Adrien And Dyson Lead Huskies In Taming Of Bulls, 69-50

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HARTFORD, Conn. (January 2, 2007) - Sophomore forward Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) scored 16 points and yanked down 15 rebounds as the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team defeated South Florida, 69-50, Tuesday evening before a crowd of 15,174 at the Hartford Civic Center.

The win gives the Huskies their first league win against one loss, while improving their overall mark to 12-1. The Bulls, playing their league opener, drop to 9-6 on the season.

Adrien was a dominant inside presence for the Huskies. He made half of his 14 field goal attempts, and had five of Connecticut’s 16 offensive rebounds. His performance was good enough to record his seventh double-double effort of the season in 13 games. He scored nine points and grabbed nine rebounds in the opening half.

The Huskies were nursing a slim 13-11 lead when sophomore guard Craig Austrie (Stamford, Conn.) hit a three-pointer off of a pass from Jerome Dyson (Rockville, Md.). Dyson finished a flurry of UConn missed shots and offensive rebounds with a lay-up and the Huskies led 18-11. The teams traded hoops and Connecticut led 25-19 with 6:10 to play before intermission, when Dyson drilled back-to-back three-pointers and Connecticut never led by less than 10 the rest of the way.

Dyson tied Adrien for team scoring honors with 16 points, 12 before halftime. Sophomore point guard A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.) scored 10 points (all after halftime), and had a career-best eight rebounds. He finished with six assists and just one turnover in leading the UConn attack. Freshman guard Doug Wiggins (East Hartford, Conn.) continued his solid play of late, scoring nine points, all in a seven-minute flurry in the first half.

Austrie made three three-pointers in scoring nine points for the Huskies. The victory was UConn’s 31st-consecutive home win dating back to a loss against North Carolina on February 13, 2005 at the Civic Center.

Connecticut out-rebounded the Bulls, 38-23, and converted 17 South Florida turnovers into 18 points. Freshman center Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) blocked five shots for the Huskies.

The Bulls, who only had four players enter the scoring column, were paced by Melvin Buckley, who scored 17, and McHugh Mattis, who had 13 points, six rebounds and five blocked shots.

Connecticut will return to the road for their next contest, traveling to Baton Rouge, La. to play Louisiana State on Saturday, Jan. 6. The game will be televised nationally by ESPN with tip-off set for 9:00 p.m.

POSTGAME QUOTES

UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun

One of the keys to the game was Hasheem blocking shots early.  Watching the Wake Forest game and a couple of other games, Gransberry was dominant.  But when you get two or three shots blocked, it changes life.  Bozeman was going by people – he shot 107 foul shots coming into the game.  The next closest guy in the league is 37 away.  When he went into the lane he saw Hasheem and just kept right on going.  He did that four different times in the first half alone.  So, Hasheem’s presence, and he still needs an awful lot of work, etcetera, was evident.

Jeff Adrien played terrific basketball.  I’m not going to say he got off his feet, but he played terrific, terrific basketball.  We needed to give him more space.  We put him at the foul line a lot and put him in different spots to give him more space, to allow him to operate on the things he does well.  And we just can’t lock him into a post against two kids seven foot at West Virginia, so we tried to space him a little bit better.

Jeff Adrien was just spectacular. 

Bottom line, I really think that we just adjusted, adapted and reacted to what was a very tough loss for us at West Virginia.

I thought today we did good things.  I’m really happy with the win.  Any win in this league you have to be happy with.  With this young team, and playing an experienced team – he’s got a good basketball team….and they will win games in our league.  I think they’re a threat, physically, to be able to play anybody in our league.  They play good defense.

Marcus Johnson did a great job on Buckley early, and that really took away their three point threats. 

I look and see that they shot 40-something percent.  I’m not even concerned about that tonight, because I thought that we played well.  Sometimes you have to just live with that, and opposed to ranting on about it, when you build up a 30-point lead in the Big East – you’re not going to get many chances to do that.  So I’m really, really happy with the way we played. 

