2023 Final Four: The making of a UConn scoring machine

HOUSTON — Once a week, and sometimes more frequently than that, Jim Calhoun makes the short drive to the University of Connecticut campus to watch his former team practice. 

It’s a way for Calhoun, who will celebrate his 81st birthday in May, to remain in contact with the school he dragged from the dregs of a nascent Big East to not one, not two, but three national championships between 1999 and 2011, the last of those titles captured in the same stadium where UConn will be a heavy favorite to cut down the nets during this year’s Final Four.

Calhoun is still searching for the ideal balance between satiating an unquenchable thirst to spend every minute of every day around the program he loves, to imbue the next generation of Huskies with pearls of wisdom culled from more than 900 career victories across three different locales, and the keen understanding that current head coach Dan Hurley requires enough space to forge his own path without a Hall of Famer lurking around every corner. 

There was little doubt Calhoun would be in attendance for UConn’s wins over Arkansas and Gonzaga in Las Vegas last week, nor will he pass on the chance to be in Houston for Saturday’s date with fifth-seeded Miami, but he declined a spot in the team’s traveling party both times.

One of the only exceptions to Calhoun’s arm’s-length approach involves sophomore Jordan Hawkins, a 6-foot-5, 195-pound flamethrower disguised as a shooting guard. Hawkins’ marksmanship from beyond the arc has fueled some of Connecticut’s most devastating scoring runs in this year’s NCAA Tournament — where the Huskies have won their first four games by 90 combined points — and has brought him within a whisper of matching or, perhaps, surpassing Ray Allen’s school record for most 3-pointers in a single season. 

Hawkins has made 16 of his 31 attempts through the opening four rounds of March Madness, including a blistering 6-for-10 effort against Gonzaga, and Calhoun never leaves one of UConn’s practices without reminding Hawkins of what it takes to be great.

"I keep telling him that he’s gotta believe," Calhoun said during an interview with FOX Sports. "I keep telling him, ‘The day you believe you can’t miss — or if it’s maybe the air conditioning, or it could be something changed with the basket (that stopped the ball from going in) — that’s the only way you won’t shoot a beautiful shot.’"

His crack about a jumper veering off target because of an HVAC system is a callback to something Calhoun would say to former UConn guard Rashad Anderson, another perimeter specialist who helped lead the Huskies to the ’04 national title and made more 3-pointers during his career (276) than anyone in program history. 

Anderson could find an excuse for every missed shot, Calhoun said, from the slightest bump by a defender to the atmospheric pressure changes of a New England winter. And Calhoun remembers chiding him with quips like, "You think it’s the f---ing air conditioning?"

Jokes aside, Anderson also had what Calhoun described as "a great personality for a shooter," an unflinchingly unconscionable self-belief that every shot is worth hoisting because every shot will find the bottom of the net. It’s the kind of confidence that has flowed from one legendary UConn shooter to the next, from Allen and Richard Hamilton to Anderson and Ben Gordon, from Kemba Walker and Shabazz Napier to Hawkins, the newest member of the fraternity whose 270 attempts from 3-point range are already 23 more than anyone else on the list.

So this weekend, as the Huskies chase their fifth national title in 25 years, Calhoun wants Hawkins to believe like each of the greats who came before him.

"This kid Hawkins is getting close to those guys," Calhoun said.

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Within Connecticut's 3-point shooting fraternity is an even smaller group of players who tormented opponents before the ball ever touched their hands. They did their damage without dribbling, without crossing over defenders or barreling through traffic in the lane, without isolation drives or commandeering large chunks of a possession. They slalomed in and out of perfectly-timed, precisely-placed screens to accentuate skill sets rooted in movement. It was only after they’d zigged and zagged and doubled back for more that they set their feet, caught a pass and launched.

Hawkins sought to join that group by enhancing his comprehension of how and when to move without the ball between his freshman and sophomore seasons. He increased his scoring average from 5.8 points per game a year ago to 16.3 points per game in 2022-23, earning first-team All-Big East honors and solidify his position as a first-round pick, according to an NBA executive who spoke to FOX Sports earlier this week. 

The dizzying manner in which he weaves through UConn’s offense to manufacture deadeye jumpers has granted him entry to the program's subcommittee of elite screen artists where Allen, Hamilton and Anderson already reside.

"If I would go back in my mind to when I played," Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton, whose team surrendered 26 points and five made 3s to Hawkins earlier this year, said during an interview with FOX Sports, "those were the worst kind of players for me to think about having to guard. And now, it gives you a lot of pause as a coach thinking about who you want to defend that player because it doesn’t take much of a relaxing moment for him to be open. He knows how to stop and start, he knows how to read the way you’re guarding him coming off the screen, and he can take advantage of it.

