Huskies Hold On For Win at Central Florida

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ORLANDO, Fla. (December 28, 2007)— Sophomore Jerome Dyson scored 23 points and junior Jeff Adrien added 16 points and nine rebounds as the University of Connecticut men’s basketball held on for a 85-82 win over the University of Central Florida in front of a school-record crowd of 6,224 at the New UCF Arena on the Orlando campus.

With the win, UConn improves to 9-2 on the season. Central Florida falls to 5-6 on the year.

Jermaine Taylor led UCF, scoring a game-high 30 points, while Mike O’Donnell added 20 in a losing effort. Junior A.J. Price (13 points) and sophomores Doug Wiggins (ten points) and Hasheem Thabeet (ten points) also reached double figures for the Huskies.

UCF cut the Husky lead to three points, 83-80, on a pair of Taylor free throws with 11.1 seconds to play and then sent junior Craig Austrie to the line for UConn. Austrie made both to extend the lead back to five with 10.3 to play. Tony Davis made a layup at the buzzer to provide the final margin.

UCF had cut UConn’s lead to seven, 72-65, but Dyson foiled a two-on-one fast break with a steal and then fed Hasheem Thabeet for a layup to get the lead back to 74-65 at the four-minute media break. Thabeet was fouled on the play and made the freebie after the break to get the lead to ten points with 3:49 to go in the contest.

Dyson hit a floater with 8:15 to go in the contest to extend UConn’s lead to 68-57, the biggest of the contest at that point. Mike O’Donnell answered with a three of his own to get the UCF deficit back to eight, 68-60, and that was the score at the eight-minute media timeout. The lead for UConn was seven when Craig Austrie hit a huge three to beat the shot clock and get the lead back to ten, 72-62, with just over five minutes left. Austrie was playing for the first time since December 6 after battling a mild case of pneumonia.

UConn extended the lead to start the second half to seven points, 51-44. They still led by five, 51-46, at the first media timeout of the second half. The lead then bulged to ten, 56-46, on a conventional three-point play by Dyson with 14:35 to play. Mike O’Donnell hit a pair of three’s sandwiched around a Stanley Robinson put back to cut the UCF deficit back to six, 58-52, with 12:11 to play in the contest. A Taylor three with less than 11 minutes to play cut the deficit to five, 60-55. UConn went into the bonus from the line on the next possession, as Dyson hit a pair to stretch the lead back to seven, 62-55.

The Huskies led by a count of 43-41 at the half, shooting 50.0% from the field, but allowing UCF to hit on 47.1% from the floor. UConn had no answer for Jermaine Taylor, who scored 16 points in the half. Dyson led the Huskies with 12 first half points, while Jeff Adrien added ten points and A.J. Price and Doug Wiggins each scored eight. Dave Noel added 11 for UCF. The half featured five ties and 12 lead changes.

With the score tied at 27-27, UConn hit back-to-back three’s by Jerome Dyson and A.J. Price and then got a technical free throw by Dyson to take a 34-27 lead with 6:03 to go in the half, the biggest lead of the first half for the Huskies. The Knights scored the next six points starting with Taylor hitting a three on the next possession to get the deficit back to two for UCF. Dyson picked up his second foul of the half with 3:37 to play until the break and the Huskies leading by five, 37-32. UCF cut the deficit to one, 40-39, with less than two minutes to go and then tied the score at 41-41 with 1:09 to go on a reverse layup by Dave Noel. Hasheem Thabeet followed with a thunderous dunk off a Price feed to provide the two-point halftime margin. 

The Huskies used a 13-4 run in the early part of the first half to forge ahead of the Knights by a count of 20-15. Doug Wiggins hit back-to-back three’s to cap the run and force a UCF timeout. The Knights battled back to tie the score at 22-22 and the teams traded baskets for the next several minutes. The half featured 11 lead and four ties changes in the first 12 minutes of the contest.

The Huskies return to action Thursday, January 3 when they open BIG EAST play with a road contest at Seton Hall University from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. at 7:00 p.m.