South Florida Head Coach Robert McCullum

There were two or three things we thought we had to do well to give ourselves a chance, and keeping them off the offensive boards was certainly one of them.  Over the last 10, 15 years they’ve been one of the best rebounding teams in the country.  They came into the game getting 15 or 16 more than their opponents, and that’s almost precisely what they got tonight.  We thought keeping them off the offensive boards, containing them in transition – that’s another area they’ve been extremely good at, and we did a pretty decent job in that area, they only had nine second chance points.  If you’re forcing turnovers and getting steals between the top of the key and half court, naturally, they’re going to lead to easy baskets.  But the third area was taking care of the basketball.  They got 17 points from second chance points, 18 points off our turnovers.

In the last two games we’ve done just a poor job of defending the three point shot, and tonight, again, it sort of reared its ugly head.  They had seven of 14..and that’s just too high of a percentage to allow people, especially on the road. 

On Jeff Adrien

He’s just an outstanding player.  He’s one of my favorites.  I love players like that.  He’s a blue-collar player.  He brings his hard hat and his steel-toed boots every game ... You can sometimes defends actions, sets and plays, but effort, strength and physical play and determination are hard to defend.

UConn Freshman Jerome Dyson

On coming back with a win after the West Virginia loss

We started out on the wrong page against West Virginia.  We just didn’t come out with the right intensity and playing the way we do every day.  I think tonight’s win helps everybody get back on the right page.

This was a big win for us. We needed to come out and get this win just for confidence

UConn Sophomore AJ Price

We knew we had to come out and establish who we were on defense.   This game was really important defensively. 

We really tried to get up in them in the half court and full court, and just make their job on offense that much tougher.

On Jeff Adrien

It was a great bounce back game for him.  He came out from the opening tap and played like the warrior that he is.  When he plays like that the team just follows.

UConn Sophomore Jeff Adrien

We worked real hard these past two days executing our plays.  The motivation is really to get back on a winning track and get our first Big East win of the year.

How important was this win?

If you go down 0-2 in the Big East it’s going to be a fight to get back to the top.  We came in in last place…We took it upon our selves to have good practices and it transferred over to the game.  We just kept the lead by playing hard and playing as a team.

Was their more of an attempt to get you the ball tonight?

Yes, early that was the game plan.  At West Virginia the system, the 1-3-1, with the bigs hiding a little bit, sort of took Hasheem and me out of the game.  Today was more traditional basketball – just get the ball early to Jeff and let him roll.

How do you like playing with three guards in an up-tempo game?

They’re ready to run and I’m ready to run.  I know if I run, I’m going to get the ball.  It’s good playing with three quick guards out there because they will get you the ball when you’re open.

How was this game different in terms of your offensive production?

Today I didn’t get doubled as much.  I feel like whenever I don’t get doubled, I’m going to put up some numbers up there.

UConn Freshman Doug Wiggins

How did Coach Calhoun prepare you since West Virginia?

He was like, ‘when it’s time to work, it’s time to work.’  Everyday he was determined to get the most out of each player and that’s what he got.

UConn Sophomore Craig Austrie

I felt real comfortable with my shot.  I just wanted to get it up when I was open.

On the front-line’s effort

They played phenomenal.  Jeff and Hasheem played well defensively.  On the offensive end Jeff was unstoppable.  When he plays like that we’re in good shape.

The team took care of the ball

After West Virginia we really wanted to take special care of the ball.  Everybody put an extra effort in today.  We just took care of it today.

On Jeff Adrien’s play tonight                                                                                                                                                       

Jeff had a good game today.  He was all over the boards.  He was getting it done on the offensive end.  Pretty soon other teams are going to start doubling down on him and we have our guards out their ready to shoot.

Is it difficult to balance being a source for instance offense off the bench and not taking bad shots?

I have pretty good basketball I.Q. to notice what’s a good shot and what’s a bad shot.