Price Leads No. 17 UConn Over No. 20
Notre Dame
Box Score [pdf]
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Statistics [pdf]
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 STORRS,
Conn. (February 13, 2007) - Junior All-America candidate A.J. Price
(Amityville, N.Y.) scored a career-high 26 points to lead the 17th-ranked
University of Connecticut men’s basketball team to a hard-fought 84-78 victory
over 20th-ranked Notre Dame, Wednesday evening before a sellout crowd of 10,167
at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.
The Huskies, who have now won eight straight games, are now 19-5 on the season,
8-3 in the BIG EAST Conference. The Irish slip to 18-5, 8-3 in league games.
Price was magnificent throughout, scoring 13 points in each half in a battle
with another BIG EAST Player of the Year candidate, Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody.
Harangody had game-high totals of 32 points and 16 rebounds but Price ended up
on the winning side.
Notre Dame took their final lead of the game when Harangody made two free throws
with 4:27 to play to give the Irish a 72-70 lead. Price answered with a tough
jumper to tie the game for the 10th and final time 17 seconds later, and junior
Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) put the Huskies ahead with two free throws
with 3:26 to play.
Craig Austrie (Stamford, Conn.) made two free throws to put the Huskies
up by four, and after a Harangody tip-in inched Notre Dame back within two,
Stanley Robinson (Birmingham, Ala.) hit a three-pointer as the shot clock
was winding down to put Connecticut ahead, 79-74, with 1:56 to play. Notre Dame
could get no closer than three the rest of the way.
Price made 10 of 19 field goals and dished out a game-high nine assists against
just one turnover. Austrie added 14 points and had four assists with no
turnovers.
Adrien finished with 13 points and he grabbed nine rebounds. Doug Wiggins
(East Hartford, Conn.) had 10 points off of the bench. Sophomore Gavin
Edwards (Gilbert, Ariz.) gave Connecticut a huge lift off the bench with
eight points in eight productive minutes.
Sophomore center Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) had 10
rebounds and had six of the Huskies’ eight blocked shots.
Tory Jackson had 13 points, while Kyle McAlarney chipped in with 12 points for
Notre Dame.
Notre Dame used some solid shooting to take a 41-39 lead at the half. The Irish
shot 52 percent in the opening 20 minutes and made half of their eight
three-pointers. Notre Dame shot just 33 percent in the second half as the
Huskies took over the see-saw affair.
The Huskies committed a season-low eight turnovers and got 18 points from the
bench, their best effort in recent games.
The Huskies will now travel to play at South Florida on Saturday, February 16.
Game time is set for noon and the game will be televised by MyTV9 and FSN-NY.
POSTGAME QUOTES
UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun
That was one hell
of a basketball game. Unfortunately for us, for the first 30 minutes it turned
into a track meet, and a lot of skill and a lot of good stuff.
It was just an
incredibly well-played game. They shouldn’t be as quick as us and, particularly
early, they were still beating us up the floor.
This was a
high-level basketball game played by two pretty good basketball teams.
I think our defense
won it.
On Thabeet
Harangody has
terrific skills. Just as Hasheem got him in South Bend, he got Hasheem
tonight….That block on the three was sensational.
On Wiggins
I really thought he
really made a great comeback for us.
On Austrie
I really thought
that Craig Austrie’s defense was as good, like guys we’ve had here before –
Chris Smith – and some of the other guys. On this given night, playing
McAlarney the whole game – he’s just a son of a gun, a terrific player….He
hasn’t been as good of a defender because he didn’t need to be. He was
tonight. I thought he was just sensational, and one of the reasons we won the
game.
On Price
Everybody chipped
in, but A.J. took the game over, and that made the difference.
On Robinson
He’s still not
doing what we want him to do, what he’s capable of doing and what he wants to
do. But he hit just a gigantic three.
On foul-shooting
at end of game
I was surprised to see us miss that
many foul shots, which made it a little more dicey.
 Notre
Dame Head Coach Mike Brey
That was a great
college basketball game in a fabulous atmosphere. My first time here. What a
great atmosphere in this place. My hats off to Connecticut, they made big shots
and big plays at key times, little bit of the reverse of what happened in South
Bend. But I love how our team played. We went for it, we were going for it, we
were fearless, and I think we got better playing in this atmosphere playing
against a good team even though we didn’t win the game. I saw us doing some
things confidence-wise that I haven’t seen yet. We get to build on that and go
into another campus facility on Sunday.
