Hoyas - UConn Post-Game Discussion

[DFW HOYA]

From the AP recap:

"You seem to be more excited today that I've ever seen you after winning a championship," the elder Thompson said. "You seem to be more emotional."

"The first one I think I was the most excited, when we won at Princeton when we beat Penn," the son replied. "But, today, yeah, I was a little excited out there today. Yeah, I was excited, Pops."

"So excited," Pops said, "that you're going to take your old man to a real good restaurant?"

sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap?gid=200703030229&prov=ap

[TigerHoya]

Dyson had the flu?

I guess we tend to bring that out in people after a loss.

[zxhoya]

locker said:

Ewing Jr. is the only player on this team who is an expert at making the post entry pass. It's not a coincidence that Roy's production rose today as Pat's minutes increased. He should see more and more of the PT at the three as we go forward.

Roy was dominating at the tip off, long before PEjr got in, but they were both awesome. PEjr is becoming one of our more consistent outside threats and on D he is all over the place, awesome.

[PopeJohn2]

i hope pitt loses to marquette tonite. it would be nice to win the regular season championship outright. lets go gold!

[MassHoya]

This was long overdue. FWIW, our cable system has both the Boston and Hartford CBS stations so Hartford naturally stayed with the Hoyas. They probably wish they switched to Kansas, too.

Go Marquette!!!

[ExcitableBoy]

tigerhoya said:

Dyson had the flu?

I guess we tend to bring that out in people after a loss.

According to the AP, not only did Dyson have a 'virus', he was also distracted:

"Jerome Dyson was limited to nine points on 4-for-13 shooting. Calhoun said the freshman was ill with a virus and also was distracted by playing near his hometown of Rockville, Md."

If playing near your hometown is a bad thing, Jeff & Roy would have been amazing Pac 10 players.

[MassHoya]

The DC Board of Health should check the Verizon Center. Everybody gets the flu when they play the Hoyas. Let's hope it spreads to the Garden next week.

[RDF]

ed said:

On the subject of Roy getting too few shots - I just finished viewing the 1984 championship game when Georgetown defeated Houston 84-75. Ewing got 8 shots and at least 2 were offensive rebounds/put-backs. In the semis Ewing was 4 for 6 (don't know if any were put-backs). My point is that denying our center the ball is not new. Teams have been doing that for years as they know it's one way to try to beat us.

It's a little different case when Patrick Ewing is playing Akeem Olajuwon and Roy is facing Daryl Watkins Ed. I'm a fan of offenses that go inside out--but utilize the matchups that are working--if a guy is having an off game--don't force it to him. However--there are some games Roy is ignored and some where he allows himself to be ignored. The Cuse game was on his teammates, and III for sitting him too long. That can happen, but glad to see him bounce back with a big game today and take it to Thabeet. My question is how did UConn "All Summer Legend" player AJ Price do today? He of the Scott Hazelton, Ajou Deng, Ed Nelson, status as best player on team--which two of those UConn teams won National Titles without them?

[ExcitableBoy]

masshoya said:

The DC Board of Health should check the Verizon Center. Everybody gets the flu when they play the Hoyas. Let's hope it spreads to the Garden next week.

It's gotta be from the resident birds that have made Verizon center their home.

[nodak89]

Way to go HOYAS!!!

I was speaking at a conference today and my talk started right at tip off. Since the game wasn't on here in NoDak, I didn't even get a chance to tape it. So I had the tech guy (who is supposed to help with the LCD projector) feed me scores from Yahoo sports. All throughout the talk I have interspersed Hoya-centric slides as a "refresher." I needed something to break up the heavy-duty stuff on autism and Apserger syndrome. The audience was treated to the Roy and Jeff pic from SLAM, the Roy and Jon SI Cover, the 2007 media guide cover, a Jeff's game winner v. 'Nova, among others.

Right after my talk I go the first score 22-21 UConn. Then off to the luncheon and our much better second half.

After lunch, it was so sweet. Right in the middle the department chair's talk, the tech guy walks over to my table and hands me a folded up piece of paper. It read...........

"Georgetown 59
Connecticut 46
Final"

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Afterwards, all kinds of people came up to me and asked "did your team win?"

"Oh, yeah! We won."

Just spreading the Hoya Love.

[HoyaFanNY]

good win. great big east regular season. however, the guards, sapp in particular, and summers have to snap out of it. sapp and summers were horrible again today. thank god roy showed up to play and uconn can't throw the ball in the stands or we would have been in trouble. great job on the boards by the guards. great effort by patrick.

[EWINGthegreat33]

Nice bounce-back win for the Hoyas today. Back on top of the East.

I am now rooting for Marquette to beat Pitt to maintain that Big East lead.

[lichoya68]

WELL I TOLD CALHOUN A FEW TIMES TO STOP WHIINING HE IS WORS THAN JIMMY BOEHEIM AND ONCE WHEN WE WE AHEAD BY ABOUT SIXTEEN OR SO HE ACTUALLY LOOKED BACK AT ME AND WAVED HIS HAND DOWN LIKE BE QUIET HE IS THE BIG EASYS BIGGEST WHINER... GO HOYAS BEAT WHOEVER WHENEVER IN NYC GO QUETTE KEEP YOUR 12POINT LEAD OVER PITT AND WIN AND GIVE US THE BIG EAST TITLE ALONE YUP THAT WOULD BE A GREAT END TO THE DAY IF THEY HOLD ON.. GO HOYAS

[town05]

I don't know what the hell you just blurted, lichoya, but Calhoun was definitely on the court way more than is acceptable. I hope they miss the NIT.

