Jim Calhoun: ‘I Fully Plan on Coaching Basketball Next Year’

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Apr 5, 2011

Jim Calhoun: 'I Fully Plan on Coaching Basketball Next Year' Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun has nothing left to prove after winning his third national championship on Monday night. Even so, he still sounds like he's leaning toward coming back for another season.

The 68-year-old went on ESPN Chicago on Tuesday afternoon and addressed his future as the coach of the Huskies.

"I fully plan on coaching basketball next year," he said, according to SportsRadioInterviews.com. "You know, once again, we'll have time in the next couple of months as I settle down, as we kind of look over everything, and I fully expect that I would."

Calhoun touched on the subject earlier in the week at a news conference prior to his team's 53-41 national championship win over Butler.

"I told my wife I would retire when I was 50,'' Calhoun told reporters. "I lied. But I was on a plane roughly 10 years ago with [former North Carolina coach] Dean Smith, and he said, 'Don't ever make a decision on your basketball future right after a season, no matter how great it was and don't ever make it after a disappointing season. Give yourself some time, space and distance and then make a decision.'

"I've done that every spring for probably the last five or six years."

Winning another national championship will probably make some aspects of that decision easier, while it may complicate others. Calhoun coached a young team this year, and while it's unlikely that star guard Kemba Walker returns to Storrs for next season, Calhoun does some have some good young talent at his disposal.

"I've always been in love with basketball, I've never fallen out of love with basketball, but this team reaffirms me that kind of what we're doing is worthwhile because the kids you have," he said in his interview on Monday.

If Calhoun does return next season, he'll be forced to serve a three-game suspension once Big East play begins after the NCAA found him guilty of "failing to create an atmosphere of compliance within his program" following recruiting violations.

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