When my wife and I went to Italy two years ago we had the good fortune of hooking up with a great driver — Giuseppe Mirossi, a.k.a. “Beppe.” He took us all over Tuscany and, trip of trips, all the way up to Campi, a mountain village in Northern Italy that was the native home of my wife’s great-grandmother.
How that woman ever got off that mountain and down to Genoa to sail to America is the wonder, not the voyage itself. It took us hours to get up there and we were dealing with paved roads. We are forever beholden to Beppe for his driving skills and translation services.
Suffice it to say, I got to know Beppe and his passion for soccer, which occasionally drove him to take both hands off the steering wheel. (You know how Italians are always talking with their hands.)
I keep in touch with Beppe, and the e-mails started flying once the World Cup started and the Americans advanced out of pool play while the hopes of defending champion Italy hung in the balance...
*
Ciao, Beppe!
Hey, are you guys going to win a game any time soon?
I will be rooting for Italia today against Slovakia.
That way, your team can join the United States in the next round.
Your favorite American,
Bryant Carpenter
*
Hi Bryant!
How is Laura? I guess she does not care of soccer. Does she???
Italian team is not very good this time. Here there are lot of complaints because we have not been able to win a game up to now and we say that our forwarders are tired as they are coming from a very fighting national tournament (we call it "serie a"; a sort of premier league).
Then other players are too old (over than 33 years old).
It will be not very easy to win with Slovakia; the game will start at 16:00 Eu time today.
If we win Italy will play vs Holland in the next round.
Ciao,
Beppe
*
Beppe!
Laura and I are sorry Italy lost to Slovakia today.
Laura does watch soccer (she wore blue today) and she has a question: Why did Italy play with no passion until it was too late?
If the Azzurri had played as well as they did in those last 20 minutes throughout the tournament, they would be getting ready to play Holland rather than catching an airplane home.
That one goal should have counted -- not the offside one, but the goal earlier that struck off the defender's knee. His leg was behind the end line.
But no matter: The Azzurri have only themselves to blame. This year's Italy team did not play up to Italian tradition.
The rest of the tournament will not be the same without them.
But look on the bright side. At least Italy wasn't as bad as France.
Your favorite Americans,
Bryant and Baby Laura
*
Hi Bryant!
Here it has been almost a tragedy.
The worse team ever played...
Much better to give up and keep going.
A new coach (his name is Cesare Prandelli) will be presented on July 1st. Let's hope better than Marcello Lippi.
Ciao,
Beppe
*
Yes, you’re right, Beppe.
It’s time for Marcello Lippi to go.
Maybe you could take him for a very, very long drive somewhere and just leave him there.
You might be considered a national hero.
Ciao,
Bryant
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
To err is human, to review hardly divine
I don’t mean to be flip about a topic that generated so much serious commentary from sports observers across the land, including those in high office, but Jim Joyce’s blown call that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game Wednesday night reminded me of the scene from “Animal House” when Boone, Otter, Pinto and Flounder return from their weekend road trip with the car entrusted to Flounder by his big brother in shambles.
“Flounder, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes,” Otter says. “You f***ed up; you trusted us.”
The point being: We all make mistakes; we all occasionally go against our better judgment. The consequences are relative. On one hand, you can bust a pitcher’s perfect game. On another, you can bust an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
The way you respond is also of great import. You can fess right up and make immediate amends, as Joyce did, or you can bumble around British Petroleum-style while millions of gallons of crude pour daily into the ocean.
In the wake of Joyce’s mistake, a predictable cry went up for expanded replay review in baseball and a reverse of the call. Major League Baseball did right in brushing aside the latter pitch. Reversing the call would set bad precedent, plain and simple.
Hopefully, MLB will also resist the urge to expand replay review beyond home run calls. Does replay weed out human error? Of course it does, but it also sucks the life out of human endeavor, which by definition makes it a little less than human.
And that’s what matters most. We could put all our swell technology to use and eliminate all human error from our games, which by definition ultimately means eliminating human presence entirely because there is a little Flounder in all of us. And so, in the end, we would reduce human competition to — what, video games?
A science fiction writer could have a field day. Any worker displaced by machine will say it’s all too real.
The true humanist looks at what happened in the wake of Joyce’s admitted mistake and Galarraga’s graceful acceptance of it and says there is the best solution you can ever hope for.
Joyce will be haunted by his mistake for the rest of his life and he knows it, yet the very next day he was back in the arena. Galarraga, with his empathy, won’t get his perfect game, but is likely to be remembered equally, if not more so, than the 20 pitchers who did.
