Thabeet is staying for sophomore season!

According to UConnHuskies.com, freshman center, Hasheem Thabeet has decided to stay at Connecticut for his sophomore season.

"I am very excited about next season and returning to UConn for my sophomore year,” said Thabeet. “I look forward to continuing my education as a person and as an athlete. We have all been working very hard since the season ended and will continue doing everything we can to get better each day and have a great season next year. I would also like to express my appreciation to all my fans and those who have taken interest in my career here at UConn. I want to especially thank my fans in Tanzania who continue to send me volumes of letters of support. I am glad I can be a role model figure to the youth in Tanzania, many of whom do not have the opportunities that I have been given.”

“We obviously have high expectations for Hasheem in the coming year,” said UConn coach Jim Calhoun. “He had a very good freshman year for us and showed great improvement as the year went on. He has the opportunity to take it to the next level during this coming summer and heading into next season and can really be a big part of our team achieving success in the future.”

The 7'3" 255 lb center from Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, started in all 31 games for the Huskies and scored 6.3 points per game, 6.4 rebounds per game and 3.8 blocks per game. The 3.8 BPG was good enough to rank 1st in the Big East and 3rd in the Nation, he had a total of 119 blocks, ranking behind only one other freshman in UConn history, as Emeka Okafor totaled 138 blocks in 2001-02. He matched the UConn single game record of 10 blocked shots in the win over Texas Southern, equaling the mark held by Emeka Okafor and Donyell Marshall. He also blocked nine shots in the win over Fairfield and was named to the all-tournament team of the Hispanic College Fund Classic. But he has a lot of work to do this offseason, such as bulking up, he really needs to get stronger and add muscle. He was constantly bullied downlow on both the offensive and defensive boards and if he does get stronger, then we're going to be very tough to score on next season. He has all the potential to be one of the best centers to ever come to UConn, but in the end it's really up to him on how he will be remembered.

Unnecessary use of spandex -1 any hope of a tourney run-0

For the third consecutive season, the Syracuse Orangemen have defeated my beloved UCONN Huskies in the Big East Tournament. Coming into the game on Tuesday afternoon, I had been aware that we had one chance and one chance only to make it to the NCAA Tournament and that would be an amazing run in the Big East Tourney and somehow make and upset unbelievable upset to win the whole damn thing. And of course, that didn't happen. The stupid spandex-wearing Orange defeated the Huskies, 78-65 thanks to dumb Demetris Nichols' 28 points and his "special friend", Eric Devendorf, and his equally dumb 19 points.

What makes this loss even more unbearable(if at all possible) is once again we had the lead at half-time and we end up giving it away at the end. So yes, that was a bad way to end a bad season, what's that? We still have the NIT you say? Well maybe not, according to this site, we're on the bubble for even a NIT bid. How embarrassing would that be? Pretty damn if you ask me. I mean how many teams have their been that were the #1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to the Elite 8 the previous season and not only miss the NCAA Tourney but the NIT Tourney as well, the following year? I don't have the statistics in front of me, but I can tell that there is many.

It was pretty evident that this season was beyond frustrating for Coach Jim Calhoun who went from arguably the most talented team last year(four 1st round picks in the NBA Draft) to one of the most inexperienced with no seniors or juniors that played an significant part for the team. Mid-way through the second half, he received a technical foul for kicking the the Big East sign in front of the scorer's table.

"When bad things happen to you by incompetent people, and they do happen to you at times, and as that built we became a little more frustrated," Calhoun said.

Although this was a horrible season, I'm not worried about the years to come, with outstanding play from freshman guard, Jerome Dyson and sophomore forward, Jeff Adrien the Huskies could be back to their usual winning ways next year. We really A.J. Price, Doug Wiggins or Craig Austrie to develop into a true point guard. It showed that we didn't have anyone that could manage the game on the court or set up guys with clean shots and it hurt us in the end. Better luck next year.

North Carolina can't stop the almight Zabian Dowdell; Huskies get another win.

On Tuesday night, Virginia Tech defeated North Carolina 81-80 in overtime. This win gave the Hokies 18 overall and more importantly two against conference rival UNC. Part time superstar and full time P-I-M-P, Zabian Dowdell scored a career high 33 points and after the game he did us all a favor and ripped off Howie Mandel's stupid soul patch.