"I’ve coached against some really good shooters. Obviously coached against Gradey Dick in the Big 12 this year. But I coached against Jordan Hawkins this year, too, and he’s the best shooter that I’ve coached against."

So much about the way Hawkins plays can be traced to his predecessors at Connecticut, some of whom — such as Allen and Hamilton — have been seen giving him pointers in social media posts at various points this season. Earlier this week, Hamilton captioned a photo of himself and Hawkins with the following: "I see you displaying everything we talked about this summer. Two more games to go nephew! Final 4 here we come!"

In Storrs, those kinds of discussions first began when Calhoun and his staff decided to refine their offensive approach in the early 1990s, a few years before Hamilton arrived on campus. They made the decision to begin every practice with 20 to 30 minutes of drills dedicated to explaining key offensive concepts and movement without the ball, according to former assistant coach Dave Leitao. Each session would include the highlighted action — things like staggered screens, baseline screens or flare screens — and the walk-ons would simulate different types of coverages to induce the thought processes Calhoun wanted his guards to experience while freeing themselves for shots. The sets he called during games were little more than outlines around which his players were supposed to read and react.

Calhoun referred to the interactions between screeners and the players utilizing those screens as the dance, but there was nothing delicate about the way his teachings unfolded. Holding, grabbing, tugging, pushing and shoving were all encouraged because the coaches wanted to make things as difficult as possible for the guards trying to distance themselves from defenders. 

Players practiced running six degrees off the cut, flares off the cut and circles off the cut in what became "a very, very physical drill for us," Calhoun said, because "getting free is a big deal — you can’t shoot if the guy is in your face." They often revisited these principles late in practices during two-on-two drills that forced an offensive player without the ball to break loose for a catch-and-shoot opportunity. Calhoun called it "fatigue work" because the goal was to ensure the Huskies had their legs in the final minutes of games.

The guards took to their education at varying rates. Hamilton, who earned back-to-back All-American honors and led the Huskies to the ’99 national title, was described as a natural, someone who transformed the act of coming off a screen into a 14-year NBA career. Walker, another All-American whose magical run in 2011 earned Calhoun a third national championship, began to embrace the benefits of moving without the ball after getting leveled by the likes of Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien when he drove the lane his freshman year, according to former assistant coach Andre LaFleur. But appreciating the importance of using screens and developing into a reliable spot-up shooter were ideas that took Walker time to wed.

"It’s getting good players to do the right things to make themselves better," Calhoun said. "The great thing about this now is when they started getting free, now they’ll set the (defender) up. The guy comes late (and) you attack the close-out or you get a free open shot. And they started to see that. If I told them the truth that the girls love the leading scorer, I always thought they’d try harder. But that’s a story for another day." 

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Here’s a story he did share: Many years ago, Calhoun was conversing with Michael Jordan at a golf outing. They’d gotten to know each other through former North Carolina coach Dean Smith, and the conversation eventually shifted to ex-UConn players Jordan faced in the NBA. Jordan told Calhoun that Jake Voskuhl, the 6-11, 245-pound starting center on Calhoun’s first championship team, was the best screener he’d ever seen.

"That motherf---er, he’s trying to hurt you on the screen," Calhoun recalled Jordan saying.

"Yeah," Calhoun replied, "he was taught well."

This is the other half of a dance that takes two to tango, a choreography in which every curling 3-point shooter needs his cast of forwards and centers to carry out the unsexy task of impeding defenders. 

Allen, who buried 115 triples in 1995-96, had Travis Knight and Kirk King. Hamilton, who drilled 99 in 1997-98, had Voskuhl and Kevin Freeman. Anderson, who made 88 in 2005-06, had Adrien and Hilton Armstrong. Hawkins, who needs 11 3-pointers to tie Allen’s single-season record, has a quartet of willing screeners in Donovan Clingan, Adama Sanogo, Alex Karaban and Andre Jackson Jr.

The current Huskies beamed when asked about their contributions to Hawkins’ success during a pregame news conference at NRG Stadium on Thursday afternoon. Karaban described watching Hawkins get hot from beyond the arc, like he did with four 3-pointers in the span of 4:51 against Saint Mary’s, and 12 points in 4:29 against Arkansas, as something that makes the team "a thousand times better when he gets going." 

Clingan told reporters Hurley calls it "headhunting" when the big men find a defender and hold their ground so Hawkins can have time to shoot. Jackson said Hamilton, who is in Houston this week, reminded the team earlier in the day that little details like setting good screens are "what builds championship programs."

And Hamilton would know. He averaged 21.5 PPG as the leading scorer on a title-winning team that finished 34-2 to secure the school’s first championship in Calhoun’s first trip to the Final Four. He meandered and marauded through a half-court offense tailored to his knack for manipulating defenders into Voskuhl’s screens, and he blended timely 3-pointers with lethal mid-range jumpers.

