball player. If he plays eight minutes on Friday, he'll want to know why. And that's good."

***By the way, Calhoun still hasn't completely lost faith in Okwandu, even though the junior showed a penchant for traveling and double-dribbling today in practice. Calhoun continues to insist Okwandu has looked good at times.

"We need him to play," said the coach. "We're going to need to have a good, solid inside rotation."

***Dyson limped off the floor late in practice after Ater Majok landed on his toe. but he said that "one way or another," he'll play Friday.

He was wearing a size-14 shoe in practice today (he's normally a size-13) so that he could put padding around his toe. Dyson's toenail is still stitched on, and there's still a good degree of pain there. He practiced without getting his toe numbed today, but will likely have to have it numbed for Friday's game.

According to Calhoun, it's "Door 1, Jerome 0" right now.

***Speaking of injuries, Calhoun was watching the Memphis Grizzlies' game last night when Hasheem Thabeet broke his jaw while bumping into teammate Zach Randolph's head.

Calhoun said he tried to get in contact with Thabeet, but "I don't think wants to talk right now. I don't know if he's Twittering. He's one of the world's great Twitterers."

***Another great Calhoun quote on the possibility of players getting into foul trouble on Friday: "This time of year, you usually have some type of flu – this year it happens to be swine – and you also have whistles disease, where a rash breaks out. Some of these young (refs) try to impress you with their whistling."

It doesn't quite rank with some other infamous sports injuries, like the strained eyelid that once sidelined former San Francisco Giant third baseman Chris Brown. But if Jerome Dyson had missed his long-awaited return to the hardwood with a toenail injury -- well, let's just say his coach wouldn't have been too pleased.

Here's what happened: Walking through the players' entrance at Gampel Pavilion about two hours prior to UConn's exhibition bout with UMass Lowell, Dyson, who was wearing flip-flops, caught the big toe of his right foot on a piece of metal on the bottom of the door. It ripped the nail straight off his toe, causing profuse bleeding and pain.

"He stubbed his toe, as he has on many other occasions, but this was actually a physical stubbing of the toe," Calhoun explained after UConn's 88-50 dismantling of UMass Lowell in Sunday's exhibition game at Gampel. "Jonathan (Mandeldove), Charles (Okwandu), OK, but Jerome -- you wouldn't think that he would rip off a toenail. It was bleeding like crazy. They didn't know if he was going to play, I said 'He has to play.'"


So, UConn team doctor Jeff Anderson stitched the toenail back on and numbed the toe with a pain-killer. Dyson then went out and delivered a mind-numbing performance.

The senior guard poured in 32 points on 12-for-17 shooting (including all five 3-pointers) as UConn rolled to victory. At one point, he scored 12 straight points as the Huskies turned an 18-17 lead into 30-17. Dyson had six assists against no turnovers, along with four steals in a truly inspired performance – inferior competition or not.

It was enough to have Calhoun jokingly suggest maybe Dyson's other big toenail should get torn off for the Huskies' official season-opener later this week against William & Mary.

"We're going to do the same thing next Friday night … it seems to work, I guess," Calhoun noted. "He shot the hell out of the ball, took good shots. The kid played great."

Added Dyson: "They're starting to think that they're going to rip a toenail off every game."

In truth, just about everyone in a Husky uniform looked pretty good:

***Kemba Walker had 15 points, seven assists and three steals and ran the UConn fast break beautifully. When he wasn't doing so, freshman Darius Smith (nine points, six assists) was up to the task.

"He's more comfortable in the break," Calhoun said of Smith. "He's much more comfortable when he plays in a fast-paced game. Now we've got to get him to look good in the halfcourt game."

Said Smith of UConn's uptempo style: "I love it. Me and Kemba being so quick, when we're on the floor, you either step up on us and let 'Rome and Sticks do their thing, or let us score. It's a lose-lose situation (for opponents)."

***Frosh center Alex Oriakhi had nine points and 14 rebounds. That's 30 boards in his first two collegiate exhibition games -- both against Division II foes.


"Can he do that against Kentucky? Can he do that against (other good teams) – my impression is that he can. It may not be 16 and 14, it may be 10 and 11, but he still can rebound against most anyone."

Oriakhi easily got the better of his cousin, UMass Lowell senior Kingsley Onyechi (four points, two boards).

"He's a talented kid, strong and athletic," Onyechi said. "I've known him since he was young, so obviously he's made a lot of physical changes, but he's made serious leaps and bounds as a basketball player. It's good to see him playing at this level ... I used to push him around as a little kid, but now it's a little different. He's about 6-9, 250, so it's a little different now. He's really grown."

