As Ray Allen and Ben Gordon engaged in a shootout for the ages Monday night, countless basketball fans watched, transfixed.
That group included Jim Calhoun.
The esteemed Connecticut coach recruited and coached both players and, were it not for his return from a family wedding, he would have attended Game 2 in person. Instead, he sat on his couch at home — or at least the edge of it.
“Obviously, I was getting goose bumps,” Calhoun said in a phone interview. “I felt like a proud papa.”
Calhoun grew up in Braintree, Mass., as an avid Celtics supporter and quickly rattled off several classic games he attended at the old Boston Garden. Elgin Baylor’s 61-point, 22-rebound effort for the Lakers in Game 5 of the 1962 Finals. Several of the Magic-Bird matchups.
Calhoun — and, sure, he’s biased — placed Monday’s shootout between two of his former students in that pantheon.
“From a TV standpoint, it had the same feel as a seventh game,” Calhoun said. “It looked like a personal duel, like they were playing each other but in a team context. And the shots they were making were just phenomenal.
“I’ve seen that matchup before in either our summer gym or at our Alumni Game. For us, it was a great kick.”
Afterward both Allen (30 points) and Gordon (42 points) talked eloquently of the pride UConn alums feel in facing each other and the sense of community the players feel in representing the school in the NBA.
Calhoun has sent 23 players to professional careers — including the late Reggie Lewis, former Bull Donyell Marshall, Richard Hamilton, Caron Butler, Emeka Okafor and Rudy Gay — Connecticut, arguably, is the league’s most influential alma mater.
“It really is a community,” Calhoun said. “They watch out for each other. Ray came up here and chewed their [butts] off two years ago because we had a young team that was underachieving. Ben comes back all the time. There is that pride.”
And Calhoun’s pride for Gordon, who left in 2004, and Allen, class of 1996, sounded palpable.
“Ray’s an old man at 33 still getting it done,” Calhoun said. “Ben is one of those guys with just incredible confidence who can get points on his own, which is rare. And the thing is both of them work at it.
“We used to give Ray drills after practice. Ben would come in at 9 p.m. every single night and shoot for two hours. And I know he still has an intense post-practice routine.
“That’s the flashback I had. Both kids were from different eras. But that game brought that feeling back to me of who I love.”
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
