Temporary: Don't get too attached

[Wayne23]

2/22: 11-15, 5-10 East Carolina is here. We won by 7 at their place. Our D won it for us. They have a lot of trouble scoring but play good D.

2/23: Early lead. Up 13 at the half. We're scoring pretty easily; 22 for Mino already.

81-70. 27, 3, 3 for Mino, 11, 11 for Jeff, 13, 6, 4 for Joon, 13, 5 for Schu.

+7 RBs, 4 fewer TOs. +22 at the line. +16 in the paint.

[Wayne23]

2/26: AT #20 Temple, 22-6, 13-3. They lost their last game so we're tied. We're 20-8, 13-3. We won by a single point at our place. Statistically the game was a dead heat. They play much better D, which gives them an edge, and we're going to need to find ways to score.

2/27: Huge, loud crowd. We take an early lead. Up 8 at the half. We're doing what we need to do inside so far. Up 14 with 10 to play.

86-67. We came to play tonight and we silenced their sell out crowd. Best win of my career!

23, 9 for Mino. He spent the night in foul trouble but played 29 minutes and didn't commit #5. 11, 1, 7 for John, 14 for Stey. Our bench played well.

-4 RBs but 10 TOs to 19. We outshot them 49% to 39%. +18 in the paint.

We wind up first in the AAC even if we lose our final regular season game.

[Wayne23]

3/1: 18-9, 12-5 Southern Methodist, here, to close out the regular season. As always, we need to control the inside.

3/2: It's close early. A late run puts us up 9 at the half; Mino played 7 minutes due to fouls. Stey was on fire getting 22 in the half.

102-87. They got it to 2 with 5 1/2 to play but we fought back.

31, 4 for Stey, a career game. 19, 5 for Mino who fouled out in 14 minutes. 14, 5 for Joon, who also fouled out. 14, 3 for Jeff, 8, 4, 8 for John.

We shot 58.7%. +5 RBs. +7 from the line.

We win the AAC by 2 games.

Ban Mino is #10 on the Norton list.

3/5: "So, Joe Hoop, do you like me even a little?"

"... Oh boy!"

This led to a long, awkward conversation. I told Lu I like her but that I've never been in a relationship, have no clue how to go about it, and don't really want the complications that go with it. That didn't end the conversation, but at the end, a very unhappy Lu walked away.

[Wayne23]

3/9: We play #8 seed Houston, 13-17, 7-11, in the AAC quarter finals. They won in OT at their place and we crushed them at our place. If we play our game we should be fine.

3/10: They take an early lead. We come back. Down one at the half. I remind my guys that it's one and done. We're not shooting or rebounding well and Joon has 3 fouls. An early 2nd half run. They come back but we hang on.

80-73. 27, 13, 4 steals for Mino, 18, 6, 3 for Joon, 11, 6, 3 for Schu.

6 TOs to 15. Threes kept them in it, they were 13-25.

[Wayne23]

#4 seed Southern Methodist, 19-10, 12-6, in the semis. We beat them by 15 in a shootout last week. They can score so we'd better make sure we do.

3/11: They take an early lead; we're not hitting shots. Down 11 at the half. Turning it over, not rebounding, not defending.

71-91. Flat all night and we got our butts kicked.

-15 RBs, 21 TOs. -15 at the line.

14, 15 for Mino. 15 for Stey but 6 TOs. Awful night!

We're in the NCAAs but this hurts our seeding.

3/12: Southern Methodist shocked Temple and won the tourney.

#10 Midwest. Outrageous. I thought we'd be a #5. And to make it worse we play Temple! They're the #7 seed. We beat them by 1 at our place and then by 19 there. It is VERY hard to beat a good team three times. I couldn't be unhappier about this seeding and opponent. Trying not to bring that message to my players.

[Wayne23]

3/16: We take an early lead. They come back. Down 8 at the half. 10 fouls called on us, 4 on them. We committed an unbelievable 16 TOs in the 1st half. Can't win that way!

75-81. We got back in it, took a lead a couple of times, but we couldn't get it done.

23, 10 for Mino in his last game, 18, 6, 4 for Joon.

+12 RBs but 22 TOs; they had 15. The bench was the difference, 6 to 27.

It was a decent first season; not a great one.

[Wayne23]

3/26: We get the big guy we were after, C, #67. We end up with 2 guards, 3 bigs. We'll be thin inside but not as thin as I feared, IF we get that guy who accepted after not hitting our SAT score.

(Author's Note: I've never seen this before. The recruit's SAT score was 920. We need 940. I just checked and his score now shows up as 960. I KNOW it was 920 in January when the scores were posted. Again, I have never seen this happen in the almost 15 years I've been playing this game.)

4/3: #1 ranked Kansas won it all. Temple made it to the Final Four.

