University of Connecticut Athletics
No. 18 Men's Basketball Slips Past Quinnipiac, 53-46
11/10/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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STORRS, Conn. (November 11, 2006) - Sophomore Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) scored 14 points and yanked down a career-high 16 rebounds and Craig Austrie (Stamford, Conn.) drilled a key three-pointer late in the contest as 18th-ranked Connecticut overcame some ice-cold field goal shooting in the second half to hold off pesky Quinnipiac, 53-46, before a sellout crowd of 10,167 at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion in the season opener for both squads.
Connecticut seemed to have the game well in hand after opening up a 35-16 lead at halftime, but the Huskies struggled mightily on the offensive end in the second half. The Bobcats chipped away at the big Husky advantage, inching to within two on a three-pointer by Adam Gonzalez with 2:33 to play. Quinnipiac would not score again in the game.
On the next UConn possession, as the shot clock was winding down, Austrie had the ball from atop the three-point circle and drained the long jumper to give the Huskies a five-point lead at 51-46 with 2:04 to play. The basket was the first for the Huskies in over eight and a half minutes, a span of 10 missed shots and five turnovers.
The Huskies made just four of 24 field goal attempts (17 percent) after intermission, and had to settle for 30.4 percent marksmanship for the game. The last time the Huskies struggled similarly from the field was in last season’s BIG EAST Tournament loss to Syracuse when the UConn shot just 30.3 percent from the field
Adrien was huge in the lane throughout the contest, making half of his 12 field goal attempts and grabbing seven of his 16 rebounds on the offensive glass. He scored 11 of his 14 points in the opening twenty minutes. Freshman Jerome Dyson (Rockville, Md.) started and had the hot-hand from long range early in the game. He made three from three-point range in the first half on the way to a team-high 12 points. He finished with a team-best 16 points.
Adrien was joined in double figure rebounding by freshman center Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) who grabbed 11 rebounds to go along with half of the UConn's 14 blocked shots. Sophomore A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.) had a game-high four assists to go along with seven points. Freshman Stanley Robinson (Birmingham, Ala.) had eight rebounds in helping the Huskies to a 55-40 rebounding advantage.
The Huskies held their in-state rivals to just 26 percent shooting for the game and forced 19 turnovers, which were converted into 21 points. The Huskies struggled from the foul line, making just 15 of their 34 attempts from the charity stripe.
Chris Wehye led the Bobcats with 17 points on the night.
The Huskies will have a week off before playing host to the four-team, round-robin Hispanic College Fund Classic at the Hartford Civic Center. Mississippi will play Fairfield at 5:30 p.m. next Friday night, November 17th, while the Huskies play Central Arkansas at 8:00 p.m. The UConn game not be televised. UConn will play Fairfield on the 18th and Mississippi on the 19th. Both of those contests tip-off at 8:00 p.m.
POSTGAME QUOTES
UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun
"I want to congratulate Quinnipiac. They played hard enough and well enough to win the game, and maybe should have. We were very fortunate that one guy – after Jerome played so well early – Craig Austrie, stepped up and made a shot. Otherwise, we certainly could have lost that game."
"We shoot foul shots 78 percent in practice. We can’t even think about making a foul shot in a game. We can’t make a play. We have no leadership at the guard position. I thought we did a much better job with Craig Austrie in the game. [Doug Wiggins] gave us a lift in the first half."
"We found the enemy, identified it, and we’ll practice with them tomorrow at 9:00 o’clock."
"We have not made any progress and I’m incredibly disappointed. I feel like we’ve wasted 20 days. I’m not giving up by any stretch of the imagination. We’ll practice tomorrow for three hard hours and see if we can find somebody that’s got a little bit of basketball instinct or toughness, whatever words you want to use, to step up and play basketball."
UConn Sophomore Craig Austrie
On the winning shot
"I knew it was a close game. Being a veteran on the team, I just wanted to step up. I wanted to be the one to take the shot in that situation. I just went through the mechanics – I’m here every night shooting – went back to what I’m doing and just executed on the shot."
Did Calhoun call for you to take the shot?
"Under 10 seconds, whoever has the ball in their hand makes the play. I knew that once I had that opportunity, I wasn’t going to let it go. I just wanted to get up there and make that play so coach has some confidence in me."
"You have to give them credit. They played well."
"The bottom line is we won the game. It was ugly, but a win’s a win and we just have to go back to the drawing board and get ready for the next game."
UConn Freshman Hasheem Thabeet
"They switched their defense and we had problems with that."
How was Calhoun at halftime?
"He didn’t like how we reacted to some things in the game. And it’s not an excuse that we’re freshman because it’s not about age, it’s about basketball. And how can you play it against good players?"
"We just have to play through mistakes."
UConn Freshman Jerome Dyson
On his first half play
"I was a lot more aggressive in the first half. I was able to get my shot off early driving, and people saw me outside and I was able to get my three-ball going."
What changed in the second half?
"We weren’t executing as much as we should have in the second half. We came out a little sluggish ... The other team played a good game, but we weren’t executing."
Have practices gone better than this game?
"We have a lot more intensity in practice and we didn’t bring that out on the floor."
On defense
"We stepped it up on defense and that let us keep the lead. We know that we can always fall back on our defense. We showed that and that’s how we were able to secure the win."
UConn Freshman Doug Wiggins
On second half:
“It was a terrible half for the team. You’ve got to give a lot of credit to Quinnipiac they played hard. We just didn’t get it done in the second half.
“We were pressing and they forced turnovers. The free throw line was obvious. That was about 20 points alone right there."
UConn Sophomore Jeff Adrien
What areas are the most important for the team work on.
“We’ve got to go back and work on some offense really. Get back on defense and working on our fast-breaks too."
On free-throws:
"We haven’t had a good free throw shooting night in the two pre-season games and this game. We’re working on it. We shoot about 75-percent as a team in practice, but when it comes to games for some reason we can’t knock them down."
On the close game:
“No matter where we go, how young we are, we’re UConn. We have a bulls-eye on us. They think this is the year to beat us."
Quinnipiac Head Coach Joe DeSantis
"That first half, I’ve never seen a Connecticut team play as hard as that team did. They just took us out of everything we can do. But our guys showed a lot of heart and battled. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest game."
"We realized at halftime that we were going to have a tough time scoring, so we really tried to stay with our defensive plan and just be aggressive. You have a scouting report, you try to know the plays they run, but the bottom line is that you’re going to go out and hit people, and I thought we competed. We still didn’t play great offensively, but our defensive was really good."
"At halftime, I put 0-0 on the score. I said 'forget this.' I walked in and I saw a bunch of glum faces and the only thing I could think of was '35 to 16, times 2 would be 70 to 32.' So I said to myself, 'You know what? I got to get these guys up.' So I put 0-0 on there at halftime and told them, 'I’m going to judge you by your second half.' At the end of the game, being consistent with that, I told them I was really proud of them. We played hard, we played together and we played with a purpose."
