University of Connecticut Athletics
Huskies Earn Tourney Crown Over Ole Miss
11/19/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Win Over Ole Miss
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HARTFORD, Conn. (November 19, 2006) - Tournament Most Valuable Player Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) had his fourth consecutive double-double to start the season and A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.) scored a career-high 23 points as 21st-ranked Connecticut outgunned Mississippi, 77-59, to take the 2006 Hispanic College Fund Classic before a crowd of 14,183 at the Hartford Civic Center. Fairfield took third place in the tournament with a 46-43 victory over Central Arkansas in Sunday’s first game.
The Huskies improve to 4-0 with the win, while the Rebels suffered their first defeat of the campaign after four straight wins.
The opening minutes of the contest were back-and-forth between the two squads with Ole Miss taking a 14-12 lead midway through the first twenty minutes. However, the Huskies went on a 13-2 burst over the next 3:53, as Price scored seven points. The Huskies led 25-16 with 5:58 to play before intermission. The Rebels inched to within six at 28-22, before Connecticut closed the half on an 11-1 run to give the Huskies a 39-23 advantage at the half.
Price made nine of 13 field goal attempts and all four of his free throw tosses. He also tied freshman guard Jerome Dyson (Rockville, Md.) for team-high assist honors with four. Adrien was his rock-steady self again. He is averaging 14.5 points per game and is yanking down 12.3 rebounds per contest, after scoring 13 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Dyson scored 16 points, bouncing back from his foul-plagued performance Saturday evening against Fairfield.
Sophomore Marcus Johnson (Los Angeles, Calif.) scored 10 points and grabbed a career-best eight rebounds during the game. Freshman center Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) failed to score but yanked down nine rebounds and he had three of the Huskies’ 10 blocked shots, as did Adrien. Both Stanley Robinson (Birmingham, Ala.) and Craig Austrie (Stamford, Conn.) had seven points off of the UConn bench.
The Huskies continued their sharp-shooting during the three-day tournament by shooting 53 percent from the field. The Huskies shot at least 50 percent in every game in the Classic. The Huskies, who have been plagued by poor foul shooting in the early going this year, made 14 of 16 against the Rebels.
Mississippi was led by Bam Doyne, who scored 16 points, and Clarence Sanders and Todd Abernethy, who each scored 13.
Besides Adrien, three other Huskies made the All-Tournament team; Price, Thabeet and Dyson. The quartet of Huskies were joined by Ole Miss’ Doyne and Sanders.
The Huskies will now take a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday, and will return to the hardwood on Sunday, November 26. Connecticut will entertain Albany at Gampel Pavilion at 5:00 p.m. The game, a rematch of a 2006 NCAA Tournament First Round game played last year, will be televised by CW-20 and FSNY in the Connecticut area.
POSTGAME QUOTES
Connecticut Head Coach Jim Calhoun
It was only nine days ago that we played Quinnipiac and struggled. We’ve made some giant strides…The three games here this weekend have given me a much better feeling.
Overall, we played pretty well. I’m really happy with this team. Now I have to warn them that, over the next seven games, we have to take care of business. I saw it tonight, for example, Old Dominion beat Georgetown by 13. The point being, simply, that you have to pay attention to detail, you have to keep growing. The one thing that I’ll give this team credit for over the past 10 or 12 days, they have grown greatly.
I thought tonight was the best exclamation point you could have put on it. We weren’t spectacular, we weren’t great, we got caught a little bit at the end.
I think we’ve made improvements. We’re going to have to be so much better than what we are, but we showed signs tonight. We ran the ball, we rebounded very well.
Jeff’s been a horse for us. Hasheem controls that middle. Marcus Johnson is improving offensively – he’s always been a great defender.
I’m leaving satisfied with our team given who we are – it’s the first time around for almost everybody here.
I saw some signs tonight that I really, really liked.
On substitutions
When we did sub, I was biting me lip. I didn’t want to stop the momentum, but I also wanted to be fresh at the end of the game.