The Tar Heel's big man, Tyler Hansbrough had a good game with 22 points and 8 boards but Dowdell and Deron Washington(who scored 12 and grabbed 14 rebounds) forced Wayne Ellington to throw up an awkward looking three after the buzzer had sound and preserved the victory and all but guarantee them themselves a top 10 seed in the NCAA tournament with yet another impressive road win against a Top-5 team.

"Something special brewing around the program," Dowdell said.


In case you missed it, Connecticut won again Wednesday raising their season total to 16 and brings them within 1 win from a .500 record in the Big East. The Huskies finally had a convincing win, beating Seton Hall, 67-55. Despite missing his first 8 shots, Jerome Dyson scored a career high 22 points and tied his season's best with 7 rebounds. Jeff Adrien found time in between satisfying a plethora of women that would make the likes of Wilt Chamberlain blush to score 12 points and 15 rebounds, that is his 14th double-double of the season and his seventh in the last eight games. Hasheem Thabeet didn't have a great offensive game with just 6 points, but he contributed with 9 rebounds and 7 blocks.

The Huskies next game is Saturday against their rival, Syracuse at 3:30 ET on ABC. We need this win bad, if we defeat Syracuse for a second time it could resurrect an at large bid for the NCAA tournament if we do well in the Big East tournament....aw they plot thickens.

*side note, I used the word plethora and didn't get beat up...I see that as a win. Yay me.

UConn wins, UConn wins!!!

Thanks to an 8-0 run late in the game, Connecticut went on to beat rival Syracuse, 67-60.

This win improves our record to 15-8 and inches us closer to a .500 record in Big East play. Monday's win was not only big from the standpoint that it was a rivalry game, but it gave head coach Jim Calhoun 500 victories in his illustrious 21 seasons in Storrs and ran his career win mark to 749.

In one of the most well-played, exciting games this season, the Huskies made the most of their opportunities down the stretch. Paul Harris had given Syracuse their last lead with a pair of free throws with 6:48 remaining, before the Huskies took control. Sophomore power forward Jeff Adrien made a pair of free throws to tie the game for the fifth and final time, and made another free throw later to put the Huskies ahead for good, at 58-57 with 5:43 to go.

The Huskies had a balanced scoring attack on the evening. Austrie registered his season-high in scoring for the second straight contest by scoring 14 points, including three big three-pointers. Austrie also had a career-high seven rebounds, and had five assists without a turnover. Adrien was great once again in the interior, getting his 12^th double-double of the season, with 12 points and a game-high 12 rebounds.

A.J. Price was the biggest contributor off the bench chipping in with 12 points. Dyson finished with 10 points, making seven of eight from the foul line. Johnson played some of his most inspired play of late, scoring 10 points in 16 minutes.

The entire game was close as neither team led by more than seven points. Connecticut used a 21-9 advantage on the offensive boards to score 22 second-chance points. The Huskies made eight three-pointers, and blocked nine shots, led by Adrien’s three.

UCONN wins!!! Go crazy folks...go crazy!

If you couldn't tell by the title, apparently the Connecticut Huskies won today. And yes, I am a bit excited to say the least.

UConn's five game losing streak finally came to an end Saturday. The Huskies knocked off the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, 61-50. Now the game did go to overtime but Jeff Adrien went off, scoring 19 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Also contributing with big games were Jerome Dyson and Craig Austrie both with 13 points. Hasheem Thabeet had a nice game aswell with 8 points and 11 rebounds, he also blocked 5 shots.

All I am concerned with right now is making the Big East tournament. We are cutting it close but with this win tonight we have moved into 11th place in the conference(top 12 teams make it). But if we can make it to the tournament then we have a good chance at hopefully going on a winning streak that will hopefully get us in the NCAA Tournament. Which is just 5 weeks a way. Can you feel the excitement?

Ok, I admit defeat.

I feel a lot like Roy Williams at this point. Some may remember when Roy Williams left me speechless a couple of months ago when he guaranteed a victory over the Chicago Bears only to eventually lose by 27 points.