4/4: Awards: Ban Mino is a 2nd team All American. In the AAC, Mino is POY, Def. POY, 1st team. Jay Joon made the 2nd team. He wasn't even a starter for the 1st 6 games.
And he's only a frosh so he's here for awhile.

We met all of our goals.

4/9: Some very good schools come calling but I'm here to stay!

4/23: I ask for money. Our recruiting budget makes it tough to compete at the highest level. If they want me to contend for national titles they need to increase it.

No. I'm not happy.

4/24: Okay, I guess I get why I was turned down. The A. D. Got fired today.

4/28: New A. D. Is a football guy. I'm probably in trouble. Gotta say that UConn football will never be big time; it just won't. They'll throw a bunch of money at it and nothing will change. If I got some of that money I could take this program back to the heights of the Jim Calhoun days. I meet with the new guy tomorrow.

4/29: He said all the right things, including planning for a budget increase next year. We'll see...

23-9, 1st in conf. in the regular season but a disappointing post season. Hopefully, bigger things ahead.

[Wayne23]

5/1: #3 recruiting class. I thought we might be ranked preseason. We're not.

We buy the East Gold, National and International Basic.

6/5: Thankfully no one transfers out. We have a spot for a transfer. Looking at big guys. There's a C from Temple that we'd love to have. We offer. Maybe 3-4 other guys we're
talking with.

6/12: We think we have a real shot at the guy from Temple. He was the AAC Frosh OY. We're excited!

6/15: Damn! He went to Florida. Oh well.

6/25: We're going to the Indy camp and the Atlantic East Camp.

6/26: 2 scholarships. We want big guys.

7/17: 6 very good looking recruits are showing interest. I'm encouraged.

7/25: "Hello stranger."

"Hello Lu. How are you?"

"Doing well. Still glowing from winning the national championship."

"No doubt. Did you get my congratulatory email?"

"I did. That was nice. Thanks."

"I was watching at home. You made it look so easy."

"That was a hell of a team."

"Can you do it again this season?"

"We have the talent. A lot of things need to fall into place and we need to stay healthy, but we're preseason #1."

"That's great."

"Just wanted to say hi, Joe."

"Thanks Lu. Good to see you."

I know, I know. I'm an idiot.

8/7: Frosh Center Del Star is #15 on the Norton list. We have very high hopes and expectations for him.

8/21: We offer to 2 Cs, #4, #20. #4 is a gamble.

[Wayne23]

9/11: We lose #4, offer to #17.

9/18: We get #17 and we're close with the other one.

Going to the preseason NIT vs. Kent ST. Playing almost all ranked teams in the pre-conf portion of the season.

9/25: We get the other recruit, #24.

10/2: First day of practice. I think we're going to end up a ranked team, maybe top 15 or so.

11/13: We start at the NIT tomorrow. We're the #6 seed and we play #11 Kent ST. Not much to go on but we think we're better. Tomorrow we begin to find out how good our team is!

Here's the starting lineup: Junior Don John is back at PG. He's a good passer, a good defender, and not a bad scorer when he takes his shot, which we encourage him to do.

Frosh Ry Wink is at SG, and our first sub at PG. His game is similar to John's. Hopefully he can score some points for us.

#3 guard, but our SF is our first sub at SG. Is soph Kel Nunn. He's down on the depth chart but I'm not uncomfortable putting him in. Next is red shirt frosh Terry Cobb, and he's not ready. He'll mostly see garbage time unless he surprises me.

Soph Jay Joon is at SF and subs at SG. He had a great rookie season and we look for good things from him.

Frosh Kyri Tsir is at PF. He looks like a scorer and a rebounder but his D needs work.

Frosh Del Star is in the middle and how good we'll be depends on how good he is. We think he's VERY good.

1st big off the bench is senior Rash Burk. He wants minutes. I told him the only way to get more minutes is to impress me when he's on the floor.

2nd big off the bench is a walk on, soph Jim Hyme. He's a glass eater but not much else, but he has looked very good in practice. He was offered scholarships at places like
Rhode Island and Hartford, but he wanted to play here. He's told me he hopes to earn a scholarship. We'll see.

2 more bigs, who won't play except in garbage time unless we get injuries: soph Ty Pointer and junior Doc Malone.

The final preseason poll has us ranked #17. I believe the poll!

[Wayne23]

11/14: Early lead. Up by only 2 at the half. It's a shoot out and I am NOT happy with our D. Inside game and rebounding look good but their PG is killing us. Going max D and man for the 2nd half. May press or double the PG.

88-76. 2nd half D was much better than 1st half.

24, 14 for Star; he's the real thing. 19, 3 steals for Joon at SF, 14, 7 for Tsir at PF, 12, 3 for Burk, first big off the bench.

+15 RBs but 16 TOs; that would never be acceptable but even less so with a three guard lineup!

We shot 60%! But we let them shoot 45.8%; we need to do better than that. +16 in the paint. We held their PG to 6 in the 2nd half.