Cappers Buzz

UConn HC Jim Calhoun is quickly becoming one of my favorite post game coaches. Always loved to watch a Bill Parcells press conference after a loss, as you never knew what would come out of his mouth. With Bill retiring, looks like I’ll make it a point to catch Calhoun more often now. UConn is such a young team and Calhoun is experiencing major growing pains with this team. A few days ago I posted an article which told about one of Calhoun’s motivation tactics. After Monday’s 68-54 loss at Louisville, Calhoun was at it again:

“I have no (expletive) answer for it,” Calhoun said afterward. “I really don’t. I wish I did have an answer for it. We don’t look like the team that practices, that’s the thing that’s scaring me. I’ve had teams that you had to get the baseball bat out to get them to practice hard. But we practice hard as hell. We practice better than we play. I’ve never had a team ever do that in my entire life.”

“We’re shooting 80 percent in practice,” Calhoun said. “Well, you say, that’s just practice. No, it’s one of the few things in basketball that’s exactly the same. Nothing changes - nothing changes. It’s 15 feet, no one’s defending you, and that’s the most remarkable thing.

“I always take whatever we are (in practice) - close to 80 percent this year - and make it 70 percent because I take a 10 percent factor for fatigue. We do them wet, I mean running hard, we do them dry, early in practice. We do them at the end of practice, with long competitions, and we can’t make foul shots (in a game).”

With 5:23 remaining in the game, official Tim Higgins made a rare call - a charge on UConn’s Jerome Dyson after he had shot the ball and then hit Padgett. Higgins called the basket good, on what was Dyson’s fifth foul.
“I was trying to think when was the last time I saw that call,” Calhoun said. “That’s when I think a guy should think about another career, possibly - like retirement.”