Huskies Roll Past Villanova; Advance to BIG EAST Tournament Final

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NEW YORK --- Junior guard Ben Gordon scored 29 points for the second-straight night and sophomore guard Rashad Anderson added 19 as the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team posted an 84-67 win over Villanova on Friday night in the semifinals of the 2004 BIG EAST Championship at Madison Square Garden.

The win by the Huskies sets up a Connecticut vs. Pittsburgh championship game for the third year in a row as the Huskies won the title in 2002 and the Panthers were victorious in ’03. Pittsburgh defeated Boston College by a 62-53 score in Friday night’s other semifinal. The victory by the Huskies improves their record to 26-6 on the season while the Wildcats fall to 16-16.

UConn now has an all-time record of 9-2 in BIG EAST semifinal games and is 5-3 all-time in championship games. The Huskies have played in six of the past seven BIG EAST finals. UConn will be making its ninth appearance in a title games – third most in league history behind Syracuse (11) and Georgetown (10). Pittsburgh has made three final game appearances and is 1-2 in those games.

Husky All-American and two-time BIG EAST Player of the Year Emeka Okafor missed his second-straight game due to a stress fracture in his back.

Senior guard Taliek Brown dished out 10 assists in the game to break both the UConn career and single-season record. Brown now has 683 career assists, besting the record of Tate George with 677 from 1987-90 while his 214 assists this season top the mark of 212 by Kevin Ollie in 1994-95 and Doron Sheffer in 1995-96.

Brown added 11 points in the win for his first double-double of the season and now has 12 double-figure assists games – a school record.

The Huskies led 37-24 at the half and opened up an 18-point lead, 42-24, as UConn started the second stanza with a field goal by Anderson and a three-point field goal by freshman forward Charlie Villaneuva. The pesky Wildcats would not go away and dominated the next six minutes of action. Villanova cut the UConn lead to five, 44-39, with 14:14 left to play and to five again with 12:09 left – this time a 48-43 score.

UConn then went on an impressive 15-2 run over the next three-and-a-half minutes to open the game back up again at 63-45 UConn. What made that 15-2 run even more impressive was the fact that 13 of the Huskies 15 points came from members of the freshmen and sophomore class.

Freshman forward Josh Boone posted six block shots in the game – the second highest for a freshman in a BIG EAST tournament game behind Georgetown’s Alzono Mourning with eight in 1989 against Boston College. Boone also had 11 points and 15 rebounds for his third double-double in the last nine games.

The game began as a tight affair as there were six league changes in the first six minutes of the game as UConn led 11-10 with 14:10 left to play. UConn then opened the first half up, leading by as many as 15 points (30-15) before settling for the 37-24 halftime lead.

Villanova was led in scoring by Randy Foye with 20 points while Curtis Sumpter and Jason Fraser each had 17.

POST GAME QUOTES
COACH JIM CALHOUN, TALIEK BROWN, JOSH BOONE AND BEN GORDON

JOHN PAQUETTE: Ben Gordon, Taliek Brown, Josh Boone, and Coach Jim Calhoun.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, as I said last night, how proud I was of the kids, I really couldn't be prouder. Villanova, as you know, when we played them down there, I think it was about a week and a half ago, gave us a hell of a game. We were very fortunate. Emeka made a tremendous block at the end to win the basketball game in overtime.

Without him tonight, we came out, and the kids just played so inspired, defensively. I thought we really Allan Ray is a tremendous player. For Taliek to hold him to 1 for 10, he's just a terrific player. Tremendous, phenomenal job for us.

Ben carried us on offense for two nights in a row, another 29. Every shot he made, it seemed like a dagger towards Villanova.

Josh is getting to be a pretty good freshman for us. He's coming along okay. Just that he didn't score tonight, and he committed three fouls. So we'll have to talk about that afterwards, but he played okay.

I couldn't be prouder of the kids. I think that sometimes adversity with us (sic), because I think we all recognize just how good Emeka is and how important he is, but we did put the challenge before the kids yesterday and after that, I haven't really had to say a word that we have other players on the team. Emeka says the same thing, "We have other players on this basketball team."

