Okafor and Gordon Lead Huskies Over Wagner

Boxscore (pdf)

Boxscore (html)

(post game quotes follow this story)

STORRS, CT (December 7, 2002)-- The dynamic duo of Ben Gordon (Mt. Vernon, NY) and Emeka Okafor (Houston, TX) combined for 52 points to lead 11^th ranked Connecticut to a 97-85 win over stubborn Wagner College Saturday before 10,167 at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.

The win improves the Huskies’ record to 5-0 while the Seahawks slip to 2-3.

The Seahawks got within five as late as 79-74 with 5:54 to play but Gordon hit a three-pointer.  After a Wagner hoop, Scott Hazelton (Somerville, MA) dunked and Taliek Brown (Queens, NY) hit a jumper to put the Huskies safely ahead by 10.

Wagner jumped out to a quick 10-4 lead in the first 2:46 as Dedrick Dye hit two three-pointers but UConn raced back to take the lead for good at 19-18 on the second of two free throws by Gordon.  The Huskies opened up some distance on the Seahawks, leading 53-38 at the half behind Gordon’s 15 and Okafor’s 14.

The pesky Seahawks opened the second half on a 19-9 run to get within 62-57 with 13:09 to play.  UConn continually pounded the ball inside to Okafor, who finished with his fifth consecutive double-double with 23 points and a career-high 19 rebounds.  He also rejected eight Wagner shots.  Gordon finished with 29 points on 8-for-16 shooting, including five of eight from beyond the three-point arc.

Junior point guard Brown scored 15 points, had a game-high eight assists and grabbed seven rebounds.  Mike Hayes (Hartford, CT) had a career-high 11 rebounds for the Huskies.  Senior Tony Robertson (E. Providence, RI) came off the bench to score 12.

Dye and Jermaine Hall led Wagner with 20 points apiece.

The Huskies return to action on Tuesday, December 10 when they entertain New England rival Massachusetts at the Hartford Civic Center in their final game before semester examinations.  Tip-off is slated for 7:00 p.m. and WTXX- TV 20 will televise the game.

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun Post Game Quotes

The first thing I would like to do is congratulate Wagner and Dereck for the way they played. They played with great energy. Unfortunately, we didn’t. They played inside – they had more points in the paint than we did. They shot the ball very well from the outside. They ran up and down the court better than we did. They just didn’t bring Emeka Okafor. If Emeka Okafor had switched uniforms, Wagner would have won the game….It’s nice to have him. He was magnificent. But it’s very disappointing that we couldn’t get better performances.

Nothing they did wasn’t unexpected, but I didn’t expect us not to be able to make a foul line jump shot. I didn’t expect us to not run, with 55 rebounds. We complained last time we didn’t run really well because we didn’t get rebounds. Well, we got 55 of them tonight.

We just couldn’t stop them inside or outside. It just became the case that Emeka was too much of a force. And even he, playing 36 minutes, because right now I don’t have enough faith to go to anybody else. That’s sad, for us, right now. He shouldn’t play 36 minutes. We need to give some rest. When you get 23 points, 19 rebounds and 8 blocked shots, down the stretch he gave up points that he normally wouldn’t give up. But he’s fatigued. You just can’t ask a guy that big to go that long….It was tough for me to gamble on taking him out of the game.

When we didn’t score, we became discouraged on defense. I know we had 98 points, but 98 points was because we were better, and we made a lot of foul shots. Ninety eight points wasn’t because we ran well. Ninety eight points wasn’t because we executed well. Ninety eight points was because we had some better players at times. And we had Emeka.

I’m just disappointed that we’re in game 5 and don’t appear to be that much better than, or maybe not as good as, we were in game 1. And that’s a little disappointing – defensively, particularly. And I didn’t think we were very good offensively, either.

Wagner had a lot of confidence. Played like a team that played in the NIT last year….I was really impressed by what they did.

In this building, given the kids that we have on this team, we’re better than that. Or, more importantly, we should be better than that.

No win is ever a disappointing win…but to say I was disappointed…I contemplated 12:01, tonight, practice, without basketballs. We don’t need basketballs. We need them to start defending, we need them to start doing things these kids are capable of doing. And for whatever reason, I’m not really sure why, every team evolves a different way. We struggled last year as a team, but we didn’t struggle like this team is struggling. This team, I think, has more answers.

I’m perplexed more than worried….I think after tonight we’ll be the number one scoring team in the league, average, and the worst defensive team in the league, as far as points per game.

UConn Player Quotes

Mike Hayes

I think I’m rebounding pretty well. But, we didn’t play good defense. They played better than us tonight, both ends of the floor. Coach told us how good they were, but we just didn’t play good defense tonight.

We just have to come together defensively. We are going to score points because we are talented, but it starts with defense.

On what he is looking for against UMass: Defense. If we play defense we are going to have fast breaks…fast breaks turn into points. We are a good offensive team right now, but right now we are not good defensively.

We spend a lot of time on defense, but we just don't carry it over to the game. Coach was saying that Wagner was a pretty good team, and they came out here and showed it to us. They outplayed us on both ends of the floor.

We just have to start playing defense. We all have to come together playing defense, because that's what it starts with.

On playing Jermaine Hall

I think overall we did a pretty good job on Hall but, like I said, he just woke up on the end. It seemed like he got hungry. He wanted to score. He wanted to keep his team in the game. So, he got real good position and finished buckets.

Will it take a St. Bonnies loss to learn from the lack of defense?