With that said, just five days ago, I guaranteed a win over Depaul. On a side note I must mention, anytime someone guarantees a win, one of two things will happen. Either you guarantee a win and you win, you look like a genius for calling it and receive praise from everyone that you know, or you guarantee it and you lose, resulting ultimate embarrassment because you rode around your office on a sled being pulled by actual huskies with fitted jerseys of the UConn players for the past couple of days. I,of course am the latter.

UConn fell once again, this time to Depaul. No, sadly I did not stutter. Depaul beat us, 66-58. Jim Calhoun decided to go with another new starting lineup this time benching Jerome Dyson for the first time all season, who coincidentally led us in scoring with 16. In his replace was Craig Austrie, one of the two players currently on our roster that got significant playing time last year. He didn't really fair to well, only scoring 9 points in 27 minutes. To add insult to injury, as a team we shot 37% from the field. Let me talk a little about the number 37. Last night against Texas Tech, Kevin Durant scored 37 points, he's a freshman. We scored exactly 37 points in the second half last night, last year a 3-foot women gave birth....the women weighed only 37 pounds and just a few weeks ago, CBP Border Patrol seized 37 pounds of marijuana. I'm sure you see where i'm going with this...ok fine, that last two have absolutely nothing to do with sports, but damn, that's a lot of weed.

With this latest loss we will most likely miss our shot at the NCAA Tournament. And if we can't pull off a couple of upsets in our remaining games, we could miss out on the Big East Tournament. Hello NIT.

In other news, Virginia Tech also lost last night. Their lost to N.C. State, 70-59, snapped their 10-game home winning streak. This loss also capped off what was a very special month of January for the Hokies, with wins over Duke, UNC, Maryland, GT and Miami. Oh and just a side note, the Hokies shot 35% from the field. I won't go into detail on that one though.

We can't even beat Providence...YES PROVIDENCE!

What happened to the Connecticut Huskies that I have known and loved for 9 years? What happened to the team that has won 2 National Championships in the last 8 years? Not only have we fell out of the top 25 for the first time in 4 years, we can't even win a game anymore. We have lost our last 4 games and 7 of our last 9.

We absolutely killed all of the weaker competition earlier in the year and things were looking good, coming into our first road game(yes, our first 11 games were home games) against West Virginia we were ranked #11 and 11-0.

So obviously I was excited, running around the streets of St.Louis with no shirt and some spandex shorts, that didn't really hide my boner to say the least. I mean when my teams are winning I tend to take the celebration a little to far. A frightened Chimpanzee at the St.Louis Zoo knows exactly what i'm talking about. Apparently the cops and the trainers don't like it when you strip off all your clothes and get into the ape cages and spoon with the monkeys. Who knew?
Basically what I'm trying to say is, I bought into all they hype, I looked into all the players and liked what I saw, I liked our potential. Although I have admitted that I don't think were a powerhouse like we were last year, but I felt that we would win 20+ games, make the NCAA Tournament and create some buzz. I was wrong. We can't hold a lead against teams in the second half. We give up long scoring streaks that put us out of the game. We can't defend that well. And we have no real "scorer".

We have alot of talent but at this point we can't close out games. We have had leads or been right there in all of loses at halftime and then we blow it in the second half. We have given up a 12-0 run to Pittsburgh(aka Shitsburgh) and Marquette, a 12-2 run to LSU, and a 15-3 run to Louisville...all in the second half. And then again today against Providence, we had an 11 point lead going into halftime and to start the second half, the Friars went on a 16-0 run. WE GOT BEAT BY FUCKING FRIARS...WHAT THE HELL! The same Providence team that lost to Senton Hall and Brown. Yes the Ivy League school.

I love Jim Calhoun, but it is apparent that he can't find a winning starting line up. He has tried combos such as:

C-Hasheem Thabeet, F-Jeff Adrien, F-Marcus Johnson, G-Jerome Dyson, G-A.J. Price
C-Hasheem Thabeet, F-Jeff Adrien, F-Stanley Robinson, G-Jerome Dyson, G-Doug Wiggins
C-Hasheem Thabeet, F-Jeff Adrien, F-Stanley Robinson, G-Jerome Dyson, G-A.J. Price
F-Jeff Adrien, F-Stanley Robinson, G-Jerome Dyson, G-A.J. Price G-Doug Wiggins

Another weakness is our lack of ability to defend the 3-point shot. Although overall our 3-point pct. is better(ours-.333 opp-.308), we don't shoot that many a game, and our opponets shoot alot. Also our free throw shooting is abismal. Right now UConn is shooting .638 from the FT line. That isn't going to cut it.

