I was just reading the article and this part from Adam Finkelstein caught my eye.
New England has always been Jim Calhoun's ace in the hole when it comes to recruiting. While his career has seen him build other pipelines into New York, Maryland, Wisconsin, California, and even overseas to Germany and Israel, his home base of New England has always provided an inroad to talented players when other markets seemed too difficult to penetrate.
A Massachusetts native who still speaks with a Boston accent, Calhoun has built Connecticut's flagship state university into a national basketball power. He has a history of tapping into the region's best local talent extending all the way back to his days as the head coach at Northeastern, when he landed a commitment from Boston native and future NBA All-Star Reggie Lewis.
First off, if I'm not mistaken Reggie Lewis was from Baltimore.
Before the recent additions of Oriakhi, Coombs-McDaniel, Napier and Olander how many New England natives made a relatively decent impact at UConn? Rashamel Jones, Craig Austrie, Doug Wiggins, Scott Hazelton and Steve Pikiell? And none made a huge impact. Tony Robertson was probably the best New Englander at UConn that Calhoun recruited unless you include Kevin Freeman who was originally from Springfield, MA but played high school ball in New Jersey. I think Finkelstein was really reaching with this one.