“Flounder, you can’t spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes,” Otter says. “You f***ed up; you trusted us.”
The point being: We all make mistakes; we all occasionally go against our better judgment. The consequences are relative. On one hand, you can bust a pitcher’s perfect game. On another, you can bust an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
The way you respond is also of great import. You can fess right up and make immediate amends, as Joyce did, or you can bumble around British Petroleum-style while millions of gallons of crude pour daily into the ocean.
In the wake of Joyce’s mistake, a predictable cry went up for expanded replay review in baseball and a reverse of the call. Major League Baseball did right in brushing aside the latter pitch. Reversing the call would set bad precedent, plain and simple.
Hopefully, MLB will also resist the urge to expand replay review beyond home run calls. Does replay weed out human error? Of course it does, but it also sucks the life out of human endeavor, which by definition makes it a little less than human.
And that’s what matters most. We could put all our swell technology to use and eliminate all human error from our games, which by definition ultimately means eliminating human presence entirely because there is a little Flounder in all of us. And so, in the end, we would reduce human competition to — what, video games?
A science fiction writer could have a field day. Any worker displaced by machine will say it’s all too real.
The true humanist looks at what happened in the wake of Joyce’s admitted mistake and Galarraga’s graceful acceptance of it and says there is the best solution you can ever hope for.
Joyce will be haunted by his mistake for the rest of his life and he knows it, yet the very next day he was back in the arena. Galarraga, with his empathy, won’t get his perfect game, but is likely to be remembered equally, if not more so, than the 20 pitchers who did.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Two Roses and a Mint Tulip
My politics are a tad left of center, but when it comes to money, I’m a conservative son of a gun. Multiple savings accounts, credit cards with no carried balance, 401K top heavy with steady blue-chippers (or what used to be considered blue-chippers).
I’m not a tightwad. I just play it safe.
Consequently, I do not gamble. I think not of the money I stand to win, but the money I stand to lose, and that’s hardly the attitude to take to the table.
But my little bambina may get me to bend on this.
Little Miss Laura Agatha, who happily chirps away in her stroller as we wheel into the bank each month to buy a bond and make a deposit into her passbook savings, who humors me when I show her the quarterly statements from her college fund (already knowing it may cover the Bachelors, but definitely not the Masters), just might show me a way to rapid and independent prosperity.
My little Bean, at a mere 10 months, has a nose for the horses. On Kentucky Derby day, she picked Super Saver to win-place, Paddy O’Prado to win-place-show and collected on both.
These picks were all hers, conveyed via plastic shapes from her toy box: green square for the horse with the Irish name, orange star to match the insignia Super Saver jockey Calvin Borel wore on his helmet and jersey.
This horse sense Laura gets from the maternal line. Her late great-grandfather Dan was such a frequent visitor to the Southampton, New York OTB that he could have sold his own line of miniature pencils.
(Fortunately, he fared well enough with the trifectas to avoid such a fate.)
And it was his daughter Linda — a.k.a. Lucky Linda and, for 10 months and counting, Nan Linda — who placed the Bean’s bet at the very same parlor.
(Nan Linda also handled the wagering for the Derby pool she runs at the Catholic school where she teaches; Line of David being a popular, but fruitless pick there.)
I don’t know how many grandmother-granddaughter betting tandems are out there, but I’m willing to invest in this one. Lucky Linda and Lucky Laura: I like the shape of things to come.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Southington football: A necessary turn of the page
I could spend time here speculating on Bill Mella’s resignation Monday as head coach of Southington football.
I could just take it at face value: Mella, a college assistant at Trinity before he came to Southington in 2005, got an opportunity to do the same at Wesleyan and, as he said, it was too good to pass up.
I could also wonder if he was pushed in that direction.
Maybe that was the end game always in sight from last year’s brouhaha, when the Southington football coaching staff imploded.
You know the story. Long-time assistant coaches Frank Stamilio, Mike Prairie and Tony Mazzarella Sr. raised questions over Mella’s handling of fundraising money and resigned. School officials investigated. So did the police. An independent audit was done.
Mella was exonerated, but the football program’s finances were brought under tighter oversight. Two independent checking accounts were closed. In the end, no money went unaccounted for. It just wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
The appearances are what looked bad. The amount — $4,000 — didn’t warrant booting Mella, the father of three young children, from his teaching job, though perhaps union shall and shall-nots factored into the equation.
