Long day of work for us reporter types.
Good day of basketball for those UConn basketball types.
The Huskies didn’t play their best, didn’t steamroll Purdue like they had Chattanooga and Texas A&M. Still, they’re on to the Elite Eight after Thursday’s 72-60 win.
It’s the ninth time UConn has reached the regional final, the eighth under Jim Calhoun. The Huskies are 2-5 in the round under Calhoun (wins in 1999 and 2004, obviously).
– Just when you thought Craig Austrie was finished making big plays, or having big games, he comes through.
He had made just three of his last 27 shots from 3-point range before Thursday. But he made all three of his 3’s against Purdue and finished with a team-high 17 points.
“Once the first one goes down it feels great. Once the second one goes down it feels even better,” Austrie said in the locker room after the game.
Upon hearing Austrie teammate Jeff Adrien, who was dressing in the adjacent locker, then quipped “When was the last time that happened!”
Austrie then cracked a little smile. His jumper is back and so is the Stamford native’s smile.
Thursday was the first game this season Austrie has led the Huskies in scoring alone. He and Kemba Walker both had 21 each against Hartford.
“Craig doesn’t give you a lot of smiles,” Calhoun said. “But I don’t care if he smiles. Because he gave us a great game and he’s a great young man.”
It was just the third time in the calendar year that Austrie has reached double figures in scoring. The last time was Feb. 11 against Michigan when he netted 10.
– Hasheem Thabeet now has 1,006 points in his UConn career. He’s the 43rd player in UConn history reach 1,000 and the fourth on this team.
Thabeet also has blocked 150 shots this season. That’s second in UConn history to the 156 Emeka Okafor blocked in 2002-03.
Thabeet has 415 career blocked shots, second only to Okafor’s 441 in the UConn record book.
– After scorching the nets by hitting 7-of-8 in the first half of UConn’s second-round win over Texas A&M, Adrien went the other way in the first half Thursday.
He made only 1-of-9 in the first 20 minutes this time, missing both from long distance (15 or 17 feet) and point-blank range.
– A.J. Price had 15 points and 7 assists for UConn, but was bottled up a bit by the Boilermakers.
“You can’t get frustrated. You just have to keep playing,” Price said. “I told myself throughout the game I was happy with where I was getting the ball. I was getting to my spots, I just wasn’t finishing. Getting hit or not, that was neither here nor there. You just have to finish those plays off.
“I didn’t do it early but I told myself at some point I was going to make a big shot. It finally happened for me toward the end of the game. I got in and made two or three of those little mid-range jump shots.”
Price made 5-of-15 from the floor.
“They did a great job on him,” Calhoun said. “They doubled the ball all the time. They did a terrific, terrific job of jumping on him. He fought his way through it and made some big, key hoops.”
Austrie said Purdue’s defense was among the toughest around.
“They’re right up there with Pittsburgh,” Austrie said. “Both teams play tough defense.”
– Purdue went three minutes and 29 seconds without a field goal down the stretch as UConn slowly pulled away.
Well, the Boilermakers didn’t put any balls through the net anyway. They did get credit for one.
Purdue’s Chris Kramer put up a shot that bounced twice off the rim and out. On the second bounce, Thabeet jumped to grab the potential rebound but pulled his arms back as it hit again, trying to avoid interfering with the shot.
The shot eventually missed and Thabeet cradled the rebound. But right after the ball fell into Thabeet’s hands, official Mike Kitts whistled Thabeet for goaltending.
It was clear to most everyone in the building, including apparently Ed Corbett, the official standing under the basket, that Thabeet never came close to touching the ball. No matter, the call stood.
“He didn’t touch it,” Stanley Robinson said. “Sometimes the refs probably get confused but they can’t take the call back.”
– In addition to having a good eye, Robinson had quick feet and hands in guarding Robbie Hummel.
Hummel scored 15 in the first half, mostly with Adrien guarding him. He scored two in the second half with Robinson on him.
– Calhoun, not prompted by any questions, decided to open up just a bit on the whole mini-scandal around his program.
Before leaving the podium and his postgame press conference, Calhoun volunteered a quick story about speaking with UConn AD Jeff Hathaway.
“At 7 this morning I talked to Jeff Hathaway for a half hour, had what I thought was a very fruitful conversation up in Boston,” Calhoun said. “That’s all I’m going to say. I though we had a very fruitful conversation.
“And he said ‘Go get Purdue,’ ” Calhoun continued. “I said fine.”
“As I said, we are continuing to do the things outside we need to do,” Calhoun said. “My job today was to come and coach our basketball team, and the kids took care of that.”
- Neill
