Villanueva, Williams Lead No. 17/19 UConn Past Notre Dame

HARTFORD, Conn. (Feb. 21, 2005) – Charlie Villanueva (Brooklyn, N.Y.) scored 25 points and Marcus Williams (Los Angeles, Calif.) narrowly missed his first career triple-double as No. 17/19 Connecticut defeated Notre Dame, 88-74, Monday evening before a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the Hartford Civic Center. 

The win, UConn’s third in a row, improves the Huskies’ record to 18-6, 10-3 in the BIG EAST Conference. The Fighting Irish drop to 16-8, 8-6.

Villanueva was the main beneficiary as the UConn continually pounded the ball inside, and the Huskies responded with 42 points in the paint and shot an efficient 53% (34 of 64) from the field. Villanueva made nine of 14 field goal attempts in posting his third straight 20-plus point scoring effort, and his fourth in five outings. 

Williams was brilliant in running the point for UConn, scoring 17 points, dishing out 12 assists and grabbing a game- and career-high nine rebounds. For Williams it was his sixth double-digit assist effort of the campaign. Junior forward Denham Brown (Toronto, Ont.) continued his strong play of late, connecting for 18 points on seven-of-14 shots, and two of three from three-point range.

Freshman Antonio Kellogg (Oakland, Calif.), had one of his most impressive performances of his UConn career, scoring nine points in 16 efficient minutes. Sophomore Josh Boone (Mt. Airy, Md.) had nine points and eight rebounds, while freshman Rudy Gay (Baltimore, Md.) had six points and seven rebounds.

The Huskies took control of the contest on the strength of a 23-11 run to end the first half. Williams was the catalyst of the big spurt, scoring eight points, as UConn took a 45-32 lead into the locker room at the half.

Notre Dame scored the first five points after intermission, and trailed by eight, at 49-41, with 17:07 to play, but Gay and Boone hit back-to-back hoops and the Irish could get no closer than nine points the rest of the way.

The Huskies continued their high scoring ways of late. Including back-to-back league road wins over Providence and Rutgers last week, UConn is averaging 89 points over their last three games. The Huskies took excellent care of the ball, committing just seven turnovers, their lowest output since having just five at West Virginia on January 25. UConn also out-rebounded Notre Dame, 43-26.

Notre Dame was able to stay close thanks to some solid long-range shooting, as they connected on 10-of -22 three-pointers in the game. Colin Falls made six threes on his way to a team-best 19 points, while Chris Thomas added 16. 

The Huskies return to action on Saturday, Feb. 27, when they travel to play at Pittsburgh. Tip-off is set for 3:45 p.m., and the contest will be televised by CBS.

POST GAME QUOTES

Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun

"Obviously, I couldn’t be more pleased with our win. Notre Dame is a terrific basketball team, and, at Notre Dame, gave us multiple problems. They gave us the problem of outside with Chris and Falls and with Quinn, who I think are three very good players – terrific players, as a matter of fact. I’ve always really loved Chris’ game. And they really, really gave us problems inside. I think that Latimore and Torin really dominated us inside. We made a concerted tonight…to try to take to them, all night, inside and establish that we were going to own the paint tonight. And I think we did a terrific job."

"We’re getting better. Historically, this has been the time…that we seem to have shown a little bit of improvement. This young team, and it is a young team, is doing some of the things we want. We’ve limited some of our offense. We have about 24 or 25 different things that we run, and we’re down to six now. They take six into a game, we decide the six that will be best against that team, and run the living heck out of them."

"They (Notre Dame) made threes in the second half, no question. And I thought our team didn’t do quite as good of a job – that’s the highest percentage we’ve given up in a long time, 45 percent – but for me to complain about the complete game they played, and the fact that they relaxed a little bit, is nitpicking. We were really, really good."

"Whoever we played tonight, we would have been pretty good. Notre Dame is a good basketball team. They’re more than tournament worthy. They’re a tough out."

"It’s not going into the archives as the greatest game ever played, but Connecticut was a pretty good basketball team tonight."

On Villanueva

"Charlie was magnificent. He’s really starting to come into his own. We’re trying to go to him early to get him more involved."

On Marcus Williams

"I don’t want to praise him too much because I’ve yelled at him so much it would be out of character, but he’s stiffened. He’s different than most point guards you see in America because he actually plays the game the way some of us used to think the way we played the game. He’s plays on the floor, it’s not high-flying, but those passes are pinpoint. He’s made a significant difference."

On Denham Brown

"Denham has become a rock for us. A solid rock. They come back within 10, Denham is going to make the jump shot."

