Gordon Pushes UConn Past St. Bonaventure

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HARTFORD, CT (January 2, 2003) -- BIG EAST Player of the Week Ben Gordon (Mt. Vernon, NY) scored 25 points to lead four Huskies in double figures as fifth-ranked Connecticut used a decisive 15-0 second half run to defeat St. Bonaventure Thursday at the Hartford Civic Center before a crowd of 15,889.

The win was UConn’s ninth straight to start the season, while the Bonnies drop to 5-7.

St. Bonaventure jumped out quickly, bolting to a 16-6 lead just 5:01 into the game, behind five points by Marques Green. The Huskies responded, taking the lead for good at 33-30 with 5:52 to play in the first half. UConn had balanced scoring in the opening 20 minutes as Gordon had 12, Rashad Anderson (Lakeland, FL) had 11 off the bench and Emeka Okafor (Houston, TX) and Denham Brown (Toronto, ON) had 10 apiece. The Huskies settled for a 52-42 halftime lead.

The Bonnies inched to within five, 56-51, with 15:14 to play before the Huskies blew the game open with their 15-0 spurt. Okafor started the run with back-to-back jumpers and Gordon followed with five straight points of his own and later drilled a long three-pointer. The run over 2:30 left the Huskies with an insurmountable 71-51 lead with 12:44 to play.

Gordon hit on eight of 15 shots from the field, and hit four of seven three pointers and also dished out seven assists. Okafor finished with 18 points, 14 rebounds and five blocks, his eighth double-double of the season. Anderson finished with 13 and Brown had 12. Junior point guard Taliek Brown (Queens, NY) had nine assists and eight points.

The Huskies continued their hot shooting, following up back-to-back 60% shooting efforts by connecting on 51% (35 of 69).

Green led St. Bonaventure with 18 points and a game-high 12 assists.

The Huskies will return to action of Tuesday, January 7, when they travel to Norman, OK to face nationally-ranked Oklahoma at the Lloyd Noble Center. Game time is set for 8:00 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally by ESPN2 as part of their Super Tuesday package.

QUOTES

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun
I was really pleased. Tonight we were stepping up to a level against a team that was much better than it’s 5 and 6 record….They’ve been such road warriors….I felt that they were one of the most dangerous teams we’ve faced this stretch. And yes, I felt that because of what they did last year.

Overall, I’m really, really pleased with the win. The start wasn’t very good, but I wasn’t as concerned if we could just settle in, because they were hyped up and both teams really wanted a piece of each other. And they were talking before the game a little more than normal. I told our kids as we went out to the floor “They can talk to you guys because they kicked your butt last year. There’s only one answer. The answer will be on the scoreboard at the end of the game.” I think there’s nothing wrong with good old-fashioned hostility. I think it’s good and healthy for everybody, as long as the game’s played cleanly and fairly. And the guys shook hands afterward and respected each other.

I have more respect for a team like St. Bonaventure, coming here and saying, basically “The hell with you. We beat your butt last year and we don’t mind going after you.” I kind of like that.

I was excited all day about playing this game. I thought they would be tough. I thought we had to make a couple of adjustments, which we did, to attack their match ups. And we put some points on the board.

The best offensive team we had on the floor, and this was the only real surprise of the night, was Denham, Rashad, Ben, Hilton and Emeka….I have to be pleased that we had 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores who were the best offensive guys that we had.

That one major factor that came out tonight, for me, was that mentally we were focused on what we had to do and our bench played a large role in what we had to do.

On Gordon
I think he did more than a superlative job (on Green).

On Armstrong
I thought that Hilton had his best game in a UConn uniform. With Oklahoma right around the corner, obviously, it’s good to have a guy with some size show up and give us something.

Emeka Okafor
It was a good turnout. This game’s been in our head for a year now, so we just wanted to come out here and just win. We wanted it bad and they wanted it bad also. But I guess we just were a little bit more thirsty for that win. We came out hungry and pulled it out.

What turned it around after the poor start?
We weren’t really worried. If we can came back from 30-9 against UMass, we can come back 10 points with the whole game to play. So we just kept our composure. Rashad came in and did his thing – hit threes with ease – and next thing you know we’re back in the game and then we’re up.

We wanted to make sure that we were prepared for this game…for anything that they were going to throw at us.

I know that we have really good shooters, so if I can’t do anything with the ball, then why not dish it out and let them score. Get to return the favor now and then.

Rashad Anderson
As this kind of up-and-down, 3 point shooting game your kind of game?

Every game is fun because I love to play. But this type is the kind of game I love.

On pre-game preparation
When he came to us wish the film, we just looked at what we had to do defensively and we came out and did it. In the first half, they made a couple buckets but we stepped it up in the second half.

Did you see them start to wilt with all the threes?
St. Bonaventure is a team that won’t quite. Down to the end, they’ll never quite. But we saw fear in their hearts towards the end.

Can you continue to live by the three point shot as the schedule picks up?
It doesn’t matter, I just come in and score. It doesn’t matter who is playing, I feel that I can do this against anybody.

Ben Gordon
Does playing a 3 pt. shooting team make you want to take more 3s?

It doesn’t really affect our offense. But it does pose a problem on defense because they kind of put shots up recklessly without having a conscience so it’s definitely difficult.

What changed it for you in the 1st half?
Marcus (Green) came out and played real well early. He got a lot of open shots and he was getting a lot of people involved. When we solved that problem, I think things went along well.

Is 3 pt. shooting contagious?
When you make 2 in a row, you’re definitely going to take the third one. And then when you miss you’re like, ‘maybe I’ll pass the next one.’

On the freshmen
They’ve been doing it up all year. They didn’t succumb to the pressure that St. Bonaventure threw. They knocked down big shots, especially Rashad. He kept us in in the beginning.

Do you ever sit back during a run like the 15-0 run and say ‘wow’?
Even while you’re in the midst of it, you’re like ‘damn, we’re hard to stop.’…we just have to do it for the whole 40 minutes.

On the upcoming Oklahoma game?
We’re looking forward to it…Come Tuesday we want to make up for last year.

On tonight’s game
Once our defense started to click, it helped our offense and our fast break and we were fine from there.

On know for the guys who were returning from last year it was definitely abo8ut vetting a payback. They came in and embarrassed us last year. We weren’t ready to play, and we just didn’t want that to happen again.

On Rashad shooting after being in the game 3 seconds
When he came on his recruiting trip, I knew from right there that this dude has no conscience. That’s his game. And when he’s scoring you don’t want to complain. You just have to let shooters shoot.

Denham Brown
On whether this was a payback game
To me, in the beginning, I didn’t really feel angry at the other team and wanting to go out and bust heads. But we got into a little scuffle in the beginning and that really got my emotions high. Not only me, it angered the whole team. We just wanted to go out there and destroy them like ‘we’re not joking with you’ and ‘this isn’t last year’s team.’ Caron and Johnnie leaving, that’s a big loss. But we have guys to counteract the loss of them and it showed beating them by 30.

I think I was playing soft, and not looking for what I could do, and not looking for my shot…I was feeding off of the guys around me. I have to start looking for my shot from now on. I’ll start looking for me to make plays for the other guys. I think that is going to come within the next couple of games. I’m going to make sure that it comes within the next couple of games. I practice it a lot. I think it is something that I need to put into my college game, instead of just being a perimeter shooter, on-dribble pull-up shooter…I think I can go to the hole and be aggressive.

When I get into that aggressive mode you are going to see the quickness and the things that I am capable of doing.

Hilton Armstrong
Coach has been telling me to just face the basket and try to make something happen, instead of always passing up my shot and looking for the pass.

I knew our defense was going to hold on and we were going to make something happen from it.

St. Bonaventure Head Coach Jan van Breda Kolff
I wish I could be here with better news as far as how we played, but unfortunately…I thought we played very well in the first 5 or 6 minutes and then we had some bad stretches. Some of our bad stretches were caused by Connecticut’s good performance on the defensive end, and they are a very good transition basketball team. They have a lot of weapons, they have a lot of very positive things that they’ve utilized and that’s why they are undefeated and ranked 5th in the country. So the credit has to go to them. But I think we are a better basketball team than we showed tonight. A lot of it had to do with them, but we didn’t play nearly as well as we are capable of and we are a little disappointed from that standpoint.

I felt we made the extra pass, made the shots, and we played intelligently. I thought our defense confused them at first. Then they brought Anderson off the bench and he made a couple of 3s that got them going. Then Gordon made a 3 and Denham Brown made a couple of 3s. It seemed like they were shooting the ball really well and that deflated us a little bit early on because we were doing a pretty good job defensively, it seemed like they hit a wave of 3s for a while…

Taliek Brown, to me, is the best in the country at pushing the ball up. As far as a transition point guard he is as good as it comes. They have great finishers.

Okafor is a great defensive rebounder. So that allows the wings to get out there and run.

Okafor is the most dominant defensive big man in the country. Okafor is improving everyday as a scorer. Defensive rebounding and blocking shots…there is no one better in the country. He clogs that lane up. He is a guy that is a tough one to deal with and we won’t see another one like him. Connecticut is obviously pleased that they have him for however many years that he ends up staying in college before he moves on to the next level. He is a special player. I’m sure Jim is happy that he has him.. fortunately we won’t play him again.

I think when we get into the A-10 schedule we will start to spend more and more time now that we open with 2 home games, we will have more practice time, we will start to solidify our defensive weaknesses that have been exposed in the past couple of games.