On guard play
We’re playing the same kind of defense no matter who we’re playing, and that makes me very happy.
On AJ
The biggest thing we did is smarten up and not try to play him six or seven minutes at a time….He was more ready to play longer stints tonight.
On Austrie
Craig plays the same in a minute or five minutes or whatever you want him to play. Plus, he’s been there before and he stabilizes you. He’s very valuable to us.
On Dyson
Jerome can play all night and will score points.
Mississippi Head Coach Andy Kennedy
Fatigue a factor?
We are so dependent on our 3 senior guards to score, and they have to do so much for us, and we had to play heavy minutes in games 1 and 2 because of where we are in our program, it was certainly a factor at both ends of the floor. It didn’t seem to affect UConn though. Their guards were very fast with the ball and we had a hard time with them at both ends.
I had a different mindset, Ole Miss basketball has always respected as a program that does things the right way, and they play extremely hard and I think we continue to do that. I want the respect that comes with winning and we still have a long way to go before we are going to earn that.
They are young but they are very, very talented, and they are so athletic and they are so fast, I thought we kind of had the game where we wanted it as far as simple early…and we were missing a ton of shots…but we were able to stay in the game because I did think we were competing we were holding on the glass. I think we should have had a little more separation and then all of a sudden they hit us with a run in transition and you look up and you are down 12. It was basically all in transition in the second half, we couldn’t guard them off the bounce, and Jeff Adrien is a man on the offensive glass…he reminds me a lot of a kid who I coached last year Eric Hicks…he is an undersized guy that gets a lot of things done.
I’m searching; we really miss Dwayne Curtis terribly. As a front line we were 4 for 21 tonight. It becomes a bit demoralizing when you get the ball when you want it if you can’t finish in close….a lot of that has to do with UConn and their ability to block shots…but we had opportunities at the basket that we didn’t capitalize on and Dwayne Curtis can do one thing really well…he can score. He’s got good hands and he can score with his back to the basket. Certainly he is going to help us when he returns.
I probably made a mistake, and I make a lot of them throughout the course of the game. I may have emphasized it a bit too much, he is such a presence, and I wanted our mindset to be penetrate and pitch, but our big guys boy they were looking for him at all times, he is such a presence defensively. I don’t know if there is a bigger defensive presence in college basketball because of his size and because of his ability to change the game on that end. He is really good…he’s just a baby too, these kids are babies, they are going to get better, they are led by a Hall of Fame coach. I think people will be foolish to sleep on UConn when January rolls around.
UConn Sophomore Jeff Adrien
It’s a good start for us to build our confidence that we can play with a high team like Ole Miss.
On the difference tonight
We focus a lot more. We executed a lot more. You could say coach was, not necessarily easier, but he toned it down a little bit. And maybe that helped a lot of guys out, helped them play better.
How far has the team come in the last 10 days?
We were a lot different, a lot more confident. Hopefully, we don’t take it to an extreme, get big heads or anything like that….I feel like we can score on any team. We have so many weapons. We have many guys who can score 20 a night.
On doing more as one of the leaders
Since I’ve been doing this double-double thing, I really expect nothing less. That’s how I feel. I really like grabbing rebounds. I want to make it a routine – just put it on the stats sheet and call it a day.
It was really good that we could compete with a team at this level.
UConn Sophomore AJ Price
On career-high scoring night:
I came out from the jump and knew this team was pretty tough on both ends of the floor. I felt I needed to step it up offensively. That’s what I tried to do throughout the game.
Tonight was a great feeling. I haven’t had that feeling since probably AAU, just being out there playing hard on both ends of the floor and having fun for 40 minutes.
I think a lot of it is confidence. Nothing can be accomplished without confidence. I think tonight a lot of players felt confident in the early going.
UConn Freshman Jerome Dyson
On Jeff Adrien
Jeff he’s just a monster. We know if we need a basket that he’ll get it for us
How much does it help when AJ is scoring?
It’s great. I mean it opens everybody up with him driving, going to the basket and having to kick-out to me or the lobs down for the big men. It’s just been working good.