When it came to the football position, though, that was probably another story. A lack of trust, a sense that here was a guy who played by his own rules, may have settled in some minds, and so Mella had to go.
But all this is just speculation and so it will remain, because even if I’m hitting nails, who would confirm it publicly?
All I can say with any certainty is what I know from being around Southington football for the past 12 years on a pretty intimate basis. While I have good relationships with all the football teams I cover, I came in the door during Southington’s 1998 state championship run, lived with the team for a week in 1999 for a feature story and easily fell in with the family atmosphere former coach Jude Kelly instilled in the program.
Not that that atmosphere went out the door the minute Bill Mella came in. In fact, I was impressed at how well Mella and the coaches he inherited from Kelly’s staffed blended together.
Because that was the arrangement: Mella was in, but the old-guard assistants were to remain.
Normally, a new guy is entitled to have his own people, but guys like Stamilio, Prairie and Mazz Sr. helped Jude Kelly build the Air Raid version of Blue Knights football. They are men of value, and for Mella’s first two years they helped him piece together two straight undefeated runs to the state finals. And even though Southington lost both of those games, there was a good thing going.
Of course, winning smoothes out rough edges, and those edges became rougher with time and diminishing returns on the field, culminating with Southington’s failure to make the postseason in 2008. Then came the messy divorce in May 2009.
I told both camps I was surprised the marriage lasted as long as it did and that by hanging in there and making it work, the football players of Southington benefited.
Which brings me to the only point that matters in all this. By the end of the 2009 season, the Southington football program was a shell of itself. Not because the team went 5-5, but because all the joy had seemed to run out of it, and that was painful to see.
I’m not going to just dump that on Mella. The guy had gone through a lot. The season was just the natural fallout of controversy and fractured relationships.
So, in the end, this had to happen. Southington football had to go back to a Square 1.
No one really loses. Mella still has his teaching job and he continues coaching, back at the college level, where he’s arguably best suited. Stamilio and Prairie are coaching over in New Britain, still involved in the high school game, where they are arguably best suited. And the next wave of Southington players comes of age under a fresh regime.
If behind-the-scenes maneuvering produced all this, it did OK in my book. The challenge now is to make a good, strong hire to continue a good, strong tradition.
I could just take it at face value: Mella, a college assistant at Trinity before he came to Southington in 2005, got an opportunity to do the same at Wesleyan and, as he said, it was too good to pass up.
I could also wonder if he was pushed in that direction.
Maybe that was the end game always in sight from last year’s brouhaha, when the Southington football coaching staff imploded.
You know the story. Long-time assistant coaches Frank Stamilio, Mike Prairie and Tony Mazzarella Sr. raised questions over Mella’s handling of fundraising money and resigned. School officials investigated. So did the police. An independent audit was done.
Mella was exonerated, but the football program’s finances were brought under tighter oversight. Two independent checking accounts were closed. In the end, no money went unaccounted for. It just wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
The appearances are what looked bad. The amount — $4,000 — didn’t warrant booting Mella, the father of three young children, from his teaching job, though perhaps union shall and shall-nots factored into the equation.
When it came to the football position, though, that was probably another story. A lack of trust, a sense that here was a guy who played by his own rules, may have settled in some minds, and so Mella had to go.
But all this is just speculation and so it will remain, because even if I’m hitting nails, who would confirm it publicly?
All I can say with any certainty is what I know from being around Southington football for the past 12 years on a pretty intimate basis. While I have good relationships with all the football teams I cover, I came in the door during Southington’s 1998 state championship run, lived with the team for a week in 1999 for a feature story and easily fell in with the family atmosphere former coach Jude Kelly instilled in the program.
Not that that atmosphere went out the door the minute Bill Mella came in. In fact, I was impressed at how well Mella and the coaches he inherited from Kelly’s staffed blended together.
Because that was the arrangement: Mella was in, but the old-guard assistants were to remain.
Normally, a new guy is entitled to have his own people, but guys like Stamilio, Prairie and Mazz Sr. helped Jude Kelly build the Air Raid version of Blue Knights football. They are men of value, and for Mella’s first two years they helped him piece together two straight undefeated runs to the state finals. And even though Southington lost both of those games, there was a good thing going.
Of course, winning smoothes out rough edges, and those edges became rougher with time and diminishing returns on the field, culminating with Southington’s failure to make the postseason in 2008. Then came the messy divorce in May 2009.