[lichoya68]

what the heck is with this flu stuff cren now calhoun gimme a break AND PLAYING CLOSE TO HOME DISTRACTED not only is calhoun th biggest whiner in the big east he give awfully wierd and stange and wacko excuses go hoyas you beat the huskies fair and square flu and close to home hell roy and jeff are just as freaking close and jt3 doesnot whine.. ps betcha big john made littel john take him to rays the steaks to celebrate go hoyas go jt3 KEEP IT UP MARQUETTE THIRTHTEEN OVER PITT AT HALF TIME and they are playing with out mcneal maybe their best player and even creen aint giving excuses go golden eagles keepp it up go hoyas james sevenassits and zero turnovers go quette keep it up ;D ;D ;D ;D

[hifigator]

mikeylikesit said:

i think we're absolutely fine. roy played about as well as he ever has, he sometimes has trouble with comparably sized centers who can contest and/or block his shots, but he completely destroyed thabeet. jeff continues to impress, he was doing everything, how about that early block of a 3..he came out of nowhere on that one. ewing is really playing well, i'm very impressed. yes, summers and sapp have cooled down over the past few games, but i don't think it's anything to be overly worried about. shooting slumps happen...they'll work through it and it shows a lot that we have more than enough offense to offset slumping starters.

I know what you mean, but taken literally, it is kind of hard to knock someone who is 7' 2" and sometimes has trouble with centers of similar size.

Still, from what the announcers said and the few highlights they rewarded me with, it sure seems like Roy did fine and then some today.


That was a nice cap to a fine regular season. Who would have complained about your overall record or winning the BE/#1 Conference tourny seed at the start of the year?

Barring a bizarre and highly unlikely turn of events, I think you have secured a 2 seed at the least. I don't think much can happen to change that in either direction.

That being said, do you really want to win the BE tournament, playing 3 games in 3 days or do you think a Friday win and then a respectable bow out on Saturday, giving you at least 4 days of rest would be more advantageous?

I think I know the answer already. I have been asked the same thing in the past, and always wanted to win. But in all seriousness, "if" your seeding wouldn't change, do you think it would be better for your Dance chances to have a couple of extra days of rest but coming into the tourny off of a loss, or to potentially have an early game on Thursday, but coming in with a 4 game winning streak?

In any case, good season and if all goes perfectly, your next loss will come on a Monday night in Atlanta to the back to back Champions. Congrats!

[hifigator]

One more thing: I can't believe Calhoun could be such an idiot. Dyson was "distracted by playing near his hometown." Wow! I have heard of players being distracted by the likes of "homecoming week" where there are a bunch of unique events which could disrupt the normal routine, but even then I still thought that was a lame excuse for sub-par performance.

But to throw out something like playing near your hometown sure jumps out at me as something unworthy of major D-1 players. (I know that is technically a football term, but I think you know what I mean.)

[JohnnyJones]

hifigator said:

That being said, do you really want to win the BE tournament, playing 3 games in 3 days or do you think a Friday win and then a respectable bow out on Saturday, giving you at least 4 days of rest would be more advantageous?

Never have you seemed more like an outsider. The BET is a very meaningful accomplishment to the team and fans.

Also, the BET finals are on Saturday, so if we are playing that night, I would just as well not respectfully bow out!

[hifigator]

johnnyjones said:

hifigator said:

That being said, do you really want to win the BE tournament, playing 3 games in 3 days or do you think a Friday win and then a respectable bow out on Saturday, giving you at least 4 days of rest would be more advantageous?

Never have you seemed more like an outsider. The BET is a very meaningful accomplishment to the team and fans.

Also, the BET finals are on Saturday, so if we are playing that night, I would just as well not respectfully bow out!

First things first: I thought the BE tourny was the same days as ours. That extra day in and of itself, makes a huge difference.


And yes, I do understand the importance of the tourny to the fans. Heck, it was just under two years ago when we won our first one ever! It used to be jokingly called the Kentucky Big Blue Invitational.

My question was serious and I think if you look back at it, you will see my point, although as I mentioned above, the extra day is huge.

Think of it this way:

If the Conference Championship is scheduled for 2pm Sunday afternoon, and you happen to get a Thursday 11:35 am start in the big dance, then you really have 3 1/2 days of rest, before facing 2 games in 3 (or even 2 1/2) days.

If your seeding was going to be the same, it would be hard to prefer that layout over the option of finishing on a Friday for example, and then getting a full 4 days of practice and rest before leisurely traveling to your tourny site.
For the record, and I thought I made this clear in this statement:

I have been asked the same thing in the past, and always wanted to win.

I would always prefer to win the conference tourny for both the reward itself as well as the momentum heading into the big dance.


In any case, I submitted the question in the same context of which I have also been asked. I have my own opinion on the issue, as do you. They happen to be the same opinion. Yet I am an outsider for having my opinion and you are not.

[bmartin]

The key sequence of the game was when JTIII called timeout with the score 13-16 with 9 minutes left in the 1st half, Jeff out with 2 fouls and Roy needing a rest. He trusted Jeff to play with two fouls and brought him in for one possession, Roy's 3 point play, then again at 6 minutes when we had a dead ball on offense. After Roy got a short rest, Thompson subbed offense-defense with Jeff and Roy in the last few possessions of the half. Even though Roy played well on offense, Jeff made the offense run in the run to open up the halftime lead.