University of Connecticut Athletics
Okafor Leads UConn past Vanderbilt
12/1/2002 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
NASHVILLE, TN (Dec. 1) - Sophomore Emeka Okafor (Houston Texas) scored a career high 25 points and added 11 rebounds and three blocked shots to lead the University of Connecticut Men’s Basketball team over Vanderbilt 76-70 in Nashville Tennessee. UConn moves to 3-0 and captures its first road victory of the season, while Vanderbilt falls to 3-1.
Other major contributors for Connecticut were junior Taliek Brown (Queens, NY) with 15 points, and a game high four assists, freshman Denham Brown (Toronto, Canada) had 13 points, and senior Tony Robertson (Providence, RI) had 12. Senior Mike Hayes (Hartford, CT) chipped in with a career high nine rebounds off the bench. Matt Freije led Vanderbilt with 18 points.
Connecticut led 38-31 at the half, and led by as many as 11 at 48-37 with 15:45 to go. But Vanderbilt went on a 17-5 run to take its only lead of the second half at 54-53 with 10 minutes left. UConn scored the next six points to take the lead for good and led by as many as 10 in the final two minutes. Denham Brown’s 13 were a career high and all came in the first half. Okafor also had 13 first half points. UConn’s leading scorer coming into the game, Ben Gordon (Mt. Vernon, NY) was limited to four points in the contest and did not score until there was 2:13 left in the game.
The Huskies return home to take on intrastate foe Sacred Heart University at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday, November 3. Tip off is set for 7:30pm