On Antonio Kellogg

"I thought it was Antonio Kellogg’s best game here at UConn, because he stayed within what we wanted to do, played limited time, and found out that you can actually get more points by staying within what we do. That’s going to be important to us coming down the stretch, because there is going to be that night that Marcus is going to get into foul trouble and we’re going to have to use AK an awful lot more."

Denham Brown

On the team coming together

"This is the time of year that Connecticut teams always seem to start playing well together."

On Rashad Anderson

Rashad is always making a lot of jokes and stuff, but today was more serious for him because he has been through a lot and he knows what could have happened to him in the past couple of weeks.

Confidence in the team

"A lot but it is not where it is going to be, we are just coming around, we are just turning the corner, I think as Connecticut teams do in the later part of the year.  Point guard play is real, it is going, these guys are playing."

"Charlie is a nonchalant guy, he is pretty calm himself. I think it is personal to him, this game, because of his performance last game against them (Notre Dame). A lot of people were talking about the big guys from Notre Dame outplayed he and Josh Boone but today I think they got them back and got their respect."

Antonio Kellogg

On the game tonight

"Everyone was on, everyone was looking good, had the right enthusiasm, had energy, everybody just played hard. We knew this was going to be the last time playing in this gym, we wanted to finish strong. We’ve been great on the road but not good at home, that’s a problem and we wanted to turn that around. We just focused on getting the W today, we knew it was going to be a big win so everybody came out and contributed."

On Rashad Anderson

"He is like my big brother on the team. He talks to me all of the time, constantly telling me to just take my time and just play, play as hard as I could."

On Marcus Williams

"He has been having a fantastic stretch of games. I’m happy for him, everybody on the team is happy for him. It is amazing what he can do, the numbers he have been putting up with points and assists. We are just going to get on his back and go as far as he will take us. He is the general of the team, that’s who we look to in order to get it done."

On backing up Marcus

"I tell him that I’m not going to let him down. I’m going to come in and do what I need to do to hold the team up until he gets back. He is just playing so well, I congratulate him."

Charlie Villanueva

On his confidence

"I think my confidence is real high. I’m just playing my game, that’s the kind of player I am. Coach believes in me, I’m just going out their and playing. I haven’t shot a 3 in a long time. It felt good, as soon as Antonio gave me the ball I knew it was going down. I’m glad it went in because if it didn’t I’d probably be on the bench. My teammates and coaching staff believe in me. There were times when I was struggling and they kept coming to me, telling me to keep my head up and over come it." 

Is the UNC game still lingering

"Without a doubt, offensively that was my worst game; I just don’t want that to happen again."

Is this team developing as a National Championship team 

"It is definitely similar to last season. Around this time last season we were real good, and I feel the same way this time around…we’re good and we keep improving as the games go on."

On Marcus Williams

"Marcus did a great job of finding me and giving me in the right position where I could score. If I keep having games like this it is going to be hard to beat us. We have a good relationship on the court. I’m just really familiar with his game. If I go the right places he is going to get me the ball…he is a great passer. I think he is college’s best secret.  He is a great point guard…he almost had a triple-double today."

Marcus Williams

On what he has done to improve

"I’ve been more aggressive, I’ve been working hard in practice. I’ve been taking my man off of the dribble, getting open shots; I’ve been opening the game being aggressive and creative."

On Charlie Villanueva

"He just said to me 'give me the ball.' That’s probably the first time all year that he really has asked me for the ball…but he was scoring, so why not give him the ball."

On status of team at this point

"We are really starting to pick up chemistry-wise, playing hard on defense, making stops, on offense we are executing and hitting the glass."

On playing at Pittsburgh

"It is going to be a tough game playing at Pitt, but as I’ve said before, a court is a court. We are going to go out there and do the same thing we have been doing, buckle down on defense, hit the glass and execute on offense."

Notre Dame Head Coach Mike Brey

"They played great. I look at our offensive stats, where we shot 44 percent and we make 10 threes and score 74 points – that’s usually good enough to win most Big East games this year. They were just fabulous offensively and they really beat us up on the backboard. We just really couldn’t keep them off the board. I just thought they shot it so well tonight. I thought we challenged a lot of those jump shots."

"So, when a team plays like that, you certainly take your hat off to them – and you’re glad you’re done playing them, quite frankly. And you’re glad you got one out of it, you got a spit out of the series."

"We’re almost big man by committee, and I guess they are, too, a little bit. Whoever’s going well for us, or them, is going to get most of the minutes. They really were in a great rhythm with their front line tonight."

"Williams does such a good job of controlling the whole tempo of things. He’s really just a very good young guard."

"I like that we threw it into the post. We had some good looks. We missed some close ones around the bucket. But we still have to keep throwing it to our big guys, because we just can’t live on the arc with those three perimeter guys. We have to have something inside."