John Calipari had just left the AT&T Center floor after Kentucky’s Final Four win over Wisconsin Saturday night when he bumped into an old adversary.

“We’ll go after this again,” Calipari said to Jim Calhoun.

“Yeah,” Calhoun replied, “but the other guy might be tougher than me.”

Calhoun, of course, was referring to Kevin Ollie, his heir apparent who has led UConn into the national championship game in just his second season as head coach. Indeed, while Calhoun vs. Calipari would add even more spice to Monday night’s national championship game, Ollie and Calipari are prepared to being their own rivalry.

It certainly seems to be getting off to a friendlierstart than the one Calhoun and Calipari were involved in years ago.

“Wonderful coach,” Ollie said of Calipari on Sunday. “Everybody says he’s a great motivator. Yeah, but he’s a great coach, too. To get all those guys to buy in and not give up on them … you see the fruits of their labor right now. They’re playing their best basketball, they allow their teams to play the best basketball and grow up and mature.”

Ollie and Calipari actually share a bit of history – Calipari was Larry Brown’s assistant coach with the 76ers in 1999-2000 when Ollie was on the team.

“He is one of the wonderful people that I’ve ever come across in my life,” Calipari said. “Genuine, loyal, and a great coach. Because you know what he was doing while he was playing? He was coaching. That’s how he played. He was an unbelievable student of the gam then. He was teaching me when I was in Philly. As an assistant for Coach Brown, he was teaching me. So, fond memories.”

Much fonder than Calipari’s memories of his rivalry with Calhoun years ago, when Calipari was the new guy at UMass, trying to make an imprint in New England college basketball, and Calhoun was the veteran who didn’t want to cede anything.

“It was a rivalry,” Calipari recalled. “We wanted it to be, they did not. Which I don’t blame them. They were in the Big East, we were in the Atlantic 10. We really didn’t play each other, but you had two teams going at each other.”

UMass and UConn played just twice when Calipari was there, with the Huskies winning both games, once in Storrs (104-75 in 1989) and once at Amherst (94-75 in 1990). The schools’ yearly rivalry resumed in 1997, almost immediately after Calipari left to coach the Nets.

Still, time heals all wounds.

“Sometimes, the things we fight each other about, we forget years later why we’re fighting,” Calhoun said on Sunday. “John’s trying to do his job. He does it differently than how we do it at UConn. But, he certainly is a good coach, he’s had great success with the young kids that he’s coached.”

He added: “There are very few guys that you stay mad at. When you’re competing against someone over players, over scoreboards, trying to win games … as far as John goes, he’s got a chance to win his second national championship. He’s certainly done a good job.”

BOATRIGHT HONORS SLAIN COUSIN 

Boatright talked about how tough it was to grow up in Aurora.

"People say it's the suburbs, but when they tear the projects down in Chicago, where's everybody gonna go? They're going to Aurora. It's just like Chicago. It's tough, man. There's gang activity, stuff like that. It's a rough environment. So just growing up in it and being a small guy, you're naturally just tough. You can't be a punk. My mom's the same way. She had me at 16. She just raised me to be a tough dude, but to be smart at the same time, which is why I'm here in college and not in jail or dead. Growing up like that, man, seeing the things I saw and going through the things I've been through, I'm fearless. Nothing scares me. 

LENAHAN LENDS SUPPORT FROM BEHIND BENCH

Cheshire’s Pat Lenehan, the junior walk-on who played at Xavier High, hasn’t been able to sit on the bench during UConn’s NCAA run. In the tournament, teams only have 17 seats on the bench, as opposed to 19 during the regular season. So Lenehan and sophomore walk-on Nnamdi Amilo have ceded their spots on the bench to senior walk-on Tor Watts.

“Tor earned the spot last year and he’s a senior, so I wouldn’t even want to rotate at this point,” Lenehan said. “It would be really cool for me to be on the bench, but I’m happy for Tor. He’s gotten into two tournament games. I’m happy for everything he’s been able to do.”

Lenehan’s greatest accomplishments, of course, have come in the classroom. He recently earned a Goldwater Scholarship, one of the most prestigious undergraduate academic honors in the nation.

EMMERT ‘PLEASED’ WITH UCONN’S SUCCESS

NCAA president Mark Emmert met with the media Sunday and was asked how he felt about UConn, a team barred from the postseason a year ago due to APR penalties, being in the title game.

“I’m personally very pleased at it,” he said. “The reality is that the University of Connecticut, as we all know, had really abysmal APR performance for a consistent period of time. They had to achieve, in relatively short order, essentially a 1,000 APR, a perfect score. They have got a new president, new coach, new AD, and they were deeply committed to making those changes and they have done it. It’s actually very impressive.”

Emmert was provost and chancellor at UConn in the late-1990’s.

“It was painful for me to watch them go through that,” he continued. “As the former chief academic officer, it was painful to watch them go through those kind of issues, and I’m delighted that they’re doing well, not just on the court, but in the classroom.”

Kevin Ollie and Warde Manuel were in the same group today at the Travelers Championship celebrity pro-am. The two were in a group along with Jen Rizzotti and pro Jonaz Blixt, teeing off at 7:30 a.m. off the 10th tee. Here's some video:



Manuel jokingly sported Ollie's caddy's bib as Ollie joined him on the tee.

I talked to Manuel for a few minutes on the practice range. Asked him if he was nervous about teeing off in front of a large group of fans.

"They (the fans) should be nervous," Manuel joked.

