Men's Basketball Faces Seton Hall on
Senior Night at Gampel

STORRS, CT (March 1) – The Connecticut men’s basketball team will play in its last regular season home game on Monday night when the eighth-ranked Huskies play host to Seton Hall at Gampel Pavilion. Game time is set for 7:00 pm and will be televised nationally on ESPN as part of ‘Big Monday’.

The Huskies are 23-5 on the season and 11-3 in the BIG EAST. UConn is in a three-way tie with Providence and Pittsburgh in the BIG EAST standings after the Panthers fell to Syracuse in overtime on Sunday. Providence and Pittsburgh will face off on Tuesday night. Seton Hall is 19-7 overall and stands in fourth place with a 9-5 record in the league.

“Seton Hall is a true test for us tomorrow night. We are going to have to play some good basketball. I realize Seton Hall is a good team. I like the fact that they are tough, they have some arrogance about them,” said UConn head coach Jim Calhoun. “(Andre) Barrett is really tough to match-up with, Whitney gives them something that maybe Villanova did not have, he is a tough inside physical presence.”

UConn and Seton Hall will meet for the 52nd time dating back to the 1916-1917 season. Connecticut has won 16 of the last 18 meetings and most recently defeated Seton Hall on March 13, 2003 in the quarterfinals of the BIG EAST Championship. Calhoun owns a 22-12 record against Seton Hall in his 18 years at UConn.

Tonight's game will feature the pre-game honoring of eight members of the UConn Basketball program who will receive their degrees this year. Seniors Taliek Brown, Shamon Tooles, Justin Evanovich and Ryan Swaller will be joined by junior Emeka Okafor in receiving their framed jerseys in pre-game ceremonies. All five Huskies will walk in commencement ceremonies this coming May. Three Husky managers will also receive recognition Monday night. John Minton, Matt Fraulino and head manager Marc Budkofsky will also receive their degrees this year.

“Taliek has been the guy that continues to win and continues to gut. Saturday he stayed with the plays and made a tremendous basket late in the game. He gives us everything we can possibly have. He may not be the prettiest point guard I ever had, but he may end up being the guy with the most assists (at UConn),” said Calhoun. “Taliek and I have gone through an awful lot together as far as him truly understanding. He will graduate in May and it will truly be a tremendous moment for me.”

“Emeka will be receiving his jersey tonight,” said Calhoun. “Saturday was another day in his career of super plays. He is really so special in every single way that I don’t think that there is any doubt in my mind that when you name the best guys that ever put a uniform on here…I think to the institution he is no exception.”

“Shamon has been a rock, he really has been somebody. There has never been a kid that sprints to the scorers table like him, he is so enthusiastic whether it be one second or 10 minutes,” said Calhoun. “When you talk about a kid that is really dedicated to his team, he could have gone other places, but he came here. I think in many ways he has become the voice of emotion for the team, a storyteller about the Carons (Butler) and some of the guys that the younger kids don’t know about.”

“Justin Evanovich knows more about the game than anybody on the team,” said Calhoun. “And Ryan Swaller is one of the toughest kids on the team right now. I tell you every bruise Rashad (Anderson) and Denham (Brown) have on them, Ryan has caused 70 percent of them. He is an ideal kid to have. Those kinds of kids end up being rocks for us. We are fortunate to have tremendous walk-ons that we have kept for two or three years with the program.”

The Huskies have now won four straight games including a thrilling 75-74 overtime victory over Villanova on Saturday afternoon. UConn has won at least 10 BIG EAST league games in nine of the last 11 years. Connecticut continues to rank No. 1 in the nation in field goal percentage defense, rebound margin and blocked shots.

Brown and Okafor are both steadily moving toward single season record totals in the assists and blocked shot category, respectively. Brown has 191 assists in 2003-04. The UConn record is 212, held by Kevin Ollie (1994-95) and Doron Sheffer (1995-96). Okafor has blocked 124 shots this season, No. 3 in UConn history behind only his sophomore (156 in 2002-03) and freshman (138 in 2001-02) totals. As a team, UConn has blocked 251 shots on the year and will soon pass last season’s record total of 253.

Brown leads the team and the BIG EAST at 6.8 assists per game, which would also rank as the top single season assist average in UConn basketball history. Brown commits only 2.3 turnovers per game and along with his 6.8 assists, he holds a 3.0 assist/turnover ratio. In his four years at Connecticut, Brown has a winning record of 93-32, including two BIG EAST regular season titles, one BIG EAST Championship and is on his way to three NCAA Tournament berths.

“The four years went real quick and I had a great time. I just want to go out with a bang for this last game,” said Brown. “This whole year I have been talking about how I just got here, how this year went by so quick and now it is almost over. I learned a lot, I grew up and matured a lot. I learned how to become a man and live on my own.”

Okafor is averaging 19.1 points, 11.5 rebounds and 4.6 blocked shots per game in 2003-04. Okafor leads the country in blocked shots, is third in the nation in rebounding and No. 17 in field goal percentage. He leads the country with 18 double-doubles in 28 games played, and he has 20 double-figure rebound games. Okafor is only the 14th player in NCAA history to record 400 career blocked shots and now has 418 on his career, moving into 12th place.

After tonight’s match-up against Connecticut, Seton Hall has one game left on its schedule which is at Rutgers on Saturday. Of Seton Hall’s five conference losses, the Pirates have only lost by five or less points. With one more conference win this season, the Pirates will have consecutive double-figure BIG EAST victory totals for only the second time in their league history as Seton Hall posted a 10-6 league record in 2002-03. Seton Hall is 3-1 against ranked teams in 2003-04 with wins coming against No. 3 Pittsburgh, No. 13 Syracuse and No. 23 Providence.

“Seton Hall is more wingish as apposed to having true guards that could blow by you. John Allen is not going to blow by you, he is going to shoot the ball,” said Calhoun. “They are a team that beyond (Kelly) Whitney doesn’t play another true post, they very rarely play two post-men together, two really big guys together. They will create less problems but they are a tighter team defensively, they rebound the basketball.”

Barrett leads three other Pirates in double-figure scoring with 17.6 points per game. He has a team-best 6.1 assist per game and is second in the BIG EAST. Kelly Whitney is scoring 12.8 points per game and leads the team with 6.9 per contest. John Allen and J.R. Morris are both scoring in double-figures at 10.8 and 10.4, respectively.

“We have to stay focused. My main goal is to stay focused and think about Seton Hall,” said Brown. “They have a great guard in Andre Barrett, so we are going to try to have to slow him and if we can do that, we can slow the team down a little bit. He has the ball 80 percent of the time and if we can slow him down, we should be in good shape.”

Seton Hall is headed by third-year coach Louis Orr. He holds a record of 48-38 at Seton Hall and spent one season at Siena (20-11) before heading to East Rutherford, N.J.