Huskies Fall to Boston College, 75-70, in BIG EAST Opener

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HARTFORD, Conn. (January 5, 2005) - Jared Dudley scored 17 points, made a crucial late-game steal and drained two key free throws with 21.9 seconds to play as 25^th-ranked Boston College held off No. 9 Connecticut, 75-70, Wednesday evening before a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the Hartford Civic Center.

The loss, the Huskies’ first after a four-game winning streak, drops the UConn record to 8-2. The Eagles improve to 12-0. The game marked the BIG EAST opener for both schools.

Boston College had rallied for a 61-51 lead with 7:47 to play before UConn mounted a furious comeback. Sophomore center Josh Boone (Mt. Airy, Md.) tipped in his own missed shot to start off a 19-9 run that ended with the game tied at 70 with 56 seconds to play. Junior Rashad Anderson (Lakeland, Fla.) made two of three free throws to knot the score. Boston College worked the ball inside and Boone fouled BC’s leading scorer Craig Smith, who made both free throws to give the Eagles a two-point advantage. After Dudley forced an UConn turnover, he made both free throws to ice the contest for Boston College.

Boone was the key offensive performer all night for UConn. He had game-high totals of 18 points and 15 rebounds in recording his eighth double-double of the season, and his fifth in succession. Anderson scored 15 points, while freshman Rudy Gay (Baltimore, Md.) added 13 for UConn.

The early portion of the first half was played at a frenetic pace, while the second half of the opening period was foul-filled. Boone scored six points to key an 11-2 run to end the half with UConn ahead, 37-30. The opening twenty minutes saw the two teams combine for 23 fouls and 26 free-throw attempts.

Boston College seemed to take control of the game in the second half despite having Smith play only 17 minutes due to foul trouble. Dudley scored seven points in the midst of a 22-7 Eagle run that saw Boston College turn a 44-39 deficit into a that 61-51 lead.

Sophomore Charlie Villanueva (Brooklyn, N.Y.) scored eight points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Huskies.  He also blocked four of UConn’s 10 shots. The Huskies grabbed 20 offensive rebounds, but were able to convert them onto just 14 second-chance points.

The Huskies will take to the road where they will play league foe Georgetown on Saturday, January 8. Game time is set for noon, and the game will be televised locally by Fox-61.

POST GAME QUOTES

Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun

Well, it’s certainly not the way we wanted to start out the Big East season. Congratulations to Al and his team. I thought they came in, fell down, got into foul trouble with Smith – who’s a terrific basketball player, obviously – but that didn’t make any difference. They came, they saw, they just took the game away from us, with loose balls, points in the paint – they had 26 points in the paint in the second half with a team that was outsized by us, but certainly not out-toughed by us.

The way we lost the game is very, very difficult for us. We threw a couple of bad passes, got stripped at half court, and did a couple of things that, over the years, we haven’t done. This is twice that we’ve had this happened to us. When adversity has hit, we’ve had a tough time with it.

We’re going to have to go back to practice, actually set screens and be a little physically tougher and mentally tougher.

We lost this game because we had an experienced team come in here and show us how to win, and they won the game and we didn’t. We lost the game. BC certainly beat us and should be congratulated for that.

I’ve only done this year at UConn for 19 years – very few teams could come in here and just take a game away from us, and have us allow a game to be taken away from us, and that’s disappointing.

I’m shocked by how we played…some of it’s youth, some of it’s not being mentally tough enough to handling a situation – that’s the most disappointing part. And we’re going to have to either solve that or suffer the consequences.

Josh gave it what he had. After that, I’d have to search to find a guy….

We really suffer from perimeter play. We tried the two young guards together, but that didn’t work.

I saw Dudley just continue to post us up and have his way in the paint. I knew something was wrong.

Boston College Head Coach Al Skinner Post-Game Quotes

On playing without Craig Smith (foul trouble)

"We play a lot of games without him. Obviously we are a great team with him, but we’ve played enough games without him to know how to play. So it is really not a big issue for us. We just have to go through some different sets. Our execution in the second half was great. It allowed us to continually get good shots and a lot of hustle plays out there by us made the difference. We did a decent job defending.  We’ve played a lot of games without Craig, not that you want to, but there were stretches were we have and have had success. There are other good players on the floor. We know what we want to do when he is off the floor. Some of our perimeter people didn’t have the game we had hoped. Jared had a tremendous game creating offense and handling the ball. It really was a team effort. We moved the basketball, got the shots we wanted. I told the guys in the locker room I could only think of a couple of possessions were the ball didn’t go where we wanted it to go. Guys really showed some patience on the offensive end…our shooting percentage in the second half is an indication of that."

"We have had some pretty ridiculous games….we have been in close games. We know that there have been stretches where we’ve played poorly. We just have to regroup and play it the right way. It is not new to us, I’m not excited about it as a coach, but it is not new to us. We have learned to bounce back. What guys really start to do on the floor is they start to communicate to each other, talk to each other about how to make the plays better, how to defend better, how to run the offense better so those mistakes don’t continue to happen. I think we only had 3 turnovers in the second half and that was extremely important for us."

On what the most important thing is when playing UConn 

"We couldn’t do both. We cut down on their transition baskets, and they rebound the hell out of the ball. I thought we cut down on some of their transition, but I don’t think we rebounded the ball as well as we needed. It is hard to do both of those things to that team. Because they rebounded the ball so well is why they stayed in the game and we were struggling. We did cut down on transition which was important for us. If you are going to do both it takes away a lot of their offense but I don’t’ know anybody who is going to do both unless it is the Knicks."