They get a great opportunity in these last couple days to show themselves. And, obviously, they've shown themselves exceptionally well.

We talked about a Saturday night in New York City, and we got ourselves a Saturday night in New York City.

I couldn't be prouder of our team. We beat a very good Villanova team. I said about Jay's team, the fact that they never were whole until now, Jason was hurt. They started the season off with all the telephone stuff, were disjointed. I thought they really played well in the tournament, their first two wins. We got them on the third night, but I thought we were just awfully good. We made a few mistakes, but otherwise, the energy we played with on defense back to back two nights was absolutely phenomenal. I couldn't be prouder of our basketball team.

Q. Coach, you referred last night to how many games you played here. You've got a chance to tie Coach Thompson and Georgetown. This is an important tournament for you. Tell me about it.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: I've had a couple I know this sounds strange, but I've actually had a couple arguments with a couple people I know that sounds very foreign to anybody who really knows me but about Bostonians and New England.

I have great love for what Dave Gavitt did for all of us going back to the BIG EAST. He changed us. It made us a national player. I was very fortunate to be at Northeastern University and finally we've got a conference to play in. We were able to make the NCAA tournament on a number of occasions because of the formation of the BIG EAST.

First I fought it, as usual, and found out I shouldn't fight something that's helping us so much as a mid major school to get to the NCAA tournament. That's helped everybody here in the East.

Then to get into the league that David started, now Mike runs, and to play against people that I know, people I respected when I first came to this league from Louie to John to Jimmy to PJ to Rick to all the guys that were in the league, it's just been always exceptionally special to me.

I get very, very upset when people say, "It's a meaningless tournament." It's not meaningless to me. I know it's not meaningless to Taliek Brown to come here to Madison square Garden. I know it's not meaningless for Ben, it's not meaningless to Josh, for any of us to go against the guys who are our neighbors, the guys that we battle against sometimes for, in Taliek's case, four years.

By the way, Taliek became our all time assist leader tonight, single season and career, and defensively was absolutely magnificent.

But it is special to me. It always has been. Just like the regular season, people said, "Well, it's not really important whether you win that game." It was important to us. Wasn't important of hurting Emeka, and we didn't, but it was very important to me. Winning the BIG EAST is very important to me. Winning the National Championship is more important, certainly. But this is important to our basketball team, to our program. We want to be as good a program as there is in this league.

Tomorrow night we'll have another chance to prove it against a team that's been the best team this year and won the regular season title.

Q. You said a couple times you questioned their toughness, that you have kids maybe you don't want to take home to dinner.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, no. I said they're one of the nicest groups of kids that I've ever been associated with. I'd take every single one of them home. I made a joke. Maybe sometimes and it was a joke , meant as a joke maybe there's a couple of guys you don't want to take home. I've had a couple of those, too, by the way (smiling).

I never really questioned their toughness, I just questioned our emotion, sometimes. The spirit we've displayed tonight, when I got into a huddle and Emeka came in, Ben was saying something Taliek grabbed a guy a couple games ago, and I couldn't be prouder. He grabbed a guy right by the shirt and he yelled at him. He called him some wonderful names. I thought, "Gee, I couldn't be prouder of what I created," you know what I'm saying? Isn't that what education is all about (laughter)?

That's the kind of thing.

I think their toughness, I've never questioned. We won 26 games. I know that some people don't think that's a great figure. Twenty six wins is a lot of wins, 26 wins is a lot of wins.

So what I've questioned sometimes is the fact that we seem to play sometimes it's not even blaise, we kind of play and win games and so on, lose games... And not that they don't get upset about losses, they've been very upset.

As the season has approached and as we've come down to the last five games, and we have started a little bit of a streak here where I think we've won seven of our last eight, we tell the kids it's our time of year. There's been a noticeable difference. A, they're having much more fun. Today, when we came to shoot around, they were screwing around in practice, and I just let it go as long as they possibly could. I wanted to see them enjoy playing basketball.