We're going to learn from this Wagner – they put up 85 points on us. Every game, every different opponent is putting up more numbers on us. Like coach was saying, it started from the 60s to 70s and now to 85. We can't win games like that.

Taliek Brown

I thought I was decent out there, I just tried to play my hardest for 40 minutes.

On high # of shots taken: I think they were just giving me more shots, and I had some open pull-ups when I got into the paint. I had some little pull-up J’s but they weren’t dropping today…but I’ll bounce back.

Defense, defense, defense that’s our main thing right now…that’s what I’ve been telling the guys that we’ve got to play defense because when we play harder teams or when we get into the real grind against all of the hard teams we are going to have to play defense and we are going to have to win with our defense, because our defense is going to give us some easy offensive points. Defense is the main key. We are going to get in the gym tomorrow, 10am and just work on our defense and get ready for Tuesday (vs. UMass)

I was really upset that we gave away a lot of easy baskets. No one really dug in like we were supposed to on D. Now are just going to put that game behind us and move on and have that the worst game we’ll have all year.

Everyone can’t rely on Emeka (Okafor) to block shots and get rebounds, everybody has to be there to help him out.

On missed shots: Days like that happen so I’m not really worried about it. I’m just going to move on and try to keep playing.

A credit to them (Wagner) they were real good. They ran their offense really well, they played good defense. They played well against us.

Emeka Okafor

They were up and down the court, they are real fast, they got ahead of us and they played their game…but we stuck with ours and got the win.

We are going to try really hard to fix it…improve our D(efense), because that’s what is going to win us games.

Ben Gordon

We are just not playing team defense. Every individual has to feel like if he is on a man, then he is going to lock him up. There really is no excuse, I think we just need to work hard on defense, it is as simple as that. There is no complex theory as to why we are not playing good defense. We are not putting hard work into it.

That’s what I’m on the team for, to make plays and try to score anytime I’m out there. I definitely think the team needed me, but I don’t think it should have been that close from the get go.

From what it shows, that is definitely it, we just don’t feel the need or have the sense of urgency to put teams away. I can say anything, but I mean, it is what it is. We showed that we let them come back two times, we had them down by 16. We just need to sustain good defense for longer periods of time.

Tony Robertson

On the team's defense

We didn't work hard enough. But they played really well and we didn't play as well. And we got a close game out of it.

I don't know what happened on defense. We just have to work on defense and everything else will take care of itself.

Our defense isn't as good as it was last year at this point. But I think we can work hard and get it to be as good as last year's team. We had a wakeup call at St. Bonnies – that's what made us play the way we did last year. But I don't think we need that kind of wakeup call because most of the guys here were around for last year's wakeup call. We just have to get it together.

On relying too much on Okafor on defense

We can't do that – it gets Emeka in trouble sometimes with fouls because he can't do everything by himself. We have to do a better job of containing other guards, not allow penetration, and don't allow them to get easy passes inside to Emeka's man.

On missed easy shots/lay-ups

A lot of easy lay-ups were missed…But if we were to play defense, those baskets wouldn't have ever mattered

Were you surprised by how tough they played you?

No, because we think every team's going to play us tough because of the uniforms that we wear and the school we represent. So, we kind of expect it. But I expected us to play better on defense…They played really well. But we didn't play as well as we should have.

Denham Brown

Defense is a big thing in the team's mind. And we just have to do a better job on defense locking up guys and making sure we use 30 seconds of the clock and try and make them rush a shot. We just have to do that for 40 minutes of the game, and we don't even have to worry about offense. On defense we just have to lock down and keying on guys and getting done what we have to get done.

I just need to start getting back to how I did in preseason and in high school. I think I'm getting comfortable, but I just have to be more aggressive so I get to the point where I can be one of the guys out there who can put down a basket when we need it.

December 7, 2002

UConn vs. Wagner

Wagner Head Coach Dereck Whittenburg

My whole team, I think they did a good job. We were quick at some points, but I think we got good shots. We just need to do a little bit better job – you know, they got 55 rebounds…and maybe 20 of their points from put backs….But our kids hung in there with them. We played tough. And I’m proud of our kids.

They had no reason to get up for us. They have a great team, they’ve played other teams in our league. I hope that they would respect us now. I would love to get a Big East team to come to Wagner and play, and let’s see. Everybody who looked at the schedule said “Coach, you’re crazy. Why are you playing Connecticut?” Well, I really believe we had a chance. And that’s why everybody who sat in the stands were very quiet, and they thought “Well, this is another Saturday night blowout for the Connecticut people.” But our kids don’t think that.

Ever since I’ve been at Wagner we’ve played the toughest schedule in the league. We continue to go play a tough schedule because I want to get my kids mentally tough. And I think my kids showed that they’re tough and they can play with people. And I’m really proud of them, because we had a chance tonight. We just played against an opponent that’s bigger and stronger…and are probably going to be in the Final Four later on in the year.

But I would love to invite any Big East team – you guys can write that – to come to Wagner and play us any time, any day.

On Okafor

I still don’t think he knows how good he is. He’s good, but I don’t think he comes in with the presence of game….I think he can get 30 and 15 every night if he wants. I really do. I think he’s a terrific player.

On Gordon

Ben played great….Ben really bailed them out there at times. He hit some big shots in key stretches. We had a box and one on him and he still made a key shot down there. I think we were up 5 and they went up 8. That was a key shot.

On Dye

He only took 10 shots. That’s not enough shots, so he’ll be reprimanded. You can’t play for a shooting coach and not be able to shoot the ball as much as you can.