According to the Andy Katz over at ESPN.com, Hasheem Thabeet will be spending another year at UCONN wearing the National Flag blue and white. The official announcement should come as late as Thursday from the UCONN athletic department.
Coach Jim Calhoun has been pleased so far by what Thabeet has done in the off-season so far.
“He’s gotten better since the season ended,” Calhoun said. “He can now score three or four baskets in a row in a pickup game. He wasn’t an offensive factor for us but he should be next year and his rebounding will increase too. He can score points. He has a good touch. He is one player who needed to play pickup games.”
The reason it’s taken so long for a decision to be made is because of the financial situation of his family. Being from Tanzania, his family isn’t exactly rich. While he would probably be taken as a lottery pick due to his potential, he is better off spending another year at UCONN getting bigger and better. To me after watching him get pushed around in the last regular season game by the boys at Georgetown, he’d be better of honing his skills under the tutelage of Calhoun. I am sure that there will be some sort of insurance policy taken out in case he gets injured.
Calhoun also stated that one more player may leave the team because of his academics. He wouldn’t name the player and I’m not going to speculate.
[The link is to an Insider article at ESPN. You have to have access to read it. Or you can get it right here.]
