Connecticut lost it to the pros

By Robyn Norwood

Dec. 20, 2006 12 AM PT

Sometimes, there are teams that are supposed to win the national championship and don’t.

Connecticut was one, but last season’s team is now an afterthought in a season that will be remembered for George Mason’s run to the Final Four and Florida winning the NCAA title.

For the record:

12:00 a.m. Dec. 22, 2006 For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday December 22, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 41 words Type of Material: Correction
Connecticut basketball: The college basketball column about the Connecticut Huskies in Wednesday’s Sports section referred to a road game at West Virginia and a home game against Marquette as being nonconference games. All three schools are in the Big East Conference.

“I thought we could have,” said Coach Jim Calhoun, whose rebuilt, unbeaten and untested No. 14-ranked Huskies play Pepperdine today at the Hartford Civic Center.

Rudy Gay, Hilton Armstrong, Marcus Williams and Josh Boone were on their way to becoming first-round NBA draft picks, but they never finished what they were supposed to do in college, losing to George Mason in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament after nearly being knocked out by Washington a round earlier.

“At the worst time of the season, we took our focus off what we were doing and it was, ‘Where am I going?’ instead of ‘Where are we going?’ ” Calhoun said. “They’re human beings. It happens.”

Still, Calhoun bristles a bit at the word bandied about most often.

“When you go 30-4 and go to the final eight, it’s not a bad team -- not a selfish team, as everybody accused,” he said. “I always liked the team.”

He doesn’t want to call his players selfish, but he won’t say they weren’t self-interested.

“Down the stretch run, Josh Boone was nervous about going out. Rudy was nervous about going out,” Calhoun said. “Hilton was shocked, because he didn’t want to leave here.

“They lacked a little bit of hungriness or purpose to win the national championship. Where it caught up to us was looking at the three-letter word, NBA, instead of the four-letter word, NCAA.”

Calhoun also contends the Huskies weren’t the perfect assortment of talent some believed, and that Connecticut needed another ball-handling guard to complement Williams.

“We were missing a guard,” Calhoun said. “Marcus was the only guard who could go by you.”

That guard could have been A.J. Price, back this season as the point guard after sitting out two seasons because of a near-fatal brain hemorrhage and a suspension related to the laptop-theft scandal that also temporarily sidelined Williams.

Price sat out the 2004-05 season after undergoing brain surgery following bleeding in his brain caused by Arteriovenous Malformation, the same congenital condition that recently threatened the life of Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.)

“He’s a different person. No question at all,” Calhoun said. “He was facing death, and there’s still a week or two he doesn’t remember. Those are probably forever lost, and they probably should be, spending 16 days in intensive care.

“The other situation was just a mistake. He accepted stolen goods, a laptop. He was involved, and even though at the end he was trying to do the right thing, at the moment he accepted it he was involved.”

Suspended by the university for the academic year, Price returned this season as a sophomore. He is third on the team in scoring with a 13.3 average and running the point with a better than 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.

“Throughout the two things, he’s been remarkable,” Calhoun said. “He’s always been a good kid, always smart, maybe a little too smart. He comes from a good family and he’s made a total transformation as a human being and is a very good basketball player.”

Exactly how good the Huskies might be is difficult to say, given a nonconference schedule that doesn’t require them to leave Connecticut until Dec. 30 and a steady diet of Fairfield, Albany, Sacred Heart, Texas Southern and the like.

A freshman guard, Jerome Dyson, is the team’s leading scorer, averaging 14.2 points. Another freshman, 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet, is averaging nearly five blocked shots and had 10 against Texas Southern.

“He was under the radar in recruiting, but I don’t know how you hide at 7-3,” Calhoun said.

Thabeet’s offensive skills remain “like a junior in high school,” but Calhoun added he has very good touch, an “almost regal bearing” and reminds some of a young Dikembe Mutombo.

“He’s probably better now than Mutombo was his rookie year in the NBA,” Calhoun said.

For now, nobody can say how good Connecticut is.

Come nonconference road games at West Virginia and No. 12 Louisiana State and a home game against No. 19 Marquette, it should become more clear before Big East Conference play begins.

“We scheduled, quite frankly, lighter and at home because we have nine new players,” Calhoun said.

Championship preview

Ohio State and Florida football teams meet in the Bowl Championship Series title game Jan. 8 in Glendale, Ariz.

But Ohio State and Florida meet on a basketball court in Gainesville, Fla., Saturday in a top-five showdown that will feature 7-foot Ohio State freshman Greg Oden and 6-11 Florida junior Joakim Noah, the most outstanding player in last season’s Final Four.

The brawnier matchup between Oden and Florida center Al Horford might not happen, because Horford has been slowed by a high-ankle sprain.

Oden so far is managing to meet lofty expectations, and his rehabilitation from right wrist surgery appears to have made him more polished offensively as he worked on his left-handed skills.

He made 17 of his first 19 field-goal attempts before making eight of 15 on Tuesday against Iowa State. Perhaps as impressive, he has made 12 of 25 free throws shooting left-handed as his right wrist recovers.

USC Coach Tim Floyd is among many coaches who don’t think there is any debate about how good Oden is.

“He’s a guy who I think would have been the No. 1 pick as a junior in high school and as a senior and probably this year,” Floyd said. “I think he’s that talented, a once-in-a-generation big guy, like Ewing, Shaq and Kareem.”

Pac mentality

There’s no question the Pacific 10 Conference is on an upswing this season, with UCLA No. 1 and three other teams -- No. 9 Arizona, No. 17 Washington and No. 21 Oregon -- in the top 25.

Even the bottom of the league has its claims: Washington State upset Gonzaga, which went on to beat Washington by 20 points.

Still, December is a little early to start the lobbying for how many teams will make the NCAA field.

Amid a chorus by coaches for as many as six teams, new Washington State Coach Tony Bennett spoke up.

“I would argue for 10, for sure,” he said in jest.

“Clearly, the Pac-10 deserves probably more than in the past,” he said. “I think, no question, as many as any other conference gets.”

Elsewhere ...

One conference that has fared poorly during the nonconference season is the Big 12.

The league’s current ranking, according to the Ratings Percentage Index estimates at CollegeRPI.com, is eighth, trailing the other five major conferences as well as the Missouri Valley and Mountain West, which has won seven of 11 against the Big 12.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com

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The Times’ rankings

Robyn Norwood’s college basketball rankings and comments:

Rk. Team (W-L); Comment

1. UCLA (10-0) ; Hunch is, Ohio State will claim this spot eventually.

2. NORTH CAROLINA (9-1); Roy Williams faced ex-player in Florida Atlantic Coach Rex Walters.

3. OHIO STATE (10-1); Must-see Saturday: Greg Oden vs. Florida’s big men.

4. FLORIDA

(9-2) ; Ohio State game will tell where defending NCAA champs stack up.

5. WISCONSIN

(11-1); The Alando and Butch Show handled Pitt.