Jim Calhoun learned that he’ll have none of the nun support that followed him and his Huskies to Final Four appearances in 1999 and 2004. Mother Shaun Vergauwan and Sister Mary Richards won’t be making this week’s trip to Detriot, and just when we thought they were getting into a habit. From NBC Connecticut:
The sisters gave Calhoun a jar of bubblegum almost 10 years ago. As a thank you for the gift, he offered them a trip to the Final Four whenever UConn made it.
But despite being invited again by Coach Calhoun, the Meriden nuns won’t be making the trip to Detroit this year.[...]
The pair are a part of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and they will be receiving a special visitor from the Vatican this weekend, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, according to the Meriden Record Journal.
The nuns admitted that the team lost a couple of games that they had attended earlier in the year, but it was in a real wink-wink, CIA sort of God really does care about sports sort of way. Everyone knows that God hated the Buffalo Bills, loves the Patriots, and ALWAYS bets the over. They call it a Hail Mary for a reason…but I don’t know what that reason is.
March Madness resumes tonight as the NCAA Tournament comes off its weekday hiatus with four games tonight. The best games tonight will be UConn facing Purdue (7:07 ET tip) and Duke playing Villa-no-fun in the late slot. So I’ll miss two games tonight on TV no matter what…so I was here at the bar getting drunk all afternoon for nothing?
COED Magazine put together a solid Sweet Sixteen cheerleader gallery for all the matchups tonight and tomorrow night (sorry, pervs, all of the photo subjects are over 16). And if you actually want to see the games not in your area (most likely Xavier-Pittsburgh and Missouri-Memphis), there’s always your computer. Nerd.
And apparently there’s some uproar about whether this towel boy from UConn was housing this Nate Miles fellow and giving him cars or whores or whatever. The former student manager was actually a registered agent, I guess. I’m shocked, shocked that any player representative would work in such an underhanded way. But that doesn’t explain why this story is the only thing anyone can talk about today.
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We had to get to the game between Syracuse and UConn in the Big East tournament last night. This game looked like Syracuse had won it, but when a last-second three was declared no good after video review, the game went to overtime. Six overtimes.
There were the numbers, from the 3 hours, 46 minutes it took to play the game that ended at 1:22 a.m., to the combined 244 points, 102 of which came after the regulation buzzer, to the eight players who fouled out, to the six who registered double-doubles.
And that wasn’t nearly all. Just ask Syracuse point guard Jonny Flynn, who had 34 points and 11 assists in a game-high 67 minutes, only 3 fewer than were played.
“I just wanted to get the game over with,” he said. “I was thinking, `Lord, just get this game over with. Whoever wins the game, let’s just get it over with.’ “
I don’t understand why a game becomes epic just because it was longer. But that standard, when applied to highways, sub sandwiches, and male genitalia, seems to work just fine. Oh, Syracuse won, by the way. What did they win? A chance to play West Virginia tonight in the semifinal round. And maybe the admiration of their peers. Which is nice, but you can’t buy stuff with it.
Remember that Jim Calhoun press conference outburst earlier this week? Neither do I, but apparently not everyone has a life to move onto after seeing that. Two Connecticut state legislators state Sen. Mary Ann Handley and state Rep. Roberta Willis, both Democrats, sent a letter to UConn president Michael Hogan requesting that “appropriate disciplinary action” be taken against the men’s basketball coach. Like what, rapping him on the knuckles with a ruler?
“Coach Calhoun needs to be reminded that he is a role model for many athletes and students and that his behavior should reflect this position . . . His recent behavior was unacceptable, and we request that the university take appropriate disciplinary action to reinforce the high ethical standards we have come to expect from our flagship institution.”
It’s amazing that these…people…have the nerve to tell someone how to do his job WHEN THEIR STATE IS ALMOST 9 BILLION DOLLARS IN THE RED. MAYBE YOU SHOULD TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR FU¢KING BUDGET INSTEAD OF WORRYING ABOUT SOME GUY THAT’S ACTUALLY PROFICIENT AT what he does…damn this caps lock button never wants to come up. How’d all these keys get so sticky, anyway?
[Hartford Courant, via GameOn]
UConn basketball coach Jim Calhoun jumps into a reporter’s ass because he asked a ridiculous question about whether or not Calhoun would be returning any of his salary to help alleviate…actually I don’t know what the fu¢k he said. But I do know that this was a credentialed member of the media and not a blogger. Because a blogger would have asked him at least something intelligible, like, “Hey, would you do Erin Andrews?” Or, “Are you gonna finish those nachos?”
The Big East has been making a lot of noise this season, and last night they had the national stage to themselves. Too bad I was busy sorting my porn and missed it (by height, of course. Then nationality, hair color, and use of props, from least frequent to most frequent). But Pittsburgh beat UConn at home, 76-68. It was pretty even until Pitt got a couple 3s from Levance Fields down the stretch. And DeJuan Blair had 23 rebounds. I guess that’s a lot.
Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun referred to the games played in the conference over a decade ago.
“The Big East games in the 90s were like this,” he said after having his team’s 13-game winning streak stopped. “They came in here and played a style of basketball we haven’t seen this year and it was effective against us. … They made big plays and we didn’t. It was a hell of a basketball game.”
I can only hope we see a rematch when the college basketball season starts next month.
[Y! News]