I'm going to go ahead and say it. Although I love Hasheem Thabeet's shot blocking ability, he looks like a bust this year. He is 7'3" 265 lbs but he has no mucle on him. He is long and skinny and he just gets over powered down low which is why he's only averaging 6.9 ppg and 6.5 rpg. I still think he can be great, but this offseason their is alot that he needs to work on, like packing on some muscle, work on his downlow presence and just get stronger.

With all that said, I think we will defintely win our next two games guaranteed. We travel to Depaul(12-9) and then we have Rutgers(8-12) at home. We need to win at least 7 or 8 of our remaining 10 games and we need to do well in the Big East Tournament if we have any hope to make the NCAA Tournament.

06-07 Schedule

11/10- Quinnipiac (53-46 W)
11/17- Cen. Arkansas (88-59 W)
11/18- Fairfield (74-49 W)
11/19- Ole Miss (77-59 W)
11/26- Albany (86-55 W)
11/29- Sacred Heart (89-46 W)
12/03- Texas South (106-55 W)
12/06- N'Eastern (81-53 W)
12/17- St. Mary's (89-73 W)
12/20- Pepperdine (88-66 W)
12/27- Coppin St. (84-41 W)
12/30- @ West Virginia (81-71 L)
01/02- South Florida (69-50 W)
01/06- @ #19 LSU (66-49 L)
01/10- Marquette (73-69 L)
01/13- @ St. John's (68-59 W)
01/16- @ #6 Pittsburgh (63-54 L)
01/20- Indiana (77-73 L)
01/22- @ Louisville (68-54 L)
01/27- Providence (84-72 )
01/31- @ Depaul (12-9, 3-4)
02/03- Rutgers (8-12, 1-6)
02/05- Syracuse (15-5, 4-2)
02/11- @ Ga Tech (13-6)
02/14- Senton Hall (11-8, 3-4)
02/17- @ Syracuse (15-5, 4-2)
02/21- @ Rutgers (8-12, 1-6)
02/25- Louisville (14-6, 4-2)
02/28- Villanova (14-5, 3-3)
03/03- @ Georgetown (15-5, 5-2)

We have a tough road ahead of us, but hopefully Jim Calhoun can right the ship and turn this team around to make a late run. Hopefully.

Talk about bitter sweet.

In the latest coaches' poll the Connecticut Huskies dropped out of the top 25 for the first time since 2003. A pretty impressive streak of 69 straight polls snapped with our third loss in the past 4 games. With losses at West Virginia, LSU and Marquette and then you take in to count that we have no seniors or juniors starting(or even decent bench players) I see why were not even putting up a fight against higher ranked teams.

Don't get me wrong though, by March I think we'll be in great shape to make a run. Putting my biased nature aside, I don't think this team is quite ready for a national championship. Were missing alot of parts at this point, such as down low presence, pure shooter that can hit a big three(like Rashad Anderson last year) and I would like to see A.J. Price develop a little more into a solid point guard. With all these things coming together, we could be cutting down the nets maybe as soon as next year.

Big Men:

Obviously when you have a 7'2" guy on your team he's going to be your big man, but Hasheem Thasbeet hasn't been that good offensively. Jeff Adrien plays forward but he's only 6'6", although he isn't really the height to play PF, he is one of the most athletic players that I have seen in a Huskie jersey in quite awhile. I think he would better be suited to play small forward, but right now, the only other guy that I think could play PF is Stanley Robinson.

Shooter:

We don't really have too many shooters. We have alot of guys that have good mid-range shots, and can create shots down low. The best shooter right now is Craig Austrie. Currently he is shooting 44% behind the arc. So he might be the answer for us. Another alternative would be Jerome Dyson. But he's only shooting 33% right now.

