UConn’s Joey Calcaterra and SDSU’s Sam Scholl made it through basketball purgatory to meet again
Sam Scholl, now on the staff at San Diego State, and Joey Calcaterra, now plasying for UConn, were first together at the University of San Diego as head coach and player.Before San Diego State took the court for a pre-Final Four practice, Sam Scholl left the Aztecs’ locker room with an agenda. He made his way down the hallway at NRG Stadium until he found who he was searching for outside the Connecticut locker room.
Plucked out of college hoops purgatory — Scholl after being fired by his alma mater last March, Calcaterra from the transfer portal last June — they meet again on opposite sides of Monday night’s national championship game between San Diego State and UConn .It is a far cry from how Scholl imagined things playing out when he hosted Calcaterra for dinner at his home last spring, months after the coach found himself out of a job and his former player decided to seek a fresh start.
Scholl played the final two years of his college career for USD and completed his degree there in 2001, then spent the next seven seasons as an assistant coach for the Toreros. After an eight-year detour at Santa Clara, he returned to USD’s bench in 2015. He was named interim head coach for the last four games of the 2017-18 season and promoted to the permanent position ahead of the next season.
Nearly 13 months later, he was on SDSU’s bench during Saturday’s national semifinal game when Lamont Butler hit a buzzer beater to book the Aztecs a spot in the title bout. “I've seen that a fair amount of times,” Scholl said, chuckling. “I thought that was just so cool. What a great moment for Joey, to make a big three, get a high five from his coach. Joey thrives off of that.”
“I was a really skinny shooter from the North Bay and not many offers, had six out of high school,” Calcaterra said. “USD was the last one to come along, but just really expressed his interest in me and how well I would fit the program down in San Diego. … I just could tell from his presence who he was as a guy and how much he cared about his players and wanted to see them be successful.
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