‘Long Journey’ rewarded

SAN ANTONIO — Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun wrote a book after the Huskies won the 1999 national championship. It was called “Dare to Dream.”

Late on Monday night, about an hour and a half after UConn beat Georgia Tech 82-73 at the Alamodome to win it all again, Calhoun was asked to give a title to this latest run. He thought for a couple of seconds and replied, “The Long Journey.”

Then he added a subtitle: “Which ends up with a fairy tale ending.”

UConn? A fairy tale? Teams with the best big man in the college game, a lottery pick at guard and a slew of talented complementary players don’t get to live out fairy tales. That’s for scrappy, plucky overachievers. Teams picked No.1 at the start of the season that finish No.1 aren’t supposed to provide the stuff of gushing sentiment and heartwarming tales.

But this one is, according to Calhoun.

He is, after all, the author.

“I just have so much admiration for the heart of this basketball team, the character of this basketball team,” he said. “It’s so hard to win when people expect you to win every game.”

The 61-year-old Calhoun, who has coached at UConn since 1986, called it enduring “the mantle of expectations.” Calhoun himself has endured — and survived — cancer, not to mention the critics and cynics.

UConn, of course, did not win every game. There was considerable doubt, along with six losses, along the way. Center Emeka Okafor, the 6-foot-10 junior who figures to be a top-three pick in the NBA Draft, got hurt. He had a stress fractures in his lower back. He said it felt like a pair of steel rods were inside him.

Okafor played with pain and eventually missed two games in the Big East tournament. He saw out-of-town doctors, which is never a good sign. His back was the subject of such media attention it was like Madonna dating Richard Clarke. But he healed and the Huskies played their best basketball of the year, not coincidentally, when it counted most.

“Coach, did this just happen?,” Okafor kept asking Calhoun after the game.

“Emeka, you had something to do with that,” Calhoun replied.

Okafor, who also hurt his neck and shoulder during the tournament, and again bounced back, is literally the poster child for UConn basketball. He appears on those NCAA-sponsored public service ads. He is so dedicated in the classroom, he will graduate in three years with a degree in finance. Okafor is so smart he considered applying for a Rhodes Sholarship. Instead he will apply for the NBA Draft. Against Georgia Tech, he had 24 points and 15 rebounds.

Okafor’s parents, Pius and Celestina, were watching in the stands. Years ago they escaped civil strife in Nigeria and were poor when they came to this country. Pius has since reportedly earned four college degrees. He has seen a lot. But he admitted that even when Emeka was starting to show aptitude with a basketball, he never saw this. “I didn’t know he’d be this good,” he said.

Tech this year finished third in the ACC, the best league in college basketball. If you were looking for a real fairy tale, these scrappy, plucky Yellow Jackets would have been it. Actually, they already qualified. No one gave Tech much of a chance this season under its bright, young coach, Paul Hewitt.

Outmanned and outgunned by superior talent, Tech made a courageous stand at the Alamodome. But UConn made the Yellow Jackets look at times like they finished third in the Patriot League.

It also didn’t help that Tech missed easy shots, forced shots and picked a really bad time to whiff at the foul line. With 12 minutes left, Tech trailed by 25 points. Only a teasing barrage of 3-pointers in the final minute made it look close.

As many surmised even before they played, UConn-Duke in the national semifinals on Saturday was the real championship game. The Huskies won 79-78, surmounting an eight-point deficit in the final 3:25 and having Okafor on the bench for most of the first half.

Okafor personally led the comeback. But the Huskies ultimately were a lot more than one smart, shot-blocking, post-defending center. Junior guard Ben Gordon, who scored 21 points, is certain to join Okafor in lottery land, despite shooting 5-for-17 and the chants of “One more year!” from the giddy UConn crowd.

Others, like 6-10 freshman forward Josh Boone, from Mt. Airy, Md. — “out in the woods,” as he calls it — and sophomore Rashad Anderson, who had 18 points, and big freshman Charlie Villanueva all made it happen, too. They are the future of the program.

The past was represented by such NBA types as Richard Hamilton from the 1999 team, and Ray Allen, who were here to celebrate. Okafor and Gordon are now part of the past, too. So is senior point guard Taliek Brown, the UConn career assists leader whose inconsistencies in shooting and handling the ball were duly noted and critiqued.

Brown was sitting in the same dressing room, in front of the same locker into which he angrily threw his gear after losing to Texas in the South region semifinals last year. Now, he was too busy being happy to take anything off after the Huskies “just kind of immortalized ourselves,” as Gordon put it.

“Finally, finally, four long years and I finally win a championship,” Brown said.

Calhoun said Brown is the favorite player of his wife, Pat, insinuating himself into her heart by helping clear the table after a meal during his recruiting visit.

Brown helped clear all the stuff he had to deal with. He had the last word, an excellent floor game (nine points, six rebounds, four assists, two turnovers in 37 minutes) against Tech.

“He never needs to be vindicated in my eyes,” Calhoun said. “He’s one of the toughest warrior-athletes that I’ve ever coached.”

Calhoun meant this. But, being a coach, Calhoun knows the tricks. Down the stretch of the season, when he was talking about how good, how really good his team was, he told his players, “Don’t pay attention to whatever I say because I don’t mean a word of it.”

Late Monday night, Calhoun came clean.

“I meant every single word of it,” he confessed. “I truly believed this team was capable of winning a national championship and was as good as any team in America.”