STORRS — In a trench coat that somehow made him look even more towering, Hasheem Thabeet walked back into Gampel Pavilion, his old stomping, dunking and swatting grounds Saturday night.
The 7-foot-3 center who met all the necessary criteria, and a whole lot more, took his rightful place among the Huskies of Honor at UConn. Too big a man, in more ways than height, to be a poster child, he serves as a walking billboard for the good that could come from college basketball in the United States, in his decade, 2006-09, as well as the 2020s, when the right opportunities are offered, taken, and advantage is taken from them.
“There is nobody else who came out of Tanzania to play in the (NBA),” he said. “But it’s also not easy. I don’t even know how I did it, but I did it, so I tell them, ‘most of you guys trying to get there, you can fall short and become a doctor, you can fall short and get an education and become something, not just a Tanzania kid looking for an opportunity. I’m able to do things, to teach them, help them, ‘you can become a leader, you can become something.’”
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When Thabeet came to the U.S. and he got his first call from Jim Calhoun — to this day, he calls him “Mr. Calhoun, rather than coach — he said he didn’t want to play somewhere that’s cold. “You don’t play basketball outdoors,” Mr. Calhoun told him, and he ended up at UConn, more than 7,500 miles from his hometown, Dar es Salaam. Most African players come to the U.S. from the other side of the continent.
“I guess I saw what he could be, not what he was,” said Calhoun, who later escorted Thabeet to the floor at halftime and introduced him to the crowd. “His size, the fact he was a tough kid, he wouldn’t mind hitting you. And he was a smart kid, he didn’t always let on that way. I made up my mind I would get to know him, get to know more of what he thought about life.”
As the decade wears on, the always present nostalgia prompts the UConn programs to honor their own and the walls are running out of space. Thabeet’s 4.2 blocks per game, which is more than many entire teams average, is surpassed at UConn only by Emeka Okafor, whose No. 50 will be retired at the next home game Wednesday night. Thabeet was a Big East co-player of the year, a conference and national defensive player of the year.
“They could have signed anybody, I wasn’t ranked, a lot of guys were ranked,” Thabeet said. “Man, to me, I feel very honored to be part of this. Something I never grew up thinking about, starting out in life, making your mark. It’s still surreal to me. Maybe later on I can actually talk about it. … I came here, they believed in me, they made a man out of me.”
While there is good reason to honor what came before, there is every reason to appreciate what is happening right now, and therein lies the issue that somehow managed to overshadow even the towering Hasheem Thabeet on a strange night in Storrs.
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UConn gutted out another tougher-than-expected win 79-75 over a Big East team, Georgetown, that is much better than its record (13-12, 5-9). So the Huskies, 24-2 overall, are 14-1 in the league, are good enough to win, but still not quite good enough to consistently run opponents out of the building. Solo Ball scored his 1,000th point, and Alex Karaban, who hit the game-icing free throws, was on the winning side for a program record 116th time. Ball and Karaban have done all of that in a UConn jersey, a rarity in the era of pay-for-play, easy transferring and early entry to the NBA. And when the game was over, both coaches were eager to remark about the atmosphere and unused seats, Georgetown’s Ed Cooley was curious and UConn’s Dan Hurley exasperated that the crowd wasn’t more raucous on this Valentine’s Night. That has to be a first.
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Poor John Fanta, who had the mic after the game, had to exhort fans to stick around an extra minute or two and properly honor Karaban’s achievement. After six national championships, including 2023 and ’24, fans here have grown a little blase about winning regular season games. That’s human nature. Anger and vitriol come out of a fan base when an opponent it fears comes to town, and who has come to Connecticut lately that UConn fans should fear as much as fans in other arenas fear Dan Hurley and the Huskies? Just one, and when Rick Pitino and St. John’s come to Hartford Feb. 25, my guess is they will feel the fans.
These are first-world college basketball problems. Thabeet came from what was considered a third-world country to leave his mark in this building, averaging 10.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and 4.2 blocks across 100 college games, helping the Huskies reach the Final Four in 2009. It’s obligatory to say the Huskies could have used him Saturday, after their two centers combined for three rebounds and two blocks.
Thabeet was the No. 2 pick in the NBA Draft, but he never quite became a dominant star in the league, which by then was beginning to demand perimeter skills from its big centers. So he traveled the world, making a name and a living playing basketball, mostly in Asia. Now he is back in Tanzania, as an investor, mentor and, at 38, still a player for Dar City, his hometown’s team in the NBA-backed Basketball Africa League.
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When he played for UConn, diplomats and dignitaries from Tanzania often traveled to his games, particularly in New York or Washington. The man forged at UConn has long since become a dignitary himself, determined to make a difference on Africa’s East Coast.
“After playing a very high level of basketball in the NBA, and you get to go back, it’s starting all over again,” Thabeet said. “People really never got to see me play, there wasn’t social media back then. To me, I’m not playing to prove anything, I’m trying to empower them. ‘Hey, I played there and I now I can play here with you guys.’ I’m not playing there to win trophies or championships or anything like that, I’m trying to empower the young guys. That’s very important, because I didn’t have anybody to pull me up out of there. Now I can do that for them.”