Oh, and he can shoot from the perimeter, too, according to Onyechi.

"Calhoun won't let him shoot, but he can shoot."

***Stanley Robinson and Gavin Edwards played steady, understated roles with nine points apiece. Freshman Jamaal Trice took a step back (one point, two turnovers), but played some solid "D".

***The Huskies outscored UMass Lowell 32-2 on fast-break points, and outrebounded them 48-22.

"UConn is very, very fast, very, very athletic," said River Hawks coach Greg Herenda, a former assistant to George Blaney at Seton Hall. "I was in the Big East back when Ray Allen, Travis Knight, Nadav (Henefeld), all those guys (played at UConn). This is as fast and as quick a team … maybe I'm blinded, but they're very fast, great in transition, and an excellent basketball team defensively. In transition, (they're) probably as good as I've seen in a long time – much better, I think, than they were last year."

Added Calhoun: "We ran well, obviously we rebounded well, and Jerome just had a terrific game. And when the game got open, Kemba and some of our other guys got the game spaced, which is how we're going to have to play the game. We play the game very well in space."

***As coaches do, however, Calhoun was able to find a negative. Okwandu, the neophyte junior center, contributed just four points, two rebounds and four fouls in 10 minutes – a slight improvement over Wednesday night's two-point, one-rebound clunker, but not much.


With 6-11 freshman Ater Majok not eligible until mid-December, and with some big-time foes (Kentucky, possibly Duke or LSU) on the Huskies' schedule before then, Calhoun is desperate to get more production out of the 7-foot Okwandu.

"I hope he can. Physically, I know he can," said the coach. "The biggest thing I'm worried about is the four/five right now. I like what we did defensively in both games. Overall, we're encouraged with what we've seen. The only discouraging note would be the fact that we've got another big man in the rotation."

Calhoun insists that Okwandu has shown flashes in practice.

"Trust me. Whether it ever turns out in a game, and I think it will, he's a better player than what he's showing," the coach said. "And he's certainly not showing very much."

***Calhoun said he "hopes" Jamal Coombs-McDaniel could be cleared early this week.

Oriakhi said of Coombs-McDaniel, his good buddy: "I don't even know his situation, but I'm pretty sure he told me that he'll be good to go come Friday against William & Mary."

The biggest – and most surprising – news of the night came about 45 minutes prior to the opening tap, when we got an e-mail from UConn stating that Jerome Dyson, Jamal Coombs-McDaniel and Donnell Beverly would not be playing "pending evaluation of recently submitted paperwork pertaining to their annual eligibility certification."

Dyson and Beverly were awaiting "routine educational document review for eligibility certification," and the school was anticipating a resolution as early as Thursday.

A source told the Waterbury Republican-American, however, that the NCAA has requested "documentation" from Dyson and Beverly regarding alleged recruiting violations in UConn's recruitment of Nate Miles. The source told the paper that Dyson and Beverly had yet to turn over that documentation.

Jim Calhoun strongly rebuked the report.

"You're so far off-base, it's unbelievable," he said afterwards, without naming any names. "If you feel like you need to speculate and throw dirt at us, that's fine … the university has already made a statement about what happened, and you need to understand that if you take that side, that's fine, but stay on that side, because you will not be coming back on my side … If you want to write anything to get it out there nationally, that's great – it really helps our recruiting and all aspects of our game when you speculate on something that you have no knowledge of, and quite frankly, couldn't be farther from the truth."

Okie dokie.

Asked if he believes the trio will be all set to play in Sunday's exhibition game with UMass Lowell, Calhoun responded: "I can't answer that, but right now, I do anticipate that. I'm speaking what I think, but that's not always the way it goes."

So, limited to just seven scholarship players – three of them freshmen, one of them Charles Okwandu – the Huskies went out and laid a 106-67 beatdown on outmanned AIC. UConn shot 68 percent (42-for-62) from the floor and outrebounded the vastly outsized Yellow Jackets, 47-19. Kemba Walker had 28 points and 12 assists, Stanley Robinson netted 25 on 12-for-16 shooting, Gavin Edwards had 17 and freshman Alex Oriakhi notched 16 points and 16 boards before an announced crowd of 10,770 that was more like 5,000 (presumably mostly Red Sox fans).

"I'll take that effort for the first time out," said Calhoun. "You need a starting point, and this is a starting point."

