University of Connecticut Athletics
Men's Basketball Takes Down Texas Southern, 106-55
12/3/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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STORRS, CONN. (December 3, 2006) – A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.) scored 20 points to lead five Huskies in double figures as the No. 15 nationally-ranked University of Connecticut men’s basketball team blasted Texas Southern, 106-55, Sunday afternoon before a sellout crowd of 10,167 at the Harry A. Gampel Pavilion.
The victory was the Huskies seventh in succession to start the season, while the Tigers drop to 2-6 this year.
Price was the most effective of many UConn stars in the contest. He made six-of-eight from the field, including a sizzling four-of-five from three-point range. He had made just five three-pointers in UConn’s first six games, and has now scored in double figures in six straight contests. His starting backcourt mate, Jerome Dyson (Rockville, Md.), also had a solid game, scoring 19 points, marking the sixth time in seven games he had reached double figures in scoring in his brief Connecticut career.
Freshman guard Doug Wiggins (East Hartford, Conn.) literally had a perfect afternoon for head coach Jim Calhoun’s Huskies. He made all five of his field goal attempts, including three from long range, and was successful on all four of his charity tosses. He finished with 17 points and four assists in 19 eventful minutes. Freshman center Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) made his first entry into the Connecticut record book by blocking 10 Texas Southern shots, tying former Husky All-America’s Donyell Marshall and Emeka Okafor for most blocks in a game for UConn.
Starting forwards Marcus Johnson (Los Angeles, Calif.) and Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) each scored 11 points, while Adrien, led the Huskies off of the glass with nine rebounds, as he has for every game this season. Freshman forward Stanley Robinson (Birmingham, Ala.) had eight points and a career-best nine rebounds for UConn.
Two shooting streaks were perpetuated in the game. Connecticut shot 57 percent for the game, including a sizzling 63 percent in the second half, marking the sixth-straight game the Huskies had shot at least 50 percent from the field. The streak tied the longest under Calhoun, matching the six straight games the 1993-1994 squad performed the feat.
In addition, the Huskies, perennially one of the nation’s stingiest in field goal defense, ran its season-long streak of not allowing a team to shoot better than 36 percent from the field to seven, by limiting the Tigers to 21-of-59 shooting.
The Huskies broke from the gate quickly, scoring the game’s first four points en route to a 10-point lead at 18-8 just 8:02 into the contest. Texas Southern got no closer than nine the rest of the way, trailing 58-28 at intermission.
Leonta Matthews paced Texas Southern with 10 points.
The Huskies will play their final game before taking a 10-day break for semester exams on Wednesday, December 6 when they entertain Northeastern at Gampel Pavilion. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m., and the game will be televised by Fox-61 and SNY. Calhoun coached Northeastern for 14 seasons before coming to Connecticut in 1986.
POSTGAME QUOTES
UConn Head Coach Jim Calhoun
It’s our job, as a team and me as a coach and them as players, to try to get everything we can out of these games. The team has developed faster than I thought it would. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to be first or sixteenth in the Big East. It doesn’t mean anything in that regard. It’s just that we have developed faster. Starting with the exhibitions and the Quinnipiac game, that three set, I didn’t think that we would probably come along offensively….Our fast-break is much better than it was earlier. I know A.J. Price has looked the quickest I’ve seen him since his comeback....Dougie has found his confidence, finally, in the past week or so. We’re finding a better place for Stanley Robinson, who I thought played very, very well, by the way.
We, as a coaching staff have got to keep them, hopefully, in reality that today you didn’t beat Carolina, or Pittsburgh or Rutgers or anybody else. You beat Texas Southern, who we are fortunate enough to have better players than, on our home court, and we did a good job defensively.
At this stage in the year, I’m just watching one team, ours, to see if we’re getting better. There’s no question in my mind that we run better. There’s no question in my mind that we defend better. Kids have a tendency to let up, and that’s the hardest thing I have to face.
We’re not using anything here as a yardstick for the season. We’re using it as a yardstick just for our team.
Some may complain about scheduling….I’m the one who made the schedule up, in a sense. If I had to change it, I probably would have liked to play Indiana next Saturday – we can’t because of finals. Today would be fine, too – because I think we are more ready than I thought we might be, to find out where we are, a little bit. But with all that said, we think we know how to build championship teams around here. Not egotistically, but the record would indicate that.
The team is gaining a great deal of confidence. How do we take that confidence and good play and not make it into, “Well, every game’s going to be like this.” The margin’s are going to change, and the results may change. But I’m watching what we do.
We made a decision a couple of days ago to try to slowly get John into the mix. We just felt that, physically, there are going to be days where we can use his physicality in the low post. There’s the possibility of a twisted ankle with Jeff, Gavin, certainly Hasheem, and we’re going to need some more bulk in there. During practice, every single day, he’s the one of the only guys that can hold Hasheem away from the basket, beyond Jeff, that has the physical strength to do so … He doesn’t want to redshirt. He would if we asked him to, but he really doesn’t want to redshirt. So the decision was made to put him right in the fight with everyone else.
UConn Freshman Stanley Robinson
On breaking the game open:
I was pretty much running, rebounding, trying to keep the team focused, trying to stay stylish, but other than that I would say that Doug made some great passes. Rob Garrison came off the bench, he made a great pass with the left hand and he gave us some energy as well.
On Thabeet’s 10 blocks:
Hasheem is like a solid brick wall down there. He’s going to help us out a lot, coming from 10 blocks, that’s a career high for UConn, he’s just going to keep feeding, keep providing for the team.
UConn Freshman AJ Price
On staying focused:
Come out for the start of the game again, continue to command and keep on progressing and try to build on that lead.
On all the fouls in the game
It’s frustrating, but its points for us, we’ll take them, and making them on the line, that was a good thing for us. At the beginning of the year we couldn’t make free throws, but tonight I think we did a good job at the line and got the points we needed
On not being seriously tested:
Honestly, I don’t look at the team and its caliber, I just look at the results and how we played, I just look at the numbers. When we go to West Virginia, it’ll just be another game, of course it’ll be better, they are going to be more talented but our job is to go out there and keep doing what we’ve been doing these first eight games.
On the team progressing and getting better:
It’s a big improvement from our first game with Quinnipiac, our point total is going up every game and our defense is pretty much staying the same so I think we are getting much better as a team.
UConn Freshman Hasheem Thabeet
On having a career night with 10 blocks:
We can see that every day I play better defense, so I am trying to work more on playing offense. I belong here is what I am thinking, playing defense, playing hard. It’s a winning school.
On his offense:
I am actually trying to average double figures, from offensive, so everyday I am trying to pick it up offensively, maybe at the middle of the season I will be there. We are trying to play together as much as we can. We practice together, but now they know they can play with me and I can catch certain plays.
UConn Freshman Jerome Dyson
On the improvement of the team:
We are putting up a lot more points on the board and people are getting shots where they are wide open and the ball is being reversed and our defense is even looking better.
On being challenged:
We really want to see where we are at with other teams; I think we are right up there. We just keep getting better in practice everyday.
UConn Freshman Doug Wiggins
On competition:
I come into the game just worried about us and our team and what we have to do to win the game. We are not really looking at who we are playing, but maybe when we get into BIG EAST play that will change. We are ready to prove ourselves to the country.
