You have Hasheem Thabeet’s ridiculously foolish quotes from ESPN: The Magazine.

You’ve got the Thabeet hype machine. Perhaps he is one face the NCAA would want the public to embrace. You may not want to hear him speak, though.

You have talk that this team has the talent to win a national title … this season.

You have a backcourt that is one of the best in the nation, if not one of the most erratic.

You have a hall-of-fame coach, who has taken much better teams to the Final Four.

Is this the No. 2 team in the country right now? I put the question forth to you: If you were forced to plunk down $50 of your own money and had to pick two teams to make the Final Four this year, would UConn really be one of them? Seems like a silly question, until you realize that North Carolina would undoubtedly be one of those two teams … so is there that big a gap between No. 1 and 2 in the rankings?

I’d like to see how this team responds to a lot of pressure and how big a factor Thabeet will end up being. Some Huskies fans may argue Thabeet isn’t a focal point, but when you’ve got someone that tall in the college game, shouldn’t he be the focal point?

I think the backcourt will be a huge asset, of course, and I heard a crazy stat while watching the UConn-Miami game last night: they are something like 41-9 when Craig Austrie is in the starting lineup. There is a statistic that has zero value.

With the ridiculous depth in the Big East this year, it’s hard to figure UConn escapes with a 1-seed (like so many think it will). A 2- or 3-seed seems more the path for Calhoun’s club this year.