Hartford

No other coach in the country preaches the urgency of now better than Jim Calhoun, who for 26 years here has turned the relatively innocuous game in January into Game Seven. And had everyone else believing it, too.

There was a game in January that had some urgency Monday night at the XL Center. Not a season maker. Or breaker. But a game that followed a two-game losing streak and some shaken confidence for the UConn Huskies, suffering from what Calhoun has called a championship hangover.

Calhoun rattled the walls at Gampel Pavilion a day earlier during practice, a R-rated medley of teaching and growling, intended to remind the troops of now’s urgency. Yet for a while Monday night, the Huskies played with the same lethargy. No offensive rebounds in the first half. An unwillingness to guard the perimeter by fighting through the occasional screen to find a shooter.

This was UConn?

“We hit a hump,” Calhoun was saying later. “We have in the past in January.”

The hump swelled to the size of a driver’s side air bag by the time West Virginia assumed a 10-point lead with 12 minutes left. Happily, however, what followed was some of the best basketball of the season. Sometimes the scoreboard can accomplish what the coach can’t.

Jeremy Lamb threw down a dunk. Andre Drummond swatted everything in the air. The XL Center had a rattle and hum that sounded like the old days.

And when it was over, 15,805 fans went home happy after a 64-57 victory.

“An inspiring win,” Calhoun said.

Indeed.

Calhoun wasn’t necessarily in agreement with the premise that his team needed the 10-point deficit to awaken. He said, “We were trying to find something. We needed something to happen to us. We made (things) happen.”

So did Calhoun, who was issued a technical with 11:55 left and an eight-point deficit at the time. You can determine for yourself if there’s a cause and effect between the technical and the ensuing 17-3 run.

“I said ‘if you’re not going to fight, they may throw me out of here, but I’m going to fight,’” Calhoun said.

Makes you wonder, though: Is it going to be Calhoun’s responsibility to be his team’s conscience all year? Will it take deficits and technicals?

Calhoun hasn’t had many teams with this pedigree. An appreciable number of contributors here have won the biggest games on the biggest stages. They went 5-for-5 at Madison Square Garden. They have The Ring. And so how do you convince kids who went 9-9 in the Big East a year ago and then won it all that some game in January, two-game losing streak not withstanding, is urgent?

We should all agree that we have no idea how kids think. Maybe, if past performance is an indicator with this team, the regular season exists to kill time until the real games start. There’s some evidence of that in sports, even beyond the Huskies of 2010-11. Look around. Look at how many teams get hot at the right time.

Look at the football Giants. While their fans spent much of this season throwing the remote, throwing tantrums, throwing up their hands and just plain throwing up … the Giants are suddenly hotter than a furnace and in the middle of a playoff run. Does anyone remember the bowsers they tossed in during the regular season?

Such thoughts don’t make the regular season grind any easier. It may give Calhoun a nervous breakdown. But with the way seasons can turn on one moment, one play, you just never know how the great unwritten script will depict this season.

Maybe the season turned Monday night.

Maybe some of the habits return Saturday at Notre Dame and invite more questions and doubts.

Maybe it will be like this until March.

The point: Too many teams in sports, especially lately, prove that the only thing you know is that you just never know. Calhoun wants the urgency of now. He might not get it for a while. But he’s got a bunch of kids who now how to win when it counts. We saw it again Monday.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Mike DiMauro