No. 14 Huskies Come Up Short against No. 2 North Carolina, 77-70
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HARTFORD, CT (February 13, 2005) – Jawad Williams scored 17
points to lead three teammates in double figures as 2nd-ranked North
Carolina defeated 14th-ranked Connecticut, 77-70, Sunday afternoon before a
sellout crowd of 16,294 at the Hartford Civic Center.
The defeat, which stopped a three-game winning streak for
the Huskies, drops the UConn record to 15-6. The Tar Heels improve to 20-3.
Connecticut, playing without leading scorer Rashad
Anderson (Lakeland, Fla.), out with a leg infection, was also short-handed
as starting point guard Marcus Williams (Los Angeles, Calif.) played with
strep throat. But the Huskies battled all game long, leading as late as 44-42
with 14:14 to play. However, North Carolina forced 22 turnovers and was able to
wear UConn down with a 23-10 run midway through the second half, as Raymond
Felton scored nine points and Rashad McCants added seven.
UConn had one last run in them, whittling an 11-point
deficit (66-55 with 6:56 to play), down to four at 67-63 on a Williams lay-up
with 3:58 to play, but could get no closer the rest of the way.
The Huskies were led by Williams, who despite his illness,
set a career-high with 18 points, including 12 in a terrific first half. The
BIG EAST’s leading assist man passed out five helpers, and made seven of 14
shots from the field, but also had a career-high seven turnovers. Sophomore
center Josh Boone (Mt. Airy, Md.) had a solid game in the pivot for
UConn. He scored 16 points and yanked down a team-best 11 rebounds in recording
his 10th double-double of the season.
Also in double figures for UConn were Denham Brown
(Toronto, Ont.), who had 15, and freshman Rudy Gay (Baltimore, Md.) who
chipped in with 13. Gay and Boone each had four of the Huskies’ 16 blocked
shots.
The first half was played a frenetic pace, with lots of
turnovers and missed shots before the Huskies asserted themselves and went on a
12-2 run to turn a 15-12 deficit into their biggest lead of the game at seven,
at 24-17. Williams was the key player in that run, scoring the first five on
two free throws and a three-pointer and also added a high arcing jumper over
McCants. UConn led at intermission, 34-31.
Sean May and Felton each scored 16 points for the Tar
Heels, while McCants finished with 15. May had a game-high 13 rebounds, while
Felton had a game-best 10 assists.
The Huskies return to action on Tuesday, February 15, when
they travel to Providence, R.I. to play league foe Providence. Game time is set
for 7:00 p.m. and the game will be televised by ESPN-2.
POST GAME QUOTES
Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun
Congratulations to Carolina. I’ve been reading an awful lot about them in our
local newspapers about how good they are. They certainly are a terrific
basketball team, and really well coached….Felton appears to be as good a player
as there is in the country….For my money, Felton is as good a point guard as
I’ve seen. Today, he was impeccable….I thought in the first half, Marcus matched
him. In the second half, Felton won the battle, certainly.
The game was decided, probably, unlike I thought it would be decided. I
thought the game might be decided on the boards. We did a good job there – we
competed well. Secondly, I thought the game might be decided because their fast
break is so good….The game was decided because we weren’t mentally tough enough
to stay within our offense. Just as we made some terrific passes, in the second
half we made some horrendous passes that led to fast break lay-ups, dunks, etc.
And that’s the ballgame. The difference in the game was just turnovers by us,
and lack of mental toughness.
They’re a really terrific team. They’re a team that can win a national
championship. Their execution was impeccable.
I thought we competed as well as we possibly could, but we came apart
ball-handling wise. As opposed to telling you what we didn’t do, maybe I should
start talking about what they did defensively – getting up into our stuff and
tried to make us make plays. We needed weapons to make plays. Generally
speaking, over the years, we’ve had kids that could go by you and make plays. I
thought Rudy got tired. We played him for 39 minutes, he probably should have
been. Marcus got tired in the second half, I thought. And we couldn’t make those
kind of plays.
Josh, I think, played well, but I thought that our frontcourt had to get us
more points.
We couldn’t make enough plays in the second half. Matter of fact, most of the
plays we made were poor. Poor decisions, and we turned the ball over too many
times. I’m certainly disappointed with the fact that we turned the ball over so
many times, and that we gave in to great defense.
