Here’s another scheduling tidbit for you … Eastern Washington is coming to play UConn on Dec. 28. Not sure if it will be at Gampel or XL, or what time, but since it is a Saturday between the holidays, I would guess a day game in Hartford. … UConn has been listed on the Eagles schedule for next year; the rebuilding Big Sky program is making an East Coast swing to play Seton Hall and UConn.
Eastern Washington will be trying to rebound from a 10-21 season, 7-7 in the Big Sky. Coach Jim Hayford’s team has two players from Germany and three from Australia, including 6-7 swing man Jois Venky, who averaged 12.3 points and 9.0 rebounds per game.
So what we know of UConn’s schedule: Maryland in Brooklyn on Nov. 8, Yale at UConn Nov. 11, BC at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 21, either Indiana or Washington at the Garden on Nov. 22, Florida at UConn on Dec. 2, Eastern Washington at UConn Dec. 28.
Still to slot in during November and December: A trip to Seattle to play Washington, possibly for a second time, with home games against Stanford and Harvard and the two preliminary 2K Classic games.
I was walking along the sidewalk at Gampel on Wednesday and I saw George Blaney carrying a cup of coffee. He waved and quickly made his way into the building and out of sight, and I thought, “hmm, that’s not like him.” I wondered if something was up …
Usually, whenever he’d see me, Blaney would come over to talk about the Yankees, one of his other great passions. I wondered if something was up. Whenever I’d ask Blaney about retirement – especially as last season drew to a close – he’d say with a twinkle in his eye he was “day to day,” or “I have a one-day contract.” Obviously, he did not want to be asked that question, since the day had come.
This was his deal at UConn, which eventually lasted 12 years, to age 73. Day to day. Get up, go to the gym and enjoy the day, and George Blaney never seemed to have a bad day if he was on or near a basketball court. The word “gym rat” is over-used, but it applied to this man well.
The word “gentleman” is rarely used these days, but it also applies to George Blaney so well. He is one of the great, true gentlemen I’ve ever been around – gracious, patient, soft-spoken, respectful. I wrote a long piece about him in 2010, this was before I joined the UConn beat and he was reluctant to be interviewed for it; he didn’t want to make his time filling in for Jim Calhoun about him.
After it ran, he sent me a hand-written thank-you note. This past year, on an off-day in need of a story, I
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It looks like UConn and Yale will be renewing their basketball rivalry after a 10-year hiatus. I’m hearing they will play early next season, perhaps on Nov. 11 or 18, at Gampel or XL.
Yale and UConn have played 65 times, going back to the 1914-15 season, with UConn owning a 43 to 22 advantage. They last played on Nov. 17, 2003, with the Huskies winning 70-60. Yale last beat UConn, 77-75 in OT, on Dec. 2, 1986.
Yale had a pesky guard in those days, Ed Petersen, back in the early 90s, and after they gave UConn a tough battle in a game I covered at the Coliseum in New Haven, I remember Jim Calhoun saying, “I nevah want to see Ed Petersen again. Nevah.” … Can still here that.
UConn doesn’t really play the in-state schools much anymore, and with the Huskies non-conference schedule looking to be pretty loaded now, a game against Yale should make for a nice night. UConn is going to play Harvard, though they are not ready to release their schedule.
A few other Huskies tidbits …
DeAndre Daniels, who is headed to the Kevin Durant Camp, is achieving his off-season goal of beefing up.
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Construction continues on the new basketball training facility in Storrs on Wednesday:
The Gampel Pavilion floor with a new look.
The APR scores are out, and UConn men’s basketball is out of the wilderness for now.
The program’s 947 for the 2011-12 academic year was a bit less than I was anticipating, but good enough for them to be eligible for postseason play next season. The transfers of Alex Oriakhi, Roscoe Smith and Michael Bradley in the spring of 2012 evidently cost them some retention points. This is another flaw in the system, BTW – players transfer because the team will be ineligible, and by doing so could contribute to future APR problems.
* Reminder, Andre Drummond was not a scholarship player, so there was no APR consequences to his one-and-done.
… But this is all behind UConn now.
* UConn folks remind us that two- and four-year rolling averages cannot be calculated by simply adding and dividing by four. You need “numerators” and “denominators” from each year. It’s a bit complicated for me, but UConn’s current four-year average is 896.55. Their two-year average is 964. They fall short of the needed 900 for a four-year average, but over the next two years, as part of the phase-in process of new standards, a program is eligible with 930-plus for a two-year average.