I told both camps I was surprised the marriage lasted as long as it did and that by hanging in there and making it work, the football players of Southington benefited.
Which brings me to the only point that matters in all this. By the end of the 2009 season, the Southington football program was a shell of itself. Not because the team went 5-5, but because all the joy had seemed to run out of it, and that was painful to see.
I’m not going to just dump that on Mella. The guy had gone through a lot. The season was just the natural fallout of controversy and fractured relationships.
So, in the end, this had to happen. Southington football had to go back to a Square 1.
No one really loses. Mella still has his teaching job and he continues coaching, back at the college level, where he’s arguably best suited. Stamilio and Prairie are coaching over in New Britain, still involved in the high school game, where they are arguably best suited. And the next wave of Southington players comes of age under a fresh regime.
If behind-the-scenes maneuvering produced all this, it did OK in my book. The challenge now is to make a good, strong hire to continue a good, strong tradition.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The cost of a few shekels more
Must we, for the sake of money, ruin everything under the sun?
The rim had hardly ceased reverberating from Gordon Hayward’s near-miraculous shot at the buzzer for Butler against Duke in the men’s basketball final when NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen was outlining a proposal for expanding the tournament to 96 teams.
Long rumored, a tournament of that size would feature first-round byes for the top 32 teams and third/fourth rounds on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the opening two.
There’s no mystery why this baby was put on the table. More games, Shaheen said, means more revenue for the NCAA.
In the big picture, I’ve often wondered: With all the cash the NCAA reaps from its major sports, with all those multi-millions from TV contracts, why does anyone have to pay to go to college or, more reasonably, have to still be paying for it 10 years after graduation?
As for the tournament: Why mess with it? The NCAA Division I basketball postseason is matched only by the Major League Baseball and NFL playoffs, multi-tier systems that span multiple weeks and accrete in drama as the field narrows.
This year, from the moment Ohio knocked off Georgetown in the opening round through Northern Iowa’s upset of Kansas to Butler’s classic final with Duke, the tournament was nigh perfect.
The NCAA D-I men’s basketball committee and board of directors could approve the 96-team field. It could suck up more money. But it would water down its product and cheapen the magic.
The rim had hardly ceased reverberating from Gordon Hayward’s near-miraculous shot at the buzzer for Butler against Duke in the men’s basketball final when NCAA vice president Greg Shaheen was outlining a proposal for expanding the tournament to 96 teams.
Long rumored, a tournament of that size would feature first-round byes for the top 32 teams and third/fourth rounds on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the opening two.
There’s no mystery why this baby was put on the table. More games, Shaheen said, means more revenue for the NCAA.
In the big picture, I’ve often wondered: With all the cash the NCAA reaps from its major sports, with all those multi-millions from TV contracts, why does anyone have to pay to go to college or, more reasonably, have to still be paying for it 10 years after graduation?
As for the tournament: Why mess with it? The NCAA Division I basketball postseason is matched only by the Major League Baseball and NFL playoffs, multi-tier systems that span multiple weeks and accrete in drama as the field narrows.
This year, from the moment Ohio knocked off Georgetown in the opening round through Northern Iowa’s upset of Kansas to Butler’s classic final with Duke, the tournament was nigh perfect.
The NCAA D-I men’s basketball committee and board of directors could approve the 96-team field. It could suck up more money. But it would water down its product and cheapen the magic.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Papi, Pap, Josh: What's It Gonna Be
I went back and forth over the hot stove season.
At first, I was alarmed by Boston’s offseason moves — who the Red Sox initially acquired, who they let go, who they were talking about letting go.
That changed when the Sox signed John Lackey, given the added potency he leant to the starting rotation, and stuck with Jacoby Ellsbury. That’s when I started buying whole-heartedly into all that conventional wisdom about the defensive upgrade wrought by the addition of Marco Scutaro, Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron. Shoot, given our shortstop situation last year, Scutaro can’t help but be better.
But, you know, it never pays to go with the crowd and simply join the chorus. Here at the dawn of the 2010 season, I find myself quivering in the middle like a tuning fork. As I see it, Sox success will be determined primarily by the guys they already have.
To wit: Will Jonathan Papelbon be the lights-out closer he’s been or the high-wire act he was last year? Pap may have had 38 saves in 41 opportunities, but his collapse in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Angels was more indicative of the steady flirtation with disaster that was his 2009.
Same with Josh Beckett. For a 17-game winner, his work last year was very uneven and followed on the heels of a sub-par 2008. We need a return of Revolver ’07.
