STORRS, Conn. – The Connecticut Huskies held their final practice of the season at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday, then boarded a bus for the airport and their flight to the Final Four in Arlington, Texas. They embarked on their journey not knowing what the next week might hold for them but there is no mystery surrounding AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys and the site of the upcoming Final Four games.
UConn coach Kevin Ollie took his players on a field trip to Jerry Jones’ $1.3 billion sports palace back in early January, between games at Houston and SMU at the start of the American Athletic Conference regular season. Ollie just wanted his players to see the place.
No one knew if the Huskies would actually make a return trip – at least not until they defeated Michigan State in the East Regional championship Sunday at Madison Square Garden.
“I’m not a prophet,” Ollie said Tuesday. “I’m a head basketball coach. I did want them to get a sense of it. It would be great looking on the Jumbotron – and that thing is so huge – to see UConn stretched out over 80 yards. is pretty cool. I wanted them to realize their dream, that we can do it. No matter what.”
UConn was coming off a loss at Houston and would end up losing at SMU as well.
“But I knew we were going to move on and build off it,” Ollie, a big-time Cowboys fan, said. “I wanted them to understand. All of them understood the magnitude and what it would be for our university and for them to get back.”
The lavish accommodations at AT&T Stadium include a $40 million videoboard suspended 90 feet above the field, spanning nearly 60 yards and weighing 600 tons. It is seven stories and hangs from the stadium’s arches on the retractable roof. The NCAA is expecting crowds that might exceed 80,000 people.
“The scoreboard is a huge advantage, actually, for the fans that will be the furthest away from the court,” Dan Gavitt, the NCAA vice president of men’s basketball championships, said. “It’s high definition and it’s so big and so clear that if you are anywhere from eye level on up, you almost can’t help but watch the game on the screen rather than on the court. It magnifies what you are seeing and it’s crystal clear. I think it will be a different experience.”
Tyler Olander, a member of the UConn national championship team in 2011, said he will tell his younger teammates to make good use of shooting practices and the public practice on Friday to get used to the building.
“It’s going to be an insane atmosphere,” Olander said. “We’ve all seen it. The stadium is huge. You’ve got the world’s biggest TV right above your head and all that great stuff. But they need to focus in on getting through the next 40 minutes.”
Olander said the scope of the building is much different than Reliant Stadium in Houston, where the Huskies won it all in 2011. The team bus drove past Reliant when the Huskies played at Houston this season.
“We stayed in the exact same hotel [in Houston],” Olander said. “I got chills as soon as I walked in there. I flashed back to then. That’s when I said, ‘Let’s get back here.’ ”
The coaches and players had less than 48 hours back home after Sunday’s win. Guard Shabazz Napier said everyone was tired when they got back from New York and everyone tried to maintain a regular schedule the past two days. For Napier, that means spending a lot of time in his room.
Here’s what he had to say Tuesday in this video.
UCONN NOTES: Playing in Dallas will be a homecoming of sorts for Ollie. He was born in the Dallas area 41 years ago and lived there until moving with his mother to Los Angeles at a young age. He still has many relatives in the area and said Tuesday he has received a lot of ticket requests. . . . The Final Four is full of distractions and Ollie got to witness the scene as an assistant coach in 2011. It’s much different from the position of head coach, Ollie said, and he has been trying to learn those ropes during the regionals in Buffalo and New York. “I didn’t really learn anything [in 2011] because Coach [Jim Calhoun] was doing all that,” he said. “It’s a lot of things that I have to do. But that goes with the territory. I’d rather be doing that than do my honey-do’s that are piling up right now.” . . . .Another award for Napier. Basketball Times named him a first-team All-American. Creighton’s Doug McDermott was the magazine’s player of the year and Wichita State’s Gregg Marshall was coach of the year. . . . Clark Francis of Hoop Scoop ranks Ollie No. 3 among “top up-and-coming coaches” behind Stanford’s Johnny Dawkins and New Mexico’s Craig Neal. In the Hoop Scoop ranking of top assistant coaches, UConn’s Karl Hobbs was No. 10 and Glen Miller was No. 27. . . . The team has no media obligations on Wednesday. Ollie and one player will attend press conferences Thursday. There are news conferences Friday in conjunction with the team practices (open to the public) on Friday at AT&T Stadium . . . . Mike Stuart, the referee who ejected Ollie at Gampel on Jan 18, is one of the officials assigned to the Final Four.
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