On if he will miss playing UConn

"Yes, I’m going to miss playing a lot of teams in this league, but right now we still have to play them, so in all honesty I’m really not thinking about that. Our focus is on what we have to do in this league, there are some great teams in this league and we have to be prepared. There are no weak teams, there are no bad teams, and the night you take off is the night you are going to lose. I don’t have the luxury to think about what the future is. I’m just concentrating right now on our next opponent who is Providence."

On calling timeout when Rashad Anderson was shooting FT

"I had a play that I wanted to run, I didn’t think about calling it just to freeze him, that wasn’t what the plan was. It was just a 1 point ballgame then so it was important for us to still go down and score so I wanted us to be able to have a play prepared if he did miss it and be ready to play, rather than having them come down and try to communicate."

"That’s the way we play. What you saw tonight is the way we play. We didn’t do anything differently tonight than we’ve done all season long. It is just another league game it really is. One league game is just as important as another whether it is UConn, Syracuse or Rutgers. They all have the same value and you’ve got to win those games. Maybe in March it will have some significance, but right now you’ve got to win as many games as you possibly can and anytime you can go on the road and get a win at anyone else’s building it is an outstanding effort and a great win so we are fortunate to come away with a win tonight."

On Jermaine Watson’s steal

"Jermaine is a very aggressive player for us, probably our most aggressive player.  He is always thinking attack, attack, attack and it paid off for him. Actually I think most people thought he was going to take the ball away. He is just very focused and very determined that way. Defensively he is a very good defensive player. I think Williams was paying attention to the offense and not the basketball at that time."

Connecticut Player Post Game Quotes

Rashad Anderson

On the 3 pointer with 13 seconds left

I was just trying to get a shot, a score, or a bucket.

What was the plan coming out of the time out at the end of the game?

The plan was to get a shot or a lay-up, 2 or 3, take either or.

On the Marcus Williams’ turnover with 22 seconds left

I think the ball slipped out of Marcus’ hand a little bit. But we have to make plays down the stretch.

Did B.C. ice you with the time out before you took your last free throw?

No, I just have to concentrate more. I have to step up and hit that shot.

We didn’t execute down the last couple of minutes. We didn’t get a couple of stops down the stretch that could have held off B.C. It was just lackadaisical. We didn’t execute down the stretch.

Is executing down the stretch something you have to learn again, especially the new guys?

Without question. It’s not even the new guys – it’s us as a team. We know what we have to do, we have to get back to the drawing board.

Do you feel like you let one get away?

That game could have gone either way, but we didn’t play our best game.

Will it be tough to bounce back this weekend?

No, we’ll just shake it off, learn from your mistakes and go on. You don’t linger on the loss. Even though it’s in the back of your mind, you hate to lose; you have to learn from your mistakes.

Marcus Williams

Talk about the turnover with the missed pass to Charlie with 22 seconds left

I was focused on getting the ball into Charlie, and I wasn’t looking around at everybody. I think Rashad was wide open in the corner, but I was too focused on getting the ball to Charlie.

What did Coach say in the locker room after the game?

They played 40 minutes, and we waited until the last 5 minutes to come out and play. We made some good plays and then we turned around and made some bad decisions.

What will you have to do better in the future?

When we get down like that, we just have to have poise. We have to stay with our offense and play defense the whole game.

On the turnover at the end of the game

It was a good defensive play. I tried to go left to right and he didn’t go for it, he stayed there.

Charlie Villanueva

We just have to execute down the stretch and we didn’t. BC came ready to play. When they saw Smith out, their eyes lit up. They wanted to play even harder – 2 times harder.

On Craig Smith

He only played 17 or 17 minutes and he had 16 or 17 points. He’s a hell of a player. We just had to contain him, that was the game plan.

Were you surprised that you didn’t take advantage of Smith being on the bench?

I was definitely surprised. We just have to buckle down and play defense. It was more of a mental game because we saw him on the bench and probably got too excited.

Josh Boone

It was really that they out-executed us. They made plays when they needed to. We made a couple of mistakes down the stretch, and it ended up coming back at the end.

We made a lot of mistakes, not just in the 2nd half but also in the 1st half. We came out and didn’t play well in the beginning of the game and that set the tone for the game.

Rudy Gay

I felt as though we were in it to the end, but then they got that adrenaline burst, but we couldn’t respond.

On mood in locker room

Coach let us know that in the end, in the stretch, we’ve got to pull through and make better decisions.

On bad decisions or experience

Experience. That comes with experience, knowing what to do down the stretch because you’ve been in that situation before. But we’re a young team, we have time to regroup, we have a lot of other games, a lot of time to prove ourselves.

On not being able to make stops

I don’t know if it was stops. They are a veteran team, they knew what they were doing they’ve been in that situation before. I know I haven’t been there on a collegiate level and a lot of other people haven’t either. It is just something you learn from.

On Jared Dudley in the second half

He was tough, it was something we should have been ready for, but sometimes the other team does things that you can’t respond to.

Surprised at how well they played without Craig Smith

I was surprised at us not taking advantage of that. We had him out and we really could not capitalize on that.

Ed Nelson

The crowd was great, they were behind us the whole way.

It was a physical game, we’ve got to fight through those.

On frustrating with Craig Smith out

It was frustrating. When their top scorer is out for the majority of the game, you’ve got to capitalize on that. You get tired of saying that you can learn from a loss. This is tough…we can’t learn from this…you can’t let games go. But when we step on the court tomorrow at practice we’ll be thinking about our next game…we’re 8-2 right now and we know we are a talented group and we’re going to play hard.