If the Sox get that in combination with Jon Lester, who I believe to be the true team ace, and Lackey, well, that’s one hell of a 1-2-3 punch. Winning contributions from Clay Buchholz, Dice-K and Tim Wakefield would be rich gravy. (Respect Timmah, pulling for Clay — he needs to break out now — and still far from sold on Dice, though his head seems to be finally in the right place.)
The other pitching variable is the catching. This is the season Jason Varitek cedes ground after manning the Sox plate for a decade. His bat may have faded years ago, but his ability to handle the pitching staff has not, and that’s the most important part of the job. That’s where Victor Martinez, who can belt the ball, must truly deliver.
As for the offense, which took the biggest hit with the departure of Jason Bay, the biggest linchpin, it seems to me, is Big Papi. There’s no question the larger-than-life role he filled in the middle of last decade has passed for reasons either natural or unnatural. But he’s still a key cog in the wheel and we can’t be sitting around till Memorial Day waiting for him to hit his first home run and get over the Mendoza line.
Not with the Yankees to chase and the Rays to reckon with in the East, and the Twins, Angels and even Rangers to confront on the rest of the AL game board. But we’ve gone to the postseason six of the last seven seasons. Why should we expect that to change?
At first, I was alarmed by Boston’s offseason moves — who the Red Sox initially acquired, who they let go, who they were talking about letting go.
That changed when the Sox signed John Lackey, given the added potency he leant to the starting rotation, and stuck with Jacoby Ellsbury. That’s when I started buying whole-heartedly into all that conventional wisdom about the defensive upgrade wrought by the addition of Marco Scutaro, Adrian Beltre and Mike Cameron. Shoot, given our shortstop situation last year, Scutaro can’t help but be better.
But, you know, it never pays to go with the crowd and simply join the chorus. Here at the dawn of the 2010 season, I find myself quivering in the middle like a tuning fork. As I see it, Sox success will be determined primarily by the guys they already have.
To wit: Will Jonathan Papelbon be the lights-out closer he’s been or the high-wire act he was last year? Pap may have had 38 saves in 41 opportunities, but his collapse in Game 3 of the ALDS against the Angels was more indicative of the steady flirtation with disaster that was his 2009.
Same with Josh Beckett. For a 17-game winner, his work last year was very uneven and followed on the heels of a sub-par 2008. We need a return of Revolver ’07.
If the Sox get that in combination with Jon Lester, who I believe to be the true team ace, and Lackey, well, that’s one hell of a 1-2-3 punch. Winning contributions from Clay Buchholz, Dice-K and Tim Wakefield would be rich gravy. (Respect Timmah, pulling for Clay — he needs to break out now — and still far from sold on Dice, though his head seems to be finally in the right place.)
The other pitching variable is the catching. This is the season Jason Varitek cedes ground after manning the Sox plate for a decade. His bat may have faded years ago, but his ability to handle the pitching staff has not, and that’s the most important part of the job. That’s where Victor Martinez, who can belt the ball, must truly deliver.
As for the offense, which took the biggest hit with the departure of Jason Bay, the biggest linchpin, it seems to me, is Big Papi. There’s no question the larger-than-life role he filled in the middle of last decade has passed for reasons either natural or unnatural. But he’s still a key cog in the wheel and we can’t be sitting around till Memorial Day waiting for him to hit his first home run and get over the Mendoza line.
Not with the Yankees to chase and the Rays to reckon with in the East, and the Twins, Angels and even Rangers to confront on the rest of the AL game board. But we’ve gone to the postseason six of the last seven seasons. Why should we expect that to change?
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Handicapping the Huskies
I suppose I’m as much a homer as the next guy and granny. I want to see the UConn women’s basketball team run the table and rack up an undefeated national championship for a second straight year.
Who inside these state lines doesn’t?
But, really, can’t the Huskies make it a little more interesting? They are so dominant their games are now like watching Brady Bunch reruns. Marcia’s boyfriend is always going to steal Greg’s playbook and UConn is always going to win big.
So you get to thinking about where else your entertainment hour and dollar can be spent.
That’s the irony of excellence. After a while, it’s taken for granted and becomes a status quo — a status quo miles beyond the rest of the realm, to be sure, but a status quo all the same.
Knowing that Geno Auriemma and his Huskies would never be content with status quo, knowing they are always looking to raise the bar, perhaps it’s not too late to throw in some added challenges that maybe should have been in place all along this season.
