Final Four stage a refuge for UConn, Michigan State

April 4, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

DETROIT (AP) — One look at the thousands of fans waiting in the rain an hour before the gates at Ford Field opened, and it’s clear where Michigan State’s motivation comes from.

For Connecticut, the focus is much narrower, though no less powerful. A year removed from that crushing loss to San Diego in the NCAA tournament, two from that unUConn-like 17-14 record, their program buffeted this season by coach Jim Calhoun’s latest health scares and other distractions, the court is the Huskies’ refuge, the one place they are truly in control.

“This team has given me incredible joy this season,” said Calhoun, a Hall of Famer who was diagnosed with his third bout of cancer last May. “They were the tonic, quite frankly, the best medicine I could ever possibly receive.”

You can say the Michigan State-Connecticut matchup in the Final Four tonight is only a game, even though the winner advances to play for a national title.

But when real-world problems — unemployment, cancer, possible recruiting violations — are a constant companion, those 2 1/2 hours they play give fans and players alike an escape.

Connecticut (31-4) was expected to be good again this year — when, really, are the Huskies not? Then came the news in late May that Calhoun had skin cancer again and would need radiation. The treatment killed the cancer cells, but it also sapped his strength and energy.

Yet when practice began in the fall, there was Calhoun on the sidelines.

“He brushes it off, and the next day he’s at work,” Jeff Adrien said. “We really learned from Coach the mental side, and that’s what makes us who we are.”

They would need every bit of that strength.

With big man Hasheem Thabeet looking like a newer version of Dikembe Mutombo, A.J. Price recovered from a torn ACL and Jerome Dyson patrolling the perimeter, the Huskies raced out to a 24-1 start.

North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Louisville — none of them looked as good as Connecticut — and it sure looked as if the Huskies were on their way to a third national title.

But in UConn’s Feb. 11 game against Syracuse, Dyson collided with another player and suffered a season-ending knee injury. Two weeks later, Calhoun went on a tirade after a freelance journalist peppered him with questions about his $1.6 million salary, an exchange that became an instant YouTube hit. The Connecticut governor later called it an “embarrassing display.”

Calhoun missed the Huskies’ first-round rout of Chattanooga after being hospitalized for dehydration.

“I don’t know this to be true, I don’t think it is a medical fact ... if that ’dehydration,’ all that stuff, was because I was trying to take care of everything,” Calhoun said.