Points in the Paint
February 18, 2006 07:36 PM | General
February 18, 2006
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| Jim Calhoun |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun, hair askew, tie knot pulled down and his jacket unbuttoned, had the look of a relieved man Saturday afternoon following his team’s 81-75 victory over West Virginia.
The soon-not-to-be No. 1-ranked Huskies were able to do against West Virginia what it could not do against Villanova on Monday night: pound the ball inside. UConn understood the game plan from the outset, getting its first eight points on dunks and getting all but four of its 16 first-half baskets around the rim. The Huskies finished the game with 46 points in the paint.
“Our job was to get the ball inside,” Calhoun said. “We worked on that against the 1-3-1 for three straight days and I think we got five dunks out of it. We could have kept doing that against man and the 2-3 zone a little bit -- and mainly man -- but the bottom line is we did.”
Calhoun admitted his coaching staff was inventing ways on the fly of getting the basketball into his post duo of Josh Boone and Hilton Armstrong, who combined to shoot 15 of 19 and score 33 points. Nearly all of their 15 baskets were dunks -- either off of penetration or lobs over the 1-3-1 zone defense.
“We had good counter rotation where we actually screened the dropdown man and ran a guy under,” Calhoun explained “That’s where all of the dunks came from. We were really prepared for the 1-3-1.”
Calhoun’s strategy at halftime was to use his bench and wear down a West Virginia team that essentially only goes seven deep.
“We tried to tell the kids at halftime, ‘They will get tired around the 8 or 9 minute mark.’ If we can rotate nine guys in against their five for the entire 40 we’ll get them tired and somebody will get into foul trouble. It happened to be Herber,” Calhoun said. “We kept telling the kids, ‘Run everything and run every possession.’ If we get a fast break or not, run every possession.
“That was the way we felt we could negate their offense a little bit and their passes weren't as crisp, their legs … Pittsnogle’s last 3 he had to get some real lift on it. That’s the one he hit off the backboard. That’s what happens.”
West Virginia, according to Calhoun, did a much better job Saturday of getting the correct spacing in its offense to pull Connecticut’s shot blockers out of the lane.
“That was a really good move against us,” he said. “They had to make probably a couple of more 3s to make it better but nevertheless, it draws people down in and it opens up 3s.”
Calhoun’s team, having played in packed arenas all season, was prepared for a supercharged atmosphere at the Coliseum, which the veteran coach admitted was one of the best he’s encountered this year.
“It was a heck of a college basketball game and I thought we really showed a lot of poise in a great, great basketball environment,” Calhoun said. “When they come out here … we’ve been down at Louisville and they set the record down there and also at Philadelphia for the Villanova game … but today was equal to any of that. It was a terrific, terrific crowd and they were really in to the game so there was a lot of emotion. It was terrific for our kids to get this win.”
Connecticut's coach had high praise for Beilein’s ability to dissect defenses and always coming up with difficult plans to prepare for.
“Some guys run a patient offense with backdoor cuts, etcetera, etcetera, and they’re a slow-down team,” he said. “They run fast break, they run fast or slow or whatever you want. You can run exactly what John runs in the NBA. I’m not suggesting that John go to the NBA, I’m suggesting that West Virginia has one heck of a basketball coach in John Beilein.”
Calhoun believes West Virginia has all of the ingredients needed to make another deep run in the NCAA tournament.
“There is no doubt in my mind that West Virginia can have a similar trip as it did last year. They’re a really, really good basketball team,” he said.
As is Calhoun’s team.