In truth, he's a 6-handicap whose swing looks pretty good. And with a 7:30 a.m. pro-am tee time, there wasn't much of a gallery at the 10th tee.

Here's what Manuel had to say about some UConn-related items:

(on being named to Mark Emmert's 10-person council of athletic directors)

"I’m honored to be a part of that group. It’s a great group of AD’s and colleagues from around the country, really just to provide Mark with some advice from our perspective, and to be a sounding board for him, to talk to him about some of the things that are important to us and to really help the membership, long-term. That’s the goal. I’m looking forward to it."
 

Manuel said the council was selected by the AD's, not Emmert, and that he doesn't envision drumming up the APR issue with Emmert again.

"We made our arguments ... it is what it is, at this point. They’re good people, Mark's a good person. We agree to disagree on the way it was doled out, and the timing of the rule, the implementation. But it’s water under the bridge."

(on the UConn men's hoops team's latest strong APR scores)

"Very happy. Ecstatic with the results and the effort of the student-athletes and the academic staff. It’s really positive, because the kids on the team had nothing to do with it, but it’s a university issue, and they are really pulling through and doing well in the classroom, and on the field of play."


(on whether UConn will replace George Blaney on the coaching staff)

"Unknown at this point. Kevin and I are talking, and we’ll see how the staff shapes up."

(on Jim Calhoun's present and future with the program)

"He’s coach emeritus. He’s going to be helping us with the fundraising stuff within athletics and the university, and continue to be a great ambassador for UConn. He’s already helping us make inroads into some donors and opening doors and talking to people about supporting UConn athletics, as he always has. It’s great to have him with us. I know I’m happy, Kevin’s happy, that he’s going to be around on a consistent basis."

Countering a report by USA Today, NCAA president Mark Emmert assured that teams with substandard Academic Progress Rate (APR) scores will not be ineligible to compete in the 2012 NCAA tournament.

Emmert said there was a “miscommunication” in his speech to the Knight Commission on Interscholastic Athletics on Monday in Washington, D.C., in which he was quoted as saying that teams that have fallen short of the 900 APR threshold could be banned from this season’s Big Dance, depending on a vote by the NCAA board of directors on Friday. That, of course, would have included UConn, whose four-year rolling average – released in May – is 893.

However, UConn isn’t out of the woods yet. Emmert stated that the postseason penalty would likely take effect for the 2013 tournament. Although UConn’s APR number is expected to be vastly improved for the 2010-11 season – in the 950-970 range, according to a source – it won’t be enough to lift the Huskies’ four-year rolling average above 900.

That would mean UConn wouldn’t be able to compete in the 2013 NCAA tournament, unless it successfully applied for a waiver.

Currently, teams can be granted waivers if considerable progress has been shown in improving its academic situation. However, Walt Harrison, chairman of the committee on academic performance and president of the University of Hartford, said in August that waivers may not be granted so freely anymore.

“The direction I'm getting from the board is not too much leverage there,” Harrison said two months ago. “If there is any appeal at all, it is going to be tightly defined and there may not be any.”

UConn president Susan Herbst, however, hopes that the recent steps the school has taken to improve the academics of all of its athletic programs – under her leadership – would be taken into account.

“Probably the most important thing is that the president is involved,” she said. “I think that’s happening more and more around the country, (presidents) getting involved with faculty and coaches, getting student-athletes the right time and place to study, support from faculty to travel and myriad of other things.”

Upon taking over as school president in June, Herbst created a President’s Athletic Advisory Committee, comprised by some of the university’s most well-respected faculty members. The committee has implemented a plan aimed to improve UConn’s APR in men’s basketball – and, indeed, for all sports – moving forward.

The five-point plan looks to make sure players who leave to turn pro are academically eligible when they depart; encourage former players who have exhausted their eligibility to return to complete their degrees through the National Consortium for Academic and Sport Degree Completion program; require all players to enroll in a minimum of nine credit hours during summer school; provide enhanced academic support services in the summer prior to and the fall semester of a player’s freshman year; and, decrease the number of players who transfer with eligibility remaining.

While it’s obviously too early for these new guidelines to have had much of an effect on UConn’s current APR situation, there have already been some tangible signs of progress. UConn’s APR for the 2010-11 hasn’t been completely calculated yet due to a couple of working points, but it should wind up in the 950-970 range.

“One of the things I bring is a strong interest in faculty monitoring success in the athletic department, a very good, devoted faculty who has high standards and also love sports,” Herbst said. “That’s the kind of faculty member I was.”

The NCAA announced on Tuesday that more Division 1 student-athletes are earning their college degrees within six years -- the highest marks ever for graduation.

The single year Graduation Success Rate (GSR) for student-athletes who began college in 2004 is 82 percent, a new high for the NCAA, three points higher than last year and eight points higher than when GSR collection began a decade ago.

UConn's men's basketball GSR hasn't been so impressive, however. In fact, it's been the worst of all Big East teams. By far.

UConn's GSR for athletes entering the school for the 2004-05 school year is 25. That's the second-worst of any Big East school over the seven years (1998-2004) during which GSR has been tracked. The worst? UConn's 2000-01 beginning class, which notched a 22.

Here are the ugly numbers, if you're a UConn fan. (Just enter University of Connecticut in the "School" box).

Yes, this is essentially old news. Not a single player who entered UConn in 2004 is still with the program. Still, with so much attention on UConn's APR woes lately, and with president Mark Emmert touting the NCAA's improvements in GSR today, it's more than a little embarassing for the program.