Boone Leads Huskies to Exhibition Win Over Bryant

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HARTFORD, CT (November 11, 2004) – Sophomore forward Josh Boone (Mt. Airy, Md.) scored 20 points off of the bench to lead four teammates in double figures as the University of Connecticut completed exhibition play with a 90-65 victory over Bryant University, Thursday night, before a crowd of 15,542 at the Hartford Civic Center.

For the second consecutive game the Huskies started slowly, battling to a 9-9 tie 4:05 into the contest. However, freshmen Rudy Gay (Baltimore, Md.) and Antonio Kellogg (Oakland, Calif.) scored six straight points to jump start the Huskies, and they raced out to a 51-34 lead at intermission.  Boone scored 12 points and Gay had 10 in the opening 20 minutes.  UConn shot 55% from the field, and out-rebounded the Bulldogs 33-13.

The Huskies were able to exploit their shorter opponent, finishing the contest with a 62-33 rebounding advantage.  Husky frontcourters Charlie Villanueva (Brooklyn, N.Y.) had 13 points, mostly in the paint, while Denham Brown (Toronto, Ont.) added 12 points.  Villanueva finished with a game-high 10 rebounds.  Also in double figures for the Huskies were junior guard Rashad Anderson (Lakeland, Fla.), who had 12, and Gay who finished with 11.

Starting point guard Marcus Williams (Los Angeles, Calif.) dished out a game-high nine assists, while committing just one turnover.  Junior Hilton Armstrong (Peekskill, N.Y.) starting for the injured Boone, scored eight points and grabbed seven rebounds.  Boone added five blocks for the Huskies.

Bryant was paced by John Williams, who scored 21, and Cullen McCarthy, who added 19.

The Huskies will open up defense of their 2004 National Championship on Saturday, November 20, when they play host to Buffalo at Gampel Pavilion in Storrs.  Tip-off is set for 7:00 p.m.

Post Game Quotes

Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun

We’ve changed our plans a little bit – we were going to give them two days off, but we’re going to go back and maybe start to practice tomorrow. Right now, we’re just not tough enough, physically or mentally, to complete a game. We had more talent than Max’s team and, therefore, we were able to have a bigger score than them. But beyond that, I was really disappointed with the mental shape of some of our guys and physical shape of some of our guys, and the fact that – in the second half, particularly – they didn’t dominate the game the way I like to see. The score could have been exactly the same – it doesn’t make any difference to me – but we didn’t dominate them.

We came out in the second half and really ran good offense – got a 25, 30 point lead, whatever it was – and then just really gave in to physical and mental fatigue. We’ll practice again tomorrow, with or without a basketball, for a couple of hours.

I’m really disappointed. Nothing to do with the points, nothing to do with the result of the game, but just with what my eyes saw. I didn’t see the type of physical and mental effort…that a Connecticut team has.

When you get 60 rebounds, 20 being offensive, you probably need to score a little more than we did. I know we scored a lot in the paint, but that’s because they finally were smart enough to throw the ball to Josh Boone.

Tomorrow, we will have an interesting practice.

When we pass the ball, good things happen. But when we just – when in doubt – chuck it up, bad things happen.

I can’t believe that a couple of our guys got thrown around. Ed Nelson, Charlie, some of those guys, got thrown around. What’s Pittsburgh going to do with them?

Denham would be the one guy that I would cite that I was very happy with. He was very good on defense, worked the whole game, and is in better shape than 99 and nine-tenths percent of the kids on the team.

Charlie Villanueva

On UConn appearing out of shape

I think it is just a 1 day thing. I think a lot of guys were tired…mentally. It doesn’t have anything to do with us being in shape…it is all mental. We can’t let that happen…we just have to learn from our mistakes.

On the Offense tonight

Our offense is called the primary break. We go up the court as fast as we can…fast break. But tonight there were 5 guys back so we had to get into our set offense. There are a lot of things we have to work on, but we’ll go into that at practice tomorrow and take care of those things.

On 4 exhibitions to go

These exhibitions are good for us. We can learn a lot from them and what we need to work on. I feel like the more games we play, the better we’re going to get.

Josh Boone

There was a lot we did wrong tonight. Maybe a positive was that we ran our offense a little bit better than we have been, but there were too many negatives tonight. We were out of shape. We didn’t get up and down the floor as much as we could. As coach probably told you, our shooting tailed off in the second half. We only shot 43% in the second half. We shot 55% in the first half. We can’t do that.

On UConn appearing out of shape

I thought coming in that we were going to be in great shape. But obviously we aren’t, and that just means we’re going to have to work a lot harder in practice, starting tomorrow…Their team was beating us down the floor on just about every occasion in the second half. We can’t have that happen, especially against teams in the Big East.

On scoring 20 points

Coach has been on me the last two years about scoring and actually shooting the ball, and tonight I just decided to do that a little bit more and my teammates found me.

I think it’s going to be a process with people finally deciding they’re going to have to step up and really become a leader on this team. We have four or five guys who can do it…but no one is that one true leader like Taliek was.

Marcus Williams

On Coach being upset

I understand that. I understood last year why he was upset. That’s just the winning attitude that he has. He just wants the best for us, so he’s going to do everything he has to do to get us to play.

Rashad Anderson

We just have to play harder. We played lethargic tonight a little bit at times. But we just have to play harder, that’s the bottom line. Everybody has to come ready to play.

We’re kind of down on ourselves right now. We know we have to come with more energy next Saturday and tomorrow in practice.

Rudy Gay

On first gametime experiences with Coach Calhoun

I’m not really surprised. Everybody but me and AJ have seen that side of him but you know you’ve got to expect it. A program doesn’t get like it is by having an easygoing coach. You have got to be firm and aggressive and show us exactly how it is supposed to be done.

On what he looks for in UConn but didn’t see tonight.

We let down defensively a lot. UConn teams in the past really never did that. We just want to push that and make sure we have that in the next game.

On playing with quiet players such as Denham Brown and Josh Boone

Players like them, you have to feed off of their game. They really are quiet but they’ll come out there and give you what you want offensively and defensively.