Tough Sledding
CONNECTICUT'S basketball prospects took a huge hit last week when the Huskies' top two point guards, junior Marcus Williams and redshirt freshman A.J. Price, were arrested and charged with larceny for allegedly attempting to sell four laptop computers that were stolen from a dorm. The players were to appear in court on Aug. 23. UConn coach Jim Calhoun said he was indefinitely suspending the players, but speaking with SI, he did not sound as if he expected those suspensions to become permanent. "I will not abandon these kids," Calhoun said. "This was a very foolish, selfish and stupid act ..., but in the final analysis, the people who got injured the most are the two of them."
Not everyone in Storrs, where the athletic department has been bedeviled by a series of embarrassing events, is in such a forgiving mood. In the past four months one basketball player was expelled after being arrested twice, three football players were charged after a pellet gun in their possession went off in a grocery store parking lot, and athletic director Jeff Hathaway admitted he gave a local car dealer tickets in exchange for the use of cars. "The climate at UConn is very bad right now," an athletic department official told SI. "It's possible the school might try to make an example of [Price and Williams] because of everything that's going on." --Seth Davis
COLOR PHOTO
JOHN DUNN/US PRESSWIRE (WILLIAMS)
ON GUARDS
Calhoun says he'll stand by Williams (above) and Price (right).
COLOR PHOTO
UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT/AP (PRICE)
[See Caption Above]