North Carolina Head Coach Roy Williams
"Needless to say we feel a heck of a lot better than we did Wednesday
night. I talked a great deal about getting that bad taste out of my mouth. We
did some nice things today. I think our competitiveness…it was not a pretty
game…you look down there and they blocked 16 shots, it’s hard to shoot a good %
when they are blocking that many shots. To me the key to the game in the second
half was that we executed much better on the offensive end and we got more
turnovers. That was a key thing that killed us the other night in Durham we had
23 turnovers…to only turn it over 4 times in the second half tonight was big for
us. Sean May was important to us. I thought Raymond Felton was really big for
us in the second half as well. We feel extremely fortunate. I’ve told a lot of
people that our team can be really pretty. We can run up and down the court
really fast, we can throw great passes and dunks and make 3pt shots. But I think
to be a team that is as good as you can be you have got to be competitive, you
have to be tough, you have to win some games that are ugly. I think our
competitiveness I was really pleased with this.
We were down 24-17."
"I liked our competitiveness and I liked our composure down
the stretch. Needless to say about 179 degrees from away from where I felt
Wednesday night. I don’t feel very good (physically) but mentally I feel like a
queen. "
Connecticut Player Post-Game Quotes
Rudy Gay
On if the team was tired: I wasn’t tired. We weren’t tired. Coach gets us
ready for these kinds of things. When it comes down to it, you have to get out
there and play.
On the difference in the game? I guess we just have to come out there
and play the whole game like we start it.
On UNC’s 3pt shooting: It hurt us a lot; they are a good shooting
team. Basically everybody on the court can shoot. We made a couple of bad
decisions like over-helping and stuff and that also cost us the game, we just
had to think…they are older and that’s not just an excuse but they played a lot
of defense and that’s also what cost us.
On UNC: We believe they are one of the best, along with Illinois. It
showed us that we can play with anybody. I think we controlled our own destiny
in that game and I don’t think we came out like we should have.
Josh Boone
Was the difference between the 1st and 2nd half due to North Carolina’s
play or UConn’s play?
It was a little bit of both. They’re one of the best pressure teams in the
country. But also, we let them get into our heads. We just kept making mental
error after mental error and eventually it came back to catch up with us. We had
22 turnovers and they had 25 points off them – that was the difference in the
game right there.
Was their defensive pressure the key?
They did have good pressure, but like I said we just made a couple mental
mistakes. We’ve played against teams that put pressure on us, but tonight it was
just a different story. We just started turning the ball over.
On not having Rashad Anderson in the lineup
Of course we’re going to miss Rashad, he’s our leading scorer. But that’s
still no excuse. We still should have had a better result than this.
Was North Carolina’s experience a factor?
I don’t think experience was really a factor. Well, maybe down the stretch,
when they made a couple key plays and we didn’t, that could have been
experience. But I think we put just as much effort as them into the game.
What do you learn from this game that you can apply in the future?
We must be more careful with the ball, just stop turning the ball over. That
is the one thing today that really lost us the game. We outrebounded them, were
even with them in fast break points, it’s just we turned the ball over.
On Marcus Williams’ play
Once again, Marcus was great. He was playing great defense. He was scoring
the ball. He was really trying to get us into our offense and he was breaking
their pressure. We can’t really ask more from a guy, especially when he’s sick.
Denham Brown
This game shows where we are as a team. It’s the little things – a couple of
missed foul, one-on-ones, defensive rebounds off their missed foul shots. I
don’t think they are any better or any worse than us. It’s just the little
things they were able to do more than us.
On how missing Rashad Anderson impacted the team
It was leadership. Obviously his scoring is big, but he’s that next guy
that’s another junior on the court. He’s really poised on the court.
On missing Rashad Anderson
We were supposed to win the game regardless of Rashad or not. I think that’s
how talented we are. I think we’re growing as a team. When Rashad comes back, I
think that’s going to be a bonus on our behalf. We’re still growing. But we’re
capable of playing teams like Carolina with a man short. Missing a guy like
Rashad, who scores over 14 points a game, I think that really shows what kind of
team we are and what kind of team we’re going to be.
Antonio Kellogg
On absence of Rashad: He’s a key player to our team, but for this
particular game we could have used him…but we didn’t need him to win. Everybody
played hard; it just came down to a couple of plays. If Rashad was here he could
have helped us, but overall we didn’t need him to be able to win, we were plenty
good enough to win, we just didn’t get the job done.
We wanted to beat them and set the tone. We were on a 3 game winning-streak;
this would have put us over the hump. Good thing it was not a league game. It
was just a game to show where we are. We thought we were better than were. We
came out blazing. We just have to tighten a few things up and we will be
alright.
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