imagine if USF had hired Jim calhoun

bulls96go · August 1, 2004

20 years ago

did we interview him?

who did we hire instead of him?

if there was no contact then you might as well imagine if we had hired bear bryant or vince lombardi

please connect the dots for me like i am a 5 year old.

smazza · August 1, 2004

u conn hired an unknown and got lucky

it could happen anywhere

take a chance

hoepfully coach mac is our guy

hopefully leavitt will be like calhoun

i use calhoun because he created uconn's basketball greatness.unlike the other great coaches always mentioned that went to winning programs like knight,k and others

bulls96go · August 2, 2004

ok

Omniscientbull · August 2, 2004

Imagine if I had won a $100 million lottery.

smazza · August 3, 2004

ok

what would you do with it

gibhunter · August 14, 2004

u conn hired an unknown and got lucky

Not quite true. Coach Calhoun was the head coach at NorthEastern. A mid-major program.

Our AD at the time was looking for a coaching replacement as local papers were grumbling about bowing out of Big East which was too tough at the time when they got an unprecedented and never repeated 3 teams to the final four.

Northeastern came in the mid-80s to a UConn hosted small time, 4-team tourney and basically wiped the floor with us. Our AD was so impressed with young coach Calhoun, that he lured him away from Northeastern in the offseason.

Calhoun's first year was sub .500 season. In fact, UConn only won 9 games. That was Connecticuts last sub .500 season. Two years later, UConn won the NIT championship. The next year was the dream season where UConn, the Big East Champion, lost on a last second shot by Christian Laetner in the Elite 8.

The rest, as they say is history.

So, again, Jim Calhoun may have been a small timer, but he was certainly not an unknown. You could say that he was kind of like Bobby Gonzales of Manhattan or the coach of Nevada that got a job at Stanford after last year's tourney run.

smazza · August 15, 2004

like i said uconn got lucky

gibhunter · August 16, 2004

Once USF gets into the Big East, it would be smart to hire Bobby Gonzales from Manhattan. Maybe then, we'll be able to say in 20 years that it got lucky too.