Call them the Husky Handicaps.
* UConn has been winning by nearly 36 points a game. Perhaps, then, the opposition should be spotted, say, 30 points before the opening tap. The scoreboard would read OPP 0, UCONN -30 and the Huskies would spend much of the first half just getting to ground zero.
Had this Husky Handicap been in effect for the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament, UConn still would have won by rout — 65-39 over Southern and 60-36 over Temple. UConn’s overall record would be 23-12, the Jan. 18 game at Duke would have been a 51-48 barnburner won by UConn and West Virginia would have won the Big East championship game 32-30.
* In practice, the Huskies often go against an overloaded defense — 5 on 7, 4 on 6, that sort of thing. The coaching axiom is you play like you practice, so why not give this a twirl? Opposing coaches would have the option of going with six or seven.
* The photo you see there of Tiffany Hayes and Lorin Dixon slapping hands with UConn fans after the Temple win — selected with the help of Cub Scout Pack 10, Den 2 out of Meriden’s Thomas Hooker School on a visit to the Record-Journal — prompted another thought. Opposing teams could select a six- or seven-player rotation or go into the crowd and hand-pick a few ringers. They could also choose to suit up assistant coaches.
*All opposition field goals would count as 3-pointers. If that Husky Handicap had been effect all season, UConn would still be outscoring opponents by an average of 82.1 to 59.7 a game.
And, if that 22.4-point differential was made the pre-game spot, with the Huskies down zero to negative-23 at the opening tip — rounding UP, for Pete’s sake — they would still be 28-7. That College Game Day date with Notre Dame would have been a riveting 47-46 UConn win, with the contest tied 19-19 at halftime.
UConn would have also won the regular-season finale in South Bend 53-51. ND coach Muffet McGraw can take solace, though. Her team would have thumped UConn 44-36 in the Big East semifinals. Against these Huskies, one out of three ain’t bad.
Who inside these state lines doesn’t?
But, really, can’t the Huskies make it a little more interesting? They are so dominant their games are now like watching Brady Bunch reruns. Marcia’s boyfriend is always going to steal Greg’s playbook and UConn is always going to win big.
So you get to thinking about where else your entertainment hour and dollar can be spent.
That’s the irony of excellence. After a while, it’s taken for granted and becomes a status quo — a status quo miles beyond the rest of the realm, to be sure, but a status quo all the same.
Knowing that Geno Auriemma and his Huskies would never be content with status quo, knowing they are always looking to raise the bar, perhaps it’s not too late to throw in some added challenges that maybe should have been in place all along this season.
Call them the Husky Handicaps.
* UConn has been winning by nearly 36 points a game. Perhaps, then, the opposition should be spotted, say, 30 points before the opening tap. The scoreboard would read OPP 0, UCONN -30 and the Huskies would spend much of the first half just getting to ground zero.
Had this Husky Handicap been in effect for the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament, UConn still would have won by rout — 65-39 over Southern and 60-36 over Temple. UConn’s overall record would be 23-12, the Jan. 18 game at Duke would have been a 51-48 barnburner won by UConn and West Virginia would have won the Big East championship game 32-30.
* In practice, the Huskies often go against an overloaded defense — 5 on 7, 4 on 6, that sort of thing. The coaching axiom is you play like you practice, so why not give this a twirl? Opposing coaches would have the option of going with six or seven.
* The photo you see there of Tiffany Hayes and Lorin Dixon slapping hands with UConn fans after the Temple win — selected with the help of Cub Scout Pack 10, Den 2 out of Meriden’s Thomas Hooker School on a visit to the Record-Journal — prompted another thought. Opposing teams could select a six- or seven-player rotation or go into the crowd and hand-pick a few ringers. They could also choose to suit up assistant coaches.
*All opposition field goals would count as 3-pointers. If that Husky Handicap had been effect all season, UConn would still be outscoring opponents by an average of 82.1 to 59.7 a game.
And, if that 22.4-point differential was made the pre-game spot, with the Huskies down zero to negative-23 at the opening tip — rounding UP, for Pete’s sake — they would still be 28-7. That College Game Day date with Notre Dame would have been a riveting 47-46 UConn win, with the contest tied 19-19 at halftime.
UConn would have also won the regular-season finale in South Bend 53-51. ND coach Muffet McGraw can take solace, though. Her team would have thumped UConn 44-36 in the Big East semifinals. Against these Huskies, one out of three ain’t bad.
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