"Rip being able to come off the screens was a bit of an art form, you know what I’m saying?" Voskuhl told FOX Sports. "Because Rip would throw guys into us. He would set them up and like move them left or right, and then he would like push them into us, right? So it was an art for Rip.

"And at the same time, setting the screen was a bit of an art as well because I knew how to — and you can go back to my NBA days, and you see the exact same thing with Stephon Marbury in Phoenix, Steve Nash in Phoenix when he won his first MVP award — like there’s an art form to setting the screen and knowing how to set your screen where I’ve made a legal pick. You can’t call a foul on me, but I just lit somebody up. You know what I mean?"

Screening with that kind of physicality carries a secondary benefit of dissuading opponents from fighting through picks because of the punishment their bodies absorb. In practice, former UConn guard Ricky Moore, who was selected as the National Defensive Player of the Year by Basketball News Magazine in 1999, said spats broke out when he tried to dismember Voskuhl's leg while chasing Hamilton all over the court. And in games, when other defenders were doing the chasing, it became Voskuhl’s job to protect his guards by flattening the opposition. He recalled a particularly vicious ball screen ridding point guard Khalid El-Amin of a pesky Georgetown Hoya who needed to be "peeled off the floor," as Voskuhl described it, after an intense collision at midcourt made the crowd wince and prompted Ruben Boumtje-Boumtje to hurl vulgarities in his direction.  

The multipronged application of screening for teammates and screening for intimidation landed on a list of behaviors Calhoun would later channel into a formula that explained what made big men successful at the next level. 

Beginning in the mid-2000s, LaFleur said Calhoun and his coaching staff studied data from the NBA to draw connections between the contracts players received and the habits or stats they demonstrated to earn those kinds of deals. The end result was an equation of sorts that linked things like rebounding, blocked shots and effort plays — which included an ability and willingness to set effective screens — with specific dollar amounts players could expect to earn. Calhoun wanted his power forwards and centers to know that eschewing scoring for the good of the team wouldn't compromise their earning power. 

It’s the same kind of buy-in Hurley has generated this season as Sanogo splits minutes with Clingan at center while Jackson stifles his urge to shoot from beyond the arc. And all of them, along with Karaban, sacrifice their bodies by smashing into defenders so Hawkins can catch, shoot and thrive.

"The only time they get any recognition (for screening) is when it doesn’t go the right way," Boynton said in reference to players getting called for illegal screens. "So I think as coach — and I think I speak for a lot of coaches when I say this — we wish there was a way to credit screening. I think all those guys do a great job of understanding, and that’s the (strongest) part about their team. The reason I always thought UConn was the best team — I think they’ll win it, partly because we played them, so I saw up close and personal — but the reason I believe it is because I think they have the most complete team and the team that’s most committed to their roles." 

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As the Huskies brutalized Gonzaga during an 82-54 victory in the Elite Eight, LaFleur, who was on staff at UConn from 2001-11, sent a text to Tom Moore, his former colleague under Calhoun and one of Hurley’s current assistants. LaFleur was seated just a few feet behind the team’s bench and knew his old friend wouldn’t read the message until later, but he couldn’t contain his excitement while watching Connecticut in person for the first time all season.

"That team is, in my opinion, constructed in the mold of a ’99 (or) 2004 team," LaFleur said in reference to previous UConn squads that won national championships. 

Hawkins scored 20 points that night while connecting on 60% of his shots from beyond the arc and equaling his season high with six 3-pointers. LaFleur gushed over a player he described as part Anderson, part Rudy Gay and part Jeremy Lamb — the kind of shooter who is "throwing daggers" courtesy of a "killer scorer’s mentality" that few guards in program history could match. He was stunned by how explosive Hawkins, who’s averaging one 3-pointer every 6.7 minutes in the NCAA Tournament, proved to be in person.

Such unabashed confidence is something Hawkins said he has had for years, since middle school, since his father began preparing him for moments and stages like the one he'll have this weekend. 

Scattered among those 70,000 fans will be some of UConn's greatest shooters who came, at least in part, to see the latest heir to their 3-point throne. Allen was on the phone with Leitao earlier this week discussing just how many alums are flooding to NRG Stadium in Houston; Hamilton posted an Instagram story with Hawkins and assistant coach Kimani Young as the song "Sky's the Limit" by The Notorious B.I.G. crooned in the background. 

Just like Calhoun, they'll want to see Hawkins let it fly.

"When I got to UConn, I knew those were the type of guys that played here," Hawkins said. "I had to live up to that standard. It's amazing I've got these two guys in my corner." 

Michael Cohen covers college football and basketball for FOX Sports with an emphasis on the Big Ten. Follow him on Twitter @Michael_Cohen13. 

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