How will the UConn men's basketball team do after or when Calhoun retires? (Sorry it's long)?

I don't want to touch too much on Jim Calhoun's rant on the political activist who was there solely to get him pissed. But Calhoun did point that he'd like to retire someday and that struck a chord with me.

Calhoun is 67 right now, so perhaps he has a few years left in him if he's healthy (like Coach K though he is younger), but he has had multiple bouts with skin cancer, most recently this past season, and during his 2003-2004 championship season, Calhoun had prostate cancer. His contract ends in 2010, and though his mentality would probably want to continue coaching, I dunno if he can continue much longer because of health. When you add the fact that his dad died of a heart attack when he was 15, this needs to play into your decision if you're the UConn administration if you're gonna seriously renew his contract after this season, given that most coaches are never in their last season of a contract... After all, I'm not surprised if Calhoun doesn't have the healthiest heart either and any extension he gets would go past his 70's...

If Calhoun were to retire, I don't think that his assistants are necessarily ready to coach one of the best teams of this decade. Their associate head coach, George Blaney on the surface is a perfect man to take the job, since he has been a successful Div. 1 including being head coach at Seton Hall, another Big East school, though he enjoyed his best success at Holy Cross. However, Blaney is a problem given his age, since he's 76. You don't want to replace an old coach with an older one. The assistants have had decent time as assistants, but given that neither Sellers or LaFleur have been a head coach yet still gives you a question mark on whether or not they can keep the Huskies as a perennial power...

The most notable former UConn assistants now being head coaches at other programs are Dave Leitao at UVA and Karl Hobbs at GWU in Washington. Hobbs has had some decent recruiting and I think he may make a good replacement for Calhoun as he has led the Colonials to several NCAA appearances and has recruited some great players, though this year is a downer for his program. Leitao hasn't seemed to be as great, but he is in the ACC at one of the perennially downer teams of the conference.

Or should UConn look outside the box for some of the up and coming coaches in the mid major conferences when Calhoun retires (I don't think it'll be too long)..

My hope is that UConn looks across the banners in Gampel Pavilion and offer their women's coach Geno Auriemma the job and become the men's head coach when Calhoun calls it quits... Auriemma has never said that he wanted to coach the UConn women forever, and has openly said that he sometimes wants a new challenge. He is super competitive and his quick basketball system would fit in well with Calhoun's players. He has a lot of swag, comes out as cocky to others, but that can feed into his team in a positive way as it has with the women. Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird are his best examples of players who have skills, and the swagger, which has undeniably come from his coaching. He can do the same for the men as well as anyone.

To put things bluntly as well, Geno Auriemma and the UConn women's team is bigger than Jim Calhoun and the UConn men's team in terms of national significance. That may be why Calhoun and Auriemma apparently didn't have a great relationship before. It doesn't matter if the UConn men have more NBA players right now than anyone else or won two championships in their only two final four appearances when the women have more WNBA players than anyone else too, they won five championships, went to nine final fours, and have made the Dance 20 straight years, while Calhoun has coached some pretty mediocre teams during his years at UConn. Either way, I can't see any reason why Geno can't develop and recruit NBA talent. Any top men's recruit should know who he is. The only adversity Auriemma will have to face is defections for the NBA draft, which every coach deals with, but some do better than others. As women's coach, he will almost never have to face seeing a player fail to graduate since the WNBA requires that all entrants be four years out of high school.

If Geno wins a men's championship at UConn, boy would that be surreal... This is definitely a good challenge for him that he may be looking for and I think he wants this job at least a little to be honest.

If you think that taking Auriemma away from the women's team would be bad, think again. Auriemma's top assistant, Chris Dailey has been with him since he came to UConn in and probably has as much to do with UConn's ascent to the top of women's hoops as he does. She would easily take the top job without question and still be able to keep the Huskies where they have been.

So what should Connecticut do to replace Calhoun in a few years, maybe sooner? Try to lure Hobbs from GW? Bail out Leitao from UVA assuming he's not