Point Guard:

Although A.J. Price is coming along very nicely as a leader on this extremely young team, I think he can improve even still. Right now he's averaging nearly 5 assists a game, which is good, don't get me wrong, but i'm just being greedy and would like that to be, oh I don't know, around 6.5 or 7.

Now for the good, the Virginia Tech Hokies have cracked the top 25 for the first time since 1996. After major upsets over at the time #5 Duke and now at the time #1 North Carolina. With the help of Zabian Dowdell's 23 points and Jamon Gordon's 17 points the Hokies were able to out last the Tar Heels in Blacksburg.

So my favorite college basketball team loses and they drop out of the top 25 and my favorite overall team gets two huge upsets and they crack the top 25. I guess this is where I take the bad with the good.

Saturday night wrap-up.

Alot in the sports world has happend tonight. To name a few; the start of the 2006-2007 NFL playoffs, a major upset in college basketball and another tragic death.

NFL Playoffs:

KC- 8 INDY-23

Almost all of the "experts projected Larry Johnson to gain at least 150 yards and 2 TDs against the worst run defense of the Colts. I have to admit, I thought LJ would get 40+ touches and 150 yards but I was leaning towards only 1 TD. Well like most things in my life, I was wrong. Johnson only had 13 rushes and a miserable 32 yards. What the hell happened to the defense that gave up damn near 400 rushing yards to Jacksonville less than a month ago?

But with all that aside, Peyton Manning was less than spectacular throwing 3 picks, but did manage to throw for 268 yards and connect with Reggie Wayne in the end zone with less than 5 minutes in the 4th quarter. The big contributors in this game besides the Colts' D(who would've thunk it?) were Dallas "don't show me grunting on a video game without my permission" Clark with 9 catches for 103 yards and Joseph Addai who had a stellar game, 25 carries 122 yards and 1 score.

The Colts looked absolutely dominating in all aspects of the game today, offense, defense and special teams. Look, when you hold the ball twice as long as your opponent and you nearly triple them in total yards, odds are you'll win.

DAL- 20 SEA- 21

This as expected, was a very close game. It came down to Tony Romo botching the snap of a chip shot field goal attempt with 1:19 left in the game that sealed the fate of the once thought of best team in the NFC( Being the best team in the NFC is like being the skinniest kid at fat camp, sure you feel good now, but wait till you get home and you hear the first "hey look, tubby's back"....fuck, remember what Dr. Feinstein said, that's the past...leave it in the past.)What was I talking about, oh yes, the playoffs.

No one really jumped out, statistically in this one except Jerramy Stevens, in between dropping passes in the Superbowl and getting his crotch destroyed by a 300 pound lineman, he managed to haul in two touchdowns.

So to recap quickly, Indy beats on KC like Ike beats on Tina and Romo loses it for the Cowboys. Don't feel bad for Tony Romo though, he can always go cry on the shoulder of Jessica Sim....oh yeah, I forgot about that, honest mistake *wink, wink*.

NCAABB:

I guess I will have to take the bad with the good on this one. The good part is my Hokies were able to beat Duke in Camden to revenge that bullshit 45 footer at the buzzer last year. We usually play the Blue Devils well but haven't really been able to beat them in recent years. But we finally edged them out in overtime today, 69-67.

The bad part is my beloved UConn Huskies fell for the second time this year. LSU showed us that all the talent in the world can't win you games, you have to come out and play like the better team. Led by Glen "Big Baby" Davis and Tasmin Mitchell the Tigers destroyed us 66-49.

Another tragic death to a young football player:

Mario Danelo, the kicker for the USC Trojans, was found dead at the bottom of a cliff today. Danelo is the 21 year old son of former NFL kicker, Joe Danelo. Police have not yet released any details, but Martha Garcia of the Los Angeles Police Department, said that it appeared as though he had suffered traumatic injuries.

Speaking on behalf of Trojans coach Pete Carroll, USC spokesman Tim Tessalone said: "We were stunned to hear about this tragedy. This is a great loss. Mario was a wonderful young man of high character.

"He was one heck of a kicker. He was a key ingredient in our success the past two years. The thoughts and prayers of the entire Trojan family go out to the Danelo family on this sad, sad day."

