Huskies Tame Albany With 86-55 Win

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STORRS, Conn. (November 26, 2006) –Freshman Gavin Edwards (Gilbert, Ariz.) scored a career-high 16 points to lead five teammates in double figures as No. 18 nationally-ranked Connecticut easily outscored Albany, 86-55, Sunday afternoon before a crowd of 10,167 at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion. 

The win sends the Husky record to 5-0, while the Great Danes slip to 2-2.

Edwards, who had scored just one point in the first four games of the season, made all six of his field goal attempts and was four-of-five from the line in an impressive 19 minutes off of the bench.  He also added five rebounds.  Edwards had plenty of company from his teammates in the scoring column.  Sophomore Marcus Johnson (Los Angeles, Calif.) scored a season-best 14 points, and added six rebounds and three assists. 

A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.)  had 13 points, and shared game-high assist honors of four with Jerome Dyson (Rockville, Md.).  Dyson scored 12 points, as did Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania). Forward Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) chipped in with 11 points.  Both Thabeet and Adrien led the Huskies with seven rebounds and three blocked shots.  Freshman guard Doug Wiggins (East Hartford, Conn.) had six steals in keying the Huskies’ defense.

The Huskies trailed 18-17 midway through the first half before taking command of the game.  UConn out-scored the Great Danes 30-13 over the final 9:54 before intermission as Edwards started the big run with a three-point play that capped a run of seven points in a span of 1:33 for the freshman forward.  Johnson had nine points in the UConn spurt.

The Huskies shot at least 50 percent for the fourth-consecutive contest, clicking at a 58 percent (28 of 48) clip.  In addition, the Huskies held their fifth-straight opponent to 36 percent shooting or worse.  Connecticut struggled with their ball-handling, committing 19 turnovers, but they forced 21 miscues, which were converted into 35 points off turnovers.  UConn enjoyed a 38-25 rebounding advantage, and out-scored the Great Danes on the fast break, 21-2.

Jamar Wilson had 18 points for Albany, while Jason Siggers finished with 16.

The Huskies will play next on Wednesday, November 29, when they play host to Sacred Heart at Gampel Pavilion.  Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. and the game will be televised by CW-20 and FSNY.

POSTGAME QUOTES

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun

When we aren’t doing well offensively, we’ve been able to extend up into the lanes more.  If you look back at last year, we led the country in blocked shots, field goal percentage defense and rebounding.  We averaged about 4.3 steals a game.  Tonight, Dougie alone had six.  We’ve been allowing this particular team to get up into the passing lanes a little more and put more pressure on…They caused bad passes.  Albany is very, very well coached…they’re not going to turn the ball over 21 times most nights they play. 

This team is entirely different than the team that played them last year.  They may be different, but they still have some of the same players. 

On Marcus Johnson and Jamar Wilson

Marcus was able to get into Wilson early.  Wilson, being the competitor that he is, feeling that he has to carry his team kept the ball an awful lot….He was trying to beat his man one-on-one, because he felt he needed to do that.  It wasn’t a great, great game for him, but I was really happy with Marcus’ performance, defensively. 

If Marcus wasn’t the star of the game, he was awfully darn close to it.  He just did a tremendous job. 

On Gavin Edwards

You couldn’t have asked for better medicine for him.  Curtis had been kind of inching by him.  Gavin has taken on a lot more assertiveness on offense.  He is a very good defensive player, he’s a very smart player.  He makes good passes, he takes good care of the basketball. 

On Doug Wiggins

Dougie Wiggins stepped up after having a very poor first half.  He played terrifically in the second half defensively with six steals.

One thing we want the kids to have:  If you allow your points to determine how you play, you’re in trouble on this team.  That’s not what we reward you for.  We expect if you’re a good player, you’ll score points if we give you good shots.

The 12 blocked shots are not indicative.  I would say six or seven times people dribbled in and then said “no” and dribbled out because they weren’t going to challenge Hasheem.

Albany Head Coach Will Brown

Obviously we lost that game in the first half.  I think the biggest difference, if you look at the stats, is points off of turnovers-- UConn 21, Albany 2.  I think that says it all in a nutshell.

We knew we had our hands full coming into this game.  We were concerned, obviously, about attacking them and trying to drag Thabeet away from the basket. 

The game got pretty physical and we got a little bit rattled.  They were crawling up in us and putting a lot of pressure on us.  We didn’t handle that well.  For the latter part of the first half I think we struggled with that and that’s when we turned the ball over.

I think we did a much better job defending in the second half until the last 4-and-half minutes.

UConn Sophomore Marcus Johnson

On shutting down Jamar Wilson

I knew he was a great rebounder, so once he let go of the ball I made sure I had a body on him.  And any time a shot went up, I made sure I boxed-out and tried to get the rebound.  I just wanted to contain him, make sure he didn’t get open looks, and make sure everything was kind of tough for him.

He didn’t get any easy shots.  I had a lot of help from Hasheem, Gavin, Curtis, and Jeff and the other guards hedged and recovered.  So, I had a lot of help, but I just wanted to make sure everything was tough for him so he didn’t get anything easy.

On the running game

It all starts on defense – great steals, blocks, long jump shots, they all lead to the break.  That’s what UConn does, we run.  So we got a lot of fast break points.

On getting the ball to the big men

Albany tried to front the post and also ¾ them.  So our big men just established position and I gave it to the outside hand.

What caused the change in momentum (after Albany was up 5)?

We just picked up the intensity on defense and our offense came up along with it.

On why the fastbreak was clicking tonight

Our coaches have been stressing putting offensive pressure on the defense and that’s what I tried to do tonight.  Doug Wiggins, Craig Austrie, AJ, Price, Jerome Dyson, we all just pushed the break and our big men ran, so that opened up opportunities for all of us.

I take every game as a defensive challenge.  We have to stop people from scoring.  Every game I go into the game trying to stop my guy from scoring, stop the other team from scoring.

On the play of Gavin Edwards

I’ve been saying it for a long time – Gavin’s a solid player who doesn’t ever play outside of himself.

UConn Freshman Gavin Edwards

On coming off the bench to lead in scoring

It’s so important because it lets me know that coach can count on me if I can come off the bench and produce.

Did he have an indication that he was going to have a break-out game?

I was feeling pretty good today in shoot-around so I think that was a pretty good indicator for me.

How did making the first hoops help your confidence?

It definitely helped my confidence.  I felt like I was in the flow of the game.  I could just do  what I had to do to stay in.

UConn Freshman Doug Wiggins

The first half wasn’t so good.  But the second half, I think that was our best half ever.

Wiggins says everyone has to contribute

If everyone’s worried about scoring we won’t be able to accomplish our goals that we have in mind.  If we worry about the little things, it will take us where we want.