Full Description
After the 2012 season, the UConn basketball program appeared to be on the decline. Several high-profile players departed early and the NCAA confirmed that it would ban the Huskies from the 2013 NCAA tournament. But Jim Calhoun-the man who built the program in the first place-still reigned in Storrs and vowed not to leave his team in disarray. Could Calhoun save UConn basketball? He has done it before. In twenty-five years at UConn, coach Jim Calhoun changed a team, a university, a state, and college basketball. Shock the World is a riveting season-by-season, game-by-game, and player-by-player biography of Jim Calhoun's winning program. It paints a vivid portrait of college basketball in the last twenty-five years, and highlights the challenges Calhoun overcame to become the best program builder of all time and the greatest coach of his generation. Until March 2011 only four coaches had ever won the NCAA men's basketball championship three times or more. That month, with the culmination of the famous "March Madness," the University of Connecticut's Jim Calhoun became the fifth. Calhoun's Huskies show that spirit, fortitude, and perseverance are keys to winning in modern collegiate sports, just as they are the keys to overcoming challenges off the court. At the end of the 2010 season an NCAA investigation, penalties, and the small number of returning players threatened to end the Calhoun era. Despite these obstacles, Calhoun, point guard Kemba Walker, and a group of freshmen led UConn to a win at the Maui Invitational in November, and UConn became the first team to capture its conference tournament by winning five games in five days. They went on to a thrilling win in the championship, making this period in the Calhoun era one of great resilience, and an enduring monument to Husky pride.
Contents
Contents Preface * Acknowledgments INTRODUCTION Hopefully, When It's All Said and Done, You'll Say, "He's Pretty Good" BUILDING A PROGRAM FROM SCRATCH I Don't Want My Managers to Have to Clean Up Puke We Need a Couple of Guys to Get Us through the Rest of the Season You've Got to Learn How to Win The Most Important Recruit in UConn Basketball History We Weren't Just a Gnat Anymore DOMINANT BUT NOT GREAT ENOUGH I Know It Sounds Crazy, But I Never Thought We Were Going To Lose Oh, UConn, That's the Place Where They Made the Buzzer-Beater I Hope People Took Some Polaroids Tonight Calhoun Taught Me Everything He's Going to Be a Special, Special Player Ray Allen, One of the Greatest NATIONAL CHAMPIONS You Learn from Losses, but after You Get Three or Four, the Learning Stops and the Misery Starts The Kid Comes with a Bag of Tricks We're Having a Special Season This One's for Joe We Shocked the World! I Wanted to Play for a Tough Coach, and He's One of the Toughest If Maryland Is Number One in the Country, Connecticut Is Right Beside Them We're Connecticut. We're Not Some Rinky-Dink Team Emeka Okafor Comes along Once in a Lifetime Mike, Over the Years When We've Seen Teams Collapse . . . Maybe That's a Bad Word ANTIHEROES I'm Just a Very Blessed Individual, Lucky to Be Here in Front of You Alive Calhoun Is Feared, but He Is Not Respected That Team Should Have Won the National Championship It Won't Happen Again That's Why He's in the Hall of Fame Not a Dime Back Josh Nochimson, the Team's Manager and Rip's Friend, Became the Unofficial Go-Between I Don't Get Defeated RESILIENCE From Maui . . . to Mediocrity . . . to Manhattan . . . to Monday Epilogue: Best Program Builder of All Time and Best Coach of His Generation Afterword: 2012 and Beyond APPENDIXES Standout Games and Players of the Calhoun Era Year-to-Year Team Records and Game Results of the Calhoun Era Notes and Sources Index