Added Robinson (as only Stanley can): "Overall, we played a great game. That team's the easiest team we're ever going to play in our life. We know the Big East play is going to be harder, 10 times more physical. It's going to be hard for us just to get shots off in the Big East. We can always just build off it and say we did play a good game."

In fact, Robinson wasn't overly impressed with his performance.

"I don't think I played very well. I wanted to score more points, I wanted to get more rebounds. I felt like there was so much more I could do, but I didn't know I had 25 points until I looked at the scoreboard."

***What prog rock band recorded the album 'Pictures at an Exhibition'?


*** It was the performance of the three freshmen that may have been most pleasing for Calhoun. Jamaal Trice, starting in place of Dyson, netted nine points, as did Darius Smith, who also contributed six rebounds and five assists off the bench.

But it was Oriakhi, the hulking 6-9, 240-pound center, who raised the most eyebrows.


"It was a nice initiation for people to see Alex," Calhoun said. "I understand with the World Series, not too many people saw him, but … it was a good way for him to start."

Oriakhi wasn't concerned that it was just an exhibition.

"I don't care what it was, I was excited like it was the first game," he said. "My thought was to just go out there and grab as many rebounds as I can. I'm happy, but never satisfied. Coach said it's only going to get harder from here, so I've got to work on things, go back to practice and get better."

About the only negative was the play of Okwandu, the junior center who had two points and one rebound (in the final 10 seconds) in 18 minutes of action.

"I thought Charles was good on defense," Calhoun insisted, "but he was just horrendous on offense He dropped the ball about six times. He didn't have a particularly good game."

Calhoun isn't about to give up on Okwandu, however – in part because Oriakhi is just a freshman.

"(Referee) John Cahill said to me, 'that big young kid (Oriakhi) understands how to play – which is nice to hear. But he still is going to get into foul trouble, because he's going to go against the (Luke) Harangodys and those kind of guys who can draw fouls better than a 6-4 kid can. If we don't have Charles, that means our fifth big guy becomes Stanley. I don't want that, he's too good on the wing. We need Charles to play a lot better. He's better than what he's shown."

***Le Moyne's shocking upset of Syracuse in an exhibition at the Carrier Dome the night before was on the Huskies' minds.

"We didn't want that to happen to us," said Robinson, "so we just had to come out and play as hard as we can play, and just leave it out on the court. I thought we did that."

Added Calhoun: ""Le Moyne's becoming a buzz word to everybody, I guess. Right now, Jimmy (Boeheim) is 0-0. He does have a point in practice to bring up for the kids."

***Senior center Jonathan Mandeldove also didn't play due to academic issues, according to a team spokesman.

***AIC didn't grab its first rebound until there were 9 minutes, 51 seconds left in the first half.

***Calhoun had the World Series on his mind. He closed out his postgame presser saying, "Let's hope that Pedro wins, for the Red Sox."

So much for that.

Lots of stuff from today's Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden. As you likely know by now, UConn has been picked to finish third in the Big East, being Villanova and West Virginia.

That comes as a surprise to Jim Calhoun.

"My fellow coaches have made a vow going back 12 years of making sure I never got coach of the year by making us third or better preseason," Calhoun said. "There seems to be a pact. New coaches come in and are told that, I think."

He was kidding. Pretty much. We think. (Calhoun has, incidentally, won the league's Coach of the Year award four times -- but not since 1997-98).

Calhoun was equally astonished that the Huskies even got a first-place vote from one coach.

"I couldn't believe that someone picked us first in the league, after losing the No. 2 guy in the draft and the most dominant defensive player in the league," he said, before adding, "I'm not saying we can't (be the best team)."

***Jerome Dyson and Kemba Walker have been selected to the preseason All-Big East second team. Stanley Robinson made Honorable Mention.


Dyson said he knew Jasper Howard, largely through Dyson's cousin, Anthony Davis, who is on the UConn football team.

"He just went out to have a good time after winning a game, and to have that happen is just tragic. It leads you to question what can you do on your own campus? Do you have to watch your back at every moment?"

***Could UConn have gone to last year's national championship game if Dyson had been healthy? Dyson thinks so.

"I think we could have beat Michigan State. It would have been a great game between us and North Carolina. I really can't say who would win that game, because we both had great players."

***Most people probably know that Dyson was a standout football player at Proctor Academy, but did you know he also played baseball? Center field, to be exact.

"I was alright," Dyson reported. "I liked playing."

He's a Yankees fan, if you care to know.

***Robinson said he's had surgery on a deviated septum a short while ago. He's tried to keep it somewhat under wraps, however.


"I don't want anybody aiming for my nose," said Sticks.