More to come on this horrible story when further details are released.

Top 25 (NCAAB)

1. UCLA 8-0
2. Pittsburgh 10-0
3. North Carolina 7-1
4. Ohio State 8-1
5. Florida 8-2
6. Duke 9-1
7. Wisconsin 9-1
8. Connecticut 8-0
9. Alabama 8-1
10. Witchita State 7-0
11. Arizona 7-1
12. Kansas 8-2
13. Texas A&M 7-2
14. Washington 7-1
15. LSU 5-2
16. Gonzaga 9-2
17. Oklahoma State 11-0
18. Butler 10-1
19. Memphis 7-2
20. Air Force 10-1
21. Nevada 7-1
22. Marquette 9-2
23. Michigan State 9-2
24. Oregon 7-0
25. Clemson 10-0

I'm going to talk a little about my Huskies, the Connecticut version. When I first saw what the starting roster was going to look like this season, I was a little worried. I never lost faith, I just thought they would come in 3rd or 4th in the Big East. We only have 1 senior on the UConn roster and he doesn't even play, we have 1 junior, much like our lone senior, he doesn't play either. But we do have alot of talent, we have tons of great atheletes that have alot of potential. We lost our whole starting line-up and even the best bench player in the nation last year. Rudy Gay, Josh Boone, Hilton Armstrong and Marcus Williams all were selected in the NBA draft and Denham Brown and Rashad Anderson also graduated. But like I said earlier we have alot of talent and it has propelled us to a great start.

#12 A.J. Price PG - A.J. is our starting point guard. Some of you may remember last year when Marcus Williams was suspended for the first 15 games or so by Jim Calhoun for stealing laptops with the intent to sell them. Well there was another Huskie involved in that and that was Price. He was suspended the whole year though. He has came back and he is proving that he can run this team.

A.J.'s numbers.... 13.9 ppg, 5.1 apg, 2.5 rpg

#11 Jerome Dyson SG - Jerome is the first of our many outstanding freshman. He is a highflyer with good range. He lacks the size of a 2 guard but he makes it up with solid defense and the ability to penetrate and cut to the basket extremely well.

Jerome's numbers.... 13.6 ppg, 2.6 apg, 3.4 rpg

#1 Marcus Johnson G/F - Marcus is the first of 3 returning players that had playing time last year. Out of the three Marcus had the least amount of playing time. He isn't really a great scorer but he can come out and get you 10 points or so and he plays hard and he makes it on the highlight reel with some of his dunks. I think he is going to improve though, he has decent range, he just doesn't shoot that much.

Marcus' numbers.... 9.3 ppg, 1.6 apg, 4.4 rpg

#4 Jeff Adrien F - Now it's time to talk about my favorite player on this team. He got the most playing time out of the returning players last year, because of his vesitility. He is only 6'6" but he plays power forward. That means he plays against guys that average around 6'9". That should explain why he is so versitile. He is the type of player that if needed he could play 4 out of the 5 positions. He is a very good passer, but he just doesn't get alot of assists. He plays bigger than he is, he is a tremendous athlete with great scoring ability, an outstanding rebounder and an excellent shot blocker. Add all those together and what do you get? My favorite player.

Jeff's numbers.... 13.3 ppg, .4 apg, 10.6 rpg, 1.9 blk

#34 Hasheem Thabeet - Hasheem is one of prized freshman. He is absoulutley huge, he stands at 7'3" and about 270 lbs. I can't remember having someone that tall in quite awhile. He has struggled a little bit though. Both scoring and rebounding aren't quite there yet, but trust me, he will come along. One of the most amazing stats from Hasheem so far is his blocks per game. He averages 5.1 blocks a game. I know, you're impressed, well so am I. Anyway, give him some time and the points and rebounds will improve.

Hasheem's numbers.... 6.5 ppg, .5 apg, 7.0 rpg, 5.1 blk

Best bench players...

#3 Doug Wiggins(freshman) PG - 6.8 ppg, 2.3 apg, 1.9 rpg
#24 Craig Austrie G - 5.5 ppg, 1.3 apg, .9 rpg
#21 Stanley Robinson(freshman) F - 5.5 ppg, .8 apg, 4.8 rpg