Robinson’s shot was
the game probably. The law of averages says we’ll live with a jump shot from
there, but he stuck it and a lot of times that happens, especially when you are
playing at home. You feel you are a better shooter than maybe the numbers say;
I give him a lot of credit.
They defended us
pretty good at some key times with their athletic ability. We had some looks
that maybe were not as good as we normally get, and their length bothered us at
times. I think it is key plays. Price continued to play like he has been
playing. I was scared to death of him, I think he has been a key to their run;
how he is stirring the drink so to speak, he was fabulous; we had a really hard
time with him.
On the defense
of Austrie on Mcalarney
I thought he did a
good job taking him away. Kyle did a good job for the most part hitting other
people and getting other people involved. He did a good job taking him away
this time, he really did. Again that was the game plan, he was disciplined in
that, he really never left him.
On what the plan
was for Harangody tonight
You can’t reinvent
the wheel, because for us, we need to play the way we play, inside-out. We have
been really good offensively, because we play that way. We just told him to
maybe step out a little bit more and ball screen. But we still need to make low
post feeds. I think the game started well because he got outside early and made
some jump shots and it kind of changed the tempo of the game, then we went back
inside to him. I was so impressed with that kid, because for two days we were
saying to him “why don’t you try this, why don’t you try this” he makes you look
like a good coach…you say “try this” and he makes it work. You just wind him up
and send him out there.
On looks at end
of the game
I don’t ever want
to take the foot off the gas offensively for us and if we get good looks…Ryan
Ayers’ look was pretty good, he hesitated a little bit in front of our bench…I
though Zeller’s looks were great, I mean he is shooting the ball as well as
anyone on our team. We’ve got to ride that. It was hard to go inside and drive
it all the time with him back there, so you are going to have to take some jump
shots. I just don’t want us not attacking; we did that all the way down
to the end. Even Kyle’s step back there, it was time for him to try and do
something and get something. Again I hope we get those looks on Sunday (vs.
Rutgers), I think those are pretty good looks for us.
On what makes
the difference in UConn from the first time the teams played
Price running the
team, I think he has been a key. I think both teams have improved since the
first game because of the point guard play. Tory Jackson has been really good
for us too. Price has been really, really stirring the drink so to speak and
picking their spots.
On Box and 1 on
Price defense:
We played
everything in the handbook tonight; we tried a little bit of everything,
changing it up. We did a little box and 1, I thought if we could just make them
play 4 v 4 without him involved maybe we’d have some success. They did a good
job of getting into rhythm eventually against everything, so we had to keep
switching stuff up.
UConn Forward Gavin Edwards
Even if you don’t
get minutes in some games, you always have to be ready.
It’s big for me
because coach knows he can go to me whenever he needs me. I can go in there and
make a difference.
UConn Guard Craig Austrie
On guarding
Mcalarney
It was kind of
personal because he kind of embarrassed us last time. I just wanted to get in
him and make him put the ball on the floor.
You can’t fall
asleep with him. He does a good job of running off of screens. Our big guys
did a good job of hedging of the screens.
On team’s
defense
We’ve been in a
bunch of close games, and we’re learning that defense is doing it for us.
UConn Forward Jeff Adrien
Any given night we
could have a different leading scorer. The starting five has been scoring real
well. It’s just been working out for us.
They played us for
36 minutes. We just had the energy and will to get the win.
UConn Guard A.J. Price
On Austrie’s
defense on Mcalarney
He did a great
job. He was in his face when he was coming off of screens. He didn’t give him
any easy looks.
On Notre Dame
You can tell both
teams are playing at a very high level. They made some tough shots and played
good defense. They’re a good basketball team.
 Didn’t
want to get into a scoring battle with ND
The way the first
half went and how effective they were in that, I really didn’t want to play that
style of game.
UConn Guard Doug Wiggins
Each game that we
win gives us more confidence as the season goes along.
I think we finally
learned how to win. We tell ourselves when we go on the court that we’re going
to win the game no matter what happens.
UConn Forward Stanley Robinson
On 3-pointer as
the shot clock ran down
On knew I had to
catch and shoot. I heard everybody yelling 3-2-1. I was pretty confident
releasing the shot.
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