I think it's more that than it is a sense of toughness. We're plenty tough enough. It's just that sometimes we don't have the emotion and passion. I'm an emotional and passionate person. Taliek is probably the closest to me, although he'll never admit that. I wouldn't either if I was him (smiling).

Q. Ben, second night in a row you've gotten 29. Can you go a third night in a row?
BEN GORDON: I just want to win. It's not about the points. I'm just gonna try and do whatever it takes for us to win. Hopefully, if I do have another 29 point game tomorrow, it ends with a W.

Q. If you do, you'll set a new tournament record, surpassing Allen Iverson. Can you reflect on that.
BEN GORDON: Doesn't mean anything until we win right now. Like I said before, winning tomorrow is more important than setting any record.

COACH JIM CALHOUN: I kind of wish you hadn't said that (laughter). I don't want to have him down to a 4 point game and all of a sudden Ben decides he sees a record up there someplace.

Q. Is Emeka getting on you about messing with his Player of the Year candidacy?
BEN GORDON: No, I think he's a runaway with that one. Everybody knows Emeka is the most valuable and the best player in the country. I think the committee would be foolish or whoever votes for him not to give it to him.

Q. How does it feel to win so dominatingly without him?
BEN GORDON: It's just a sign of how deep we are, how much other players we have. Any time you can play well and win without the most valuable player is really encouraging for your team.

Q. Jim, how troublesome was it for you when Villanueva suffers these injuries, and what is the extent of it and what is the impact?
COACH JIM CALHOUN: He's been X rayed. And X rays, just so you know an update, I know that I have to get out quick as I can, quickly, quickly, the X ray shows fine.

Last time they told me, I didn't tell the athlete. Unfortunately, I'm not a doctor. When I said there was no change, there was no change. He's had a stress fracture all year. If you don't like that, tough shit, okay.

How could I ever get in an argument with anybody? I can't understand that, but...

Your question again (laughter)? I've been thinking about this all day, so go ahead.

Q. It was about the extent of the injury.
COACH JIM CALHOUN: Well, everybody said how deep we were. I said, you know "How are you going to find room to play everybody?"

We looked up, when Charlie left, we had seven scholarship players; we dressed eight tonight, eight scholarship players.

And, you know, Shamon Tooles, 6'5 power forward stepped in. Hilton Armstrong, kid doesn't play very much. I really thought that Josh, in all honesty we've had some very good centers in this league; Emeka, we've had. Was a dominating presence in the middle. I think, quite frankly, and I think both guys would probably admit it ; I won't. Josh would tell him, we're going to take this back, this is just for publication, not for real, but was tremendously dominating in a basketball game.

Not only did he block five, six, seven shots, get 15, 16 rebounds, he was dominating in the middle of the game. Quite frankly, it alleviated an awful lot of our problems. If he was in foul trouble, I think we'd have a lot more problems than we did.

Q. For Ben and Taliek, this is the third straight year Connecticut and Pittsburgh meet for this championship. That's never happened in 25 years of BIG EAST play. Can you talk about the rivalry or sense you get that's developing between these two programs?
TALIEK BROWN: I think it's a big rivalry between us two. I think our team, we, like, really hate them, you know (laughing).

That's all we do when we play them, they play real tough, they play the way we play, they like to run, they just play real physical. It's like a battle when we get out there. We just feel like this is the real championship. They beat us once, we beat them once. For me, this is my senior year so this where I end it, right here, so we'll have to get a win.

Q. Top that, Ben.
BEN GORDON: Like he said before, you know, this is our third year we're gonna be playing them. I think kind of before the season, both teams, you know, we have it in our minds, "All right, we're gonna be playing Connecticut Pittsburgh at the end of the season." Always ends out that way.

I remember saying to one of their players after we lost to them at their place, "I'll see you in the tournament."

That's the same thing that happened my sophomore year. It always ends up that way. It's going to be a real good game tomorrow.

Q. Reflect on the assist record, Taliek, what it means for you to get it on this floor. TALIEK BROWN: It means a lot to get the assist record on this floor. This is the mecca of basketball, it's where I'm from. So just to get the record in The Garden, everybody would dream of doing something like that. Just I'm happy for myself. I did something while I was here for four years.

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