*By 2015-16, UConn will have to have a four-year rolling average of 930 or better. To do that, its players
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It’s official and no surprise. The deal to have the American Athletic Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament at the FedEx Forum in Memphis is complete.
It’s not New York, and it’s not home in Hartford for UConn, but it’s a great building in a destination city. The dates will be March 12 to 15, with all the game on one ESPN channel or another. The championship game will be on Saturday, on regular ESPN.
There will be two first-round games on the 12th, two quarterfinal doubleheaders on the 13th, a semifinal doubleheader on the 14th.
FedEx, which holds 18,400, is an NCAA Regional site next year as well.
AAC officials made it clear at the league meetings last month that they did not want to have both tournaments in the same market, so as they closed in on a deal with Mohegan Sun to have the women’s tournament there, Memphis became the clear favorite for the men’s tournament.
It’ll take some getting-used-to, but UConn moves on with life.
Pairings have not been officially announced for the Y2K Classic, but ESPN’s Andy Katz reports that UConn will play Boston College in one of the semifinal games at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 21.
UConn, BC, Indiana and Washington are the four “host schools” of the 12-team field, and they are guaranteed games in The Garden on the 21st and 22nd, though they will also play two preliminary round games at their home sites. The remaining eight teams have not yet been announced.
If UConn plays BC on the 21st, the Huskies would then play either Indiana or Washington the next day. If UConn and Washington decide to complete their home-and-home commitment this season with a game at Seattle, it could mean they would play twice. That does not appear to be a concern.
Obviously, UConn vs. BC has a little juice to it, with acrimony between the programs since BC left the Big East. They have not played since 2005.
Here is more info from the Y2K Classic’s website.
UConn’s other non-conference opponents include Maryland at the Barclay’s Center on Nov. 8, that’s official, a home game against Florida Dec. 2 (not yet officially announced) and home games against Stanford and Harvard and the road game at Washington, not yet official.
The new American Athletic Conference, which has 10 teams, will play an 18-game league schedule, with each team playing the other nine home and away, so UConn will play defending national champion Louisville twice in the regular season. The AAC says it won’t have “travel partners” per se, but will try to make the travel burden easier, so you could see UConn playing, for instance, at SMU and Houston on one swing.
I’m out of town on personal biz this weekend, but Mike Anthony filled in for me at the Jim Calhoun Cancer Challenge Ride and Walk in Simsbury on Saturday. Mike spoke with Kevin Ollie, who completed 25 miles on the bike, and got his take on various issues.
Here are some transcript highlights:
“I call our fans our family,” Ollie said. “They’re all here supporting a great cause and their coach is still here. It’s a wonderful event. For them to still come out when it was pouring outside [in the morning], but now the sunshine is shining down on Coach Calhoun’s event because he’s a great man. We’ll be here rain or shine because of all the things he does and all the things the volunteers do.”
On the program’s academics, as APR scores are about to be released::
“We had five guys make the honor roll. We had R.J. [Evans] graduate with a 3.7 and his graduate degree. Tony Robertson, he [returned and] graduated. Taliek [Brown] is around, he’s finishing up. So academically it’s going well and on the basketball we’re doing well. Tyler [Olander] and Shabazz [Napier] are getting healthy [from foot injuries]. Omar [Calhoun] had two hip surgeries, so he’s getting healthy, and I can’t wait for our freshmen to get up here. That’s exciting.”
His plans for the summer:
“Just be around, make phone calls and get ready for July. Have momentum going into July. We get two hours a week [to practice] with guys, make sure they’re going strong. I’m just making sure I’ve got my eyes on them, but I don’t think I need to do that. But it’s nice to be around and just relax where there are no games and just get an even better relationship with the guys.”
On Year 2 as head coach:
“It’s not a different feel. I’ve just got to experience different things as they come and connect the dots.
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The NCAA will release its most “recent” Academics Progress Rates next Tuesday, and with the lag time, it means these will be scores for the 2011-2012 academic year.
This time, there shouldn’t be any reason for Huskies fans to sweat it out.
UConn’s APR for that year is expected to be about what it was the previous year, which was 978, give or take a point or two.
This would put UConn, which was ineligible for the NCAA Tournament last season as a result of an 889 four-year average and 902 two-year score, out of danger for the coming year. With a score of, say, 975,
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