And he doesn't want to play with the face mask, a la Richard Hamilton.

"I'm not coming out with a mask. Can't do the 'Rip'."

***Calhoun said that Tuesday was the first time so far that Dyson and Robinson have dominated in practice. The Portland Trailblazers and Charlotte Hornets were at practice, monitoring Robinson in particular.

"I guess they watched TV last spring," Calhoun said, referring to Robinson's superb run through the NCAA tournament.

*** Calhoun said he's quickly coming to the realization of "how much the big fella (Hasheem Thabeet) meant so us. Jeff (Adrien) was a good player, A.J. (Price) was a very good player, Craig (Austrie) was a solid veteran. But any game we went into, the other team's power forward or center, most times was negated, if not eliminated. So, that's a great concern of mine.


"It's a whole new group, a whole different kind of team. This is the first team in a long time where I don’t even know how many shots we're going to block. I used to book it with most of our teams, a lot (of blocked shots)."

Charles Okwandu? No-can-do. At least not yet.

"He hasn't put together a practice yet," Calhoun noted. "He hasn't even put in a solid hour together yet. He's got to be better. He's big, strong, he's in the best shape of his life. He should be getting more done than what he is. Some of that's confidence."

Is it unfair to expect Okwandu to step in and be that 7-foot, shot-blocking presence in the middle the Huskies have had for much of the past decade?

"It is (unfair). He should be close to it. I don't think he'll be a double-figure scorer, but he should be that guy who plays 15, 18 minutes a game, along with Alex (Oriakhi). Alex has looked more ready than he has, and Alex is a freshman."

***Calhoun said Oriakhi has been the team's best newcomer so far. He.was asked if Oriakhi compares to Jeff Adrien.

"No. He's more of a post player. I think he'll be a better shooter than Jeff. And … I don't remember anybody coming in with as good post moves. He's got to be more assertive. He's a really nice kid, which really doesn't count much in the Big East. "

***Over the first four days of practice, freshman Jamaal Trice has been the biggest surprise so far.

"Of our six perimeter players, he might be the best defensive player," said Calhoun.

***Naturally, Rick Pitino drew a huge crowd of reporters. His offseason travails – a revealed extramarital affair, which resulted in an alleged extortion attempt – were, of course, brought up.


"You all have tough periods in your life, as I do in my life," Pitino said. "We all know how to get through tough periods the right way. The best part about basketball is, we're so tuned into our goals right now, these players – Sosa, Smith, Reggie Delk – it's their last opportunity. Six months from now, they'll never put on another college basketball uniform in their life again."

Addressing the media, Pitino insisted "I like and respect all of you, and I really do. That's not patronizing in any way. You have a job to do."

However …

"In case you all misread my press conference, that's the only mistake you've made, because I wasn't chastising you at all, in the slightest way. I had just had enough, my family had had enough, and I needed to step up for my family and for myself, get something off my chest. It's your job to evaluate me, it's not my job to evaluate you."

Pitino was asked if his situation will result in distractions for the team.

"It won't be. There'll be no more distractions. I owe it to my team. There may be, for a few hours one day, a personal distraction on my part. But there won't be any team distractions.

"In recruiting, it hasn't come up one time, in one phone call. You're interested in it, because it's your job … the players and the recruits, all they're interested in is their future and making their lives better for their families someday, becoming the best player they can possibly be, and winning games. That's really what they're tuned into."

Noting that he's coached in New York and Boston, Pitino quipped: "I'll hit the Triple Crown someday if I ever decide to take a job in Philadelphia … if I ever take the Drexel job, I'll have the Triple Crown."

***Madison Square Garden has agreed to continue hosting the Big East men's tourney through 2016.

***Jim Boeheim was informed that Calhoun said he missed the old days, when every team played each other twice per season.

"Well, Jim says a lot of things," Boeheim said, rolling his eyes. "I mean, I miss high school."

Good crowd tonight, a little under 10,000, we're estimating. Definitely bigger than last year. R&B stars Lloyd and Amerie performed, and also served as judges to the dunk contest, along with Donyell Marshall and Shea Ralph.

The team of Stanley Robinson and Maya Moore defeated Jerome Dyson and Tina Charles in the dunk contest.

Here's some dunk contest footage. First, Jerome Dyson's windmill:



And here's Sticks doing his thing and getting a perfect score from the judges -- including Lloyd, a very tough grader:



Here, Dyson tries (unsuccessfully) to get a little help from his friend, Kemba Walker:



And here, Robinson gets a lift from Gavin Edwards in what can't be considered one of his better dunks: