Huskies Suffer Conference
Loss to Boston College

Boxscore (.pdf)
Boxscore (.html)

STORRS, CT (February 1, 2003) -- Troy Bell scored 26 points to lead a potent offensive attack as Boston College handed 12th-ranked Connecticut its worst loss ever at Gampel Pavilion, 95-71, Saturday before the usual sellout crowd of 10,167.

The win drops the UConn record to 13-4, 4-2 in the BIG EAST Conference. The Eagles improve to 10-8, 3-4 in conference play.

Boston College seized control of the contest early, bolting from the gates to take a 13-1 lead just 4:47 into the game. Bell scored seven straight points in that key run. UConn was unable to stop the Eagles, as they never were able to get within single digits for the rest of the game. Boston College led 53-25 at the half, as Bell had 19 points and teammates Andrew Bryant and Ryan Sidney had 12 and 10 respectively in the opening stanza. The 28-point halftime deficit was the largest ever at Gampel Pavilion for UConn. The previous largest deficit at the half for a game at Gampel Pavilion for UConn was nine points, which happened twice. The most recent time was January 6, 2001 when the Huskies trailed St. John’s 40-31. Bryant connected on four of five three-point attempts for his 12 points. The Eagles shot 57% for the half, including seven of 14 from beyond the arc, while holding UConn to just 27% shooting in the first half.

The second half saw UConn improve offensively, shooting 51% and scoring 46 points after intermission, however, the Eagles were able to remain in control throughout.

Sophomore Ben Gordon (Mt. Vernon, NY) led the Huskies with 15 points, while junior point guard Taliek Brown (Queens, NY) scored 12. Sophomore center Emeka Okafor (Houston, TX) chipped in with 10 points and eight rebounds. The Huskies did receive solid bench play by junior Shamon Tooles (Coatesville, PA), who set a career-high with nine points and yanked down six rebounds.

Joining Bell in double figures were Craig Smith who scored 20, Sidney, who had 17, Bryant with 14 and Jermaine Watson with 10.

The loss sets the record for the worst loss ever for UConn at Gampel Pavilion, bettering the 96-73 loss against Villanova on February 18, 1995.

The Huskies will try and re-enter the win column when they travel to Blacksburg, VA, on Wednesday, February 5 to play league foe Virginia Tech. Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m. and WTXX- TV 20 will televise the game locally.

POSTGAME QUOTES

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun

Congratulations to Boston College. They came in and just kicked our (butt) mentally, physically and every other way. The game was over at the 13:48 mark – I didn’t know it but apparently our kids did – at 20 to 5. 11 to 1, those things happen, we’ve had it happen to us before, but Al had his kids well prepared. They came in, they bogarted us, pushed us, imposed their will upon us, and we backed away. I was disgusted with the way we played. We can lose games, teams are going to lose games and that’s OK, but I was disgusted with the way we played.

I give a lot of kudos on our side to Shamon Tooles for really battling. I don’t know why some of out other quote good players – I guess, that’s what they’re supposed to be – couldn’t battle. I have no idea why Emeka Okafor couldn’t block a shot. He’s always complaining about fouls, well, he didn’t have any today. I explained that to him after the game. I don’t know why when things went bad we just kept going farther and farther to shoot threes as opposed to running more offense to try to slow things down a little bit and stay within ourselves. But all that had to do with Al’s kids who came and just put a (butt)-whipping on us and played really tough, physical basketball and got us to back down. And we backed down and we never made a whimper and they beat us by 30 points in our own building….

We’ve played with some top-level teams that we’ve had, we’ve played with some teams that have been banged up, some teams that have been young, so teams that have had some things happen to them – I remember the Kansas game, in particular, where we had lost both Ricky and Kirk and didn’t lose the lead in the game until two minutes to go – but we gave in today, and that’s not a good thing for a basketball team to do as you start the month of February.

They dominated us in every aspect of the game. The only guy who even made an attempt to get a loose ball was Shamon. I was really disgusted, and I don’t mind using that word “disgusted” – with the way we played.

We were awful. We really were. And once again, Al’s kids had a hundred percent to do with that today. They just backed us down. They backed us down mentally, and that’s the thing that really disturbs me the most. All the points in the second half are so irrelevant that, if I could, I would change those stats and just say “you got no points, you didn’t get a blocked shot…”

They imposed their will upon us, and we allowed it to happen. And that’s something that, traditionally, hasn’t happened to our teams….I never saw it coming, and obviously I’m incredibly disappointed.

We were awful because the other team jumped on us, got into our face and made us stop playing. It’s kind of simple.

I don’t think that was a technical game at all. I think it was a bogart game. I think it was a team that imposed its will on another team, and the other team has two choices: Stand up to it or take it. And we took it. And we very rarely take it, but we took it. Therefore, I’m incredibly disappointed with our kids.

Tony Robertson

We didn’t play defense. We didn’t run at full speed. We weren’t running full speed. We dug ourselves a hole we couldn’t get out of. It wasn’t the same UConn team as the two games before this one. We were kind of slow. They were playing at one speed and we were playing at another. And that was the difference.

We just got handled tonight. They played really well, and we didn’t play well at all.

This was crazy. We shouldn’t lose to any team in our building by 30.

Can you make any sense out of this?

Losing like this doesn’t make any sense, especially when you’ve got good players on your team. We’ve been playing like a team the last couple games and for something like this to happen, there’s no excuse for it. It doesn’t make sense to me.

What were you thinking at halftime?

We never thought we were out of it. But that hole we dug for ourselves in the first half was ridiculous. We were down about 30. And it’s hard to come back when you’re down 30.

They seemed to bounce back pretty quick

They had all the answers. Every little run we tried to put together, they answered it with something. No other teams really done that to us, so we didn’t know how to deal with it maybe. I don’t know. But we shouldn’t be digging ourselves holes anyway.

Is this a game to forget about?

I’m not going to forget about it. Especially when we take the trip to Boston, we can’t forget about it. You have to remember what happened here. I hope it’s just a one-game thing, though.

Emeka Okafor

It was bound to happen. We just can’t keep on having these slow starts and expect to fight back each time. It’s Big East time now. Teams are going to get a lead and they’re going to keep it on you. We just have to go back and find out exactly what we did wrong and try to fix it.

It’s almost like we weren’t ready to play today and they were. They wanted to win, and they played like it. We were a step slow the whole game and we couldn’t really find our rhythm out there.

Stunned to be down so much in your own building?

Not really. We’ve been down before. Maybe deep down, I just thought we were eventually going to make a come back.

What did they do well to win?

We got caught up in a lot of screens. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint. We didn’t play in-your-face “d” like we normally do, like we need to. They got off to an early start and when a team like that gets rolling, it’s hard to stop them. It’s just like a big snowball – as it rolls down hill it builds up, it gets bigger and bigger, and it’s harder to stop. And that what happened tonight.

Have you lost your identity a little?

No. It was a minor step back. We just have to step back, re-evaluate ourselves, and come back strong. It’s not a thing for us to get discouraged. It’s not a state of emergency. We need to correct ourselves and come back at it.

Taliek Brown

I don’t even really know what to say about it, it’s so shocking.

It was really disappointing. We just didn’t play our hardest or give it our all. We didn’t do what we needed to do out there today.

Everybody has to come back with a different attitude. Come back with a different attitude…come back playing hard and be ready to play.

We just got off to a bad start…I guess when everyone got off to a bad start we started to get confused, then everything started running slow and we didn’t do what we needed to do out on the floor.

BC played real good. They hit a lot of their shots and they outplayed us.

We thought we could come back but as you see we didn’t come back. We just have to keep playing hard and put this one behind us….this is going to be a hard one to put behind us but we are going to have to and move on.

Ben Gordon

This is the first time something like this has happened in my basketball career. How we approach it is going to be all new to me. I don’t understand how we can come back from those two losses, then play our heart out and win those next two games….then come out today and look like we were the worst team in the country.

Boston College Head Coach Al Skinner
We were in a tough place and we were just trying to compete. We think we are a better club then we showed earlier in the season. Our guys have kind of focused in and paid attention to detail. It is a matter of us trying to improve and at least trying to be in the run in what is happening in this league.

On coming off of the Virginia Tech win
It allowed us to come in here with a clear conscious no baggage, we didn’t have to overcome anything, all we had to do was come in and focus on UConn. We had played well enough that we didn’t have to worry about how we were going to play (today).

The guys were really disappointed about the game we played here last year…at least how it turned out. That helped us be a little more focused.

On having trouble winning at Connecticut
UConn has been and is a very good basketball team. Since I’ve been at BC we haven’t always been that good….they’ve just been better than us and they deserved to win (in the past) and they have had some great teams. I don’t think I allow my kids to worry about the streak…that’s your job. It’s not an issue for me and I don’t make it an issue for my team. It is history. I’m not trying to recover from that, it is impossible. We’ve just got to take a little bit at a time. We were fortunate to play a very fine ballgame.

Our backs are a bit against the wall. We are just trying to get back, we are struggling. I think guys recognize that. So there is a sense of urgency on this team…we want to be a player in this league.

A year ago is not that long ago. We knew they took it from us last year and I was very much afraid that it could possible happen again. We knew they were going to remain aggressive, we knew they were going to attack us defensively, offensively drive the ball to the basket. We had to respond in the same matter. I was hoping that we would do that and we were fortunate to do that.