UConn sports

It looked for a while like the Huskies might get their doors blown off in this one.

But a nice comeback on both sides of the ball has UConn in it, down 14-0 at the half.

Notre Dame QB Jimmy Clausen scored on a 1-yard sneak to start the second quarter but the Huskies got on the board after that TD.

Jordan Todman’s 43-yard touchdown run made it 14-7. Todman’s run was impressive, through a couple of tacklers at the line of scrimmage, but the big play on the drive was probably the personal foul, late-hit penalty on ND safety Sergio Brown that wiped out a third-down stop and gave UConn new life.

A stop by the UConn D, thanks to a Lindsey Witten sack (did he really need a dance on that one?), gave then the Huskies the ball back.

Dave Teggart’s 39-yard field goal got UConn within four at 14-10.

– OG Erik Kuraczea hurt his left leg and left the game with 6:42 left in the half. It looked like Todman rolled up on the back of his leg after a running play. Kuraczea stayed in for one more play but then was forced to leave.

Matthieu Olivier has come in for Kuraczea.

4:01 p.m. update: Kuraczea’s back in. Looks OK.

– C Moe Petrus is banged up, too. He stayed in the game but was gimpy.

- Neill

It’s 7-0 Irish after one but ND’s on the doorstep now. Soon to be 14-0.

Notre Dame waltzed down the field with its first possession. Jimmy Clausen completed 6-of-7 passes for 54 yards on the drive, including an 8-yard pass to Golden Tate for the game’s opening score.

The Irish faced only one third down on the whole drive…that would be the play in which they scored. A good play fake by Clausen froze the UConn linebackers and Tate beat Jerome Junior to the post.

UConn went three-and-out on its first drive. The Huskies managed one first down (a nice pitch-and-catch from Zach Frazer to Marcus Easley) on the next drive before another punt. They also got another lone first down on their third drive, after a nice punt return from Robert McClain, but ended up punting again.

– FYI, a moment of silence was held before the game for former UConn CB Jasper Howard.

Nice touch.

– Another FYI. The field looks kind of beat up.

Now, it’s not Rentschler Field after the Rolling Stones or after that Asian Bird Seed flu the grass in East Hartford picked up a few years ago, but it’s certainly not good.

Where’s Charles S. Dutton when you need him?

- Neill

Touchdown Jesus

Greetings from Notre Dame Stadium.

This just in: It’s a bit different than the other UConn-Notre Dame games (basketball) I’ve attended here.

Plenty of UConn jerseys and fans milling around. And the UConn band (and cheerleaders…or is it spirit squad, now?) has made the trip to South Bend.

Still, it’s mostly Golden Domers around these parts and the Irish certainly expect to get a win.

– It’s also mostly Irish players on the field. I counted 94 players in uniform for Notre Dame today.

Is it me, or is that a lot?

I think he coached four horses

– UConn’s travel contingent is the same as usual. No last-minute injuries or suspensions for the visitors.

– No changes to the starting lineup that I can see, at least from watching the pre-game “team” period.

It looks like freshman WR Mike Lang is getting a few more snaps than usual, but maybe I’m crazy.

RB Andre Dixon looks fine, too. If he doesn’t play a lot today it’s probably because Jordan Todman is running very well. There doesn’t seem to be any lingering injury issues for Dixon.

– QB Cody Endres and RB Robbie Frey have made the trip, despite their season-ending injuries.

Frey’s left arm remains in a sling while Endres is free-wheeling it.

– UConn RB coach Terry Richardson, as expected, is not here. He’s attending his mother’s funeral in Florida.

- Neill

Had a chance this afternoon to speak with Anthony Lewis, the longtime coach of the Cecil Kirk AAU program in Baltimore.

Lewis, whose previous protoges have included Reggie Lewis and Rudy Gay, was Cleveland Melvin’s AAU coach. Melvin verbally committed to join UConn Thursday.

Lewis calls Melvin a “freakish” athlete who is probably a power forward now but could become a small forward as he develops in college.

“Not Rudy-ish because Rudy was long, just so darn long athletic. But more athleticism like Sam Young,” Lewis said of the former Pitt star. “Sam Young, at 6-6, had that explosiveness off the floor and was able to do those acrobatic dunks with the agility he had. But his (Melvin’s) body is slender like Rudy’s.”

Melvin chose UConn over DePaul, Memphis, Seton Hall and South Florida.

He played mostly in the post previously before trying to take his game outside some over the last year or two.

“He’s quick, he’s agile, he gets to the rack, he finishes very strong,” Lewis said. “He has a very solid mid-range game. He’s expanded that.”

- Neill

A few items from UConn football coach Randy Edsall’s Thursday afternoon chat:

– UConn running backs coach Terry Richardson won’t make the trip with the team to Notre Dame this weekend.

Richardson’s mother Mary died Monday. Her funeral is Saturday.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with he and his family,” Edsall said.

– The Huskies don’t have any extensive plans for their trip to South Bend, Ind. It’s just any other game, it seems.

They’ll fly in Friday afternoon and proceed to Notre Dame Stadium for a brief walk-through.

“We’ll be there for probably 10 minutes,” Edsall said. “Ten-to-fifteen minutes tops.”

– Edsall said his program, according to numbers released Wednesday by the NCAA, has the highest GSR (Graduation Success Rate) in the Big East.

The most recent data is for those players entering college in 2002.

– The Huskies are apparently as healthy as they’ve been in a while.

Coming off a bye week there are no new injuries and the players who were iffy last week are now fine.

“Everybody is full go,” Edsall said.

The exceptions, of course, are the players who are out for the season: OT Jimmy Bennett, QB Cody Endres, RB/KR Robbie Frey, LB Kijuan Dabney, S John Yurek.

– Your scout team players of the week?

OT Steve Greene, CB Tevrin Brandon and S Marcus Aiken.

Speaking of Aiken, considering we (the talented, good-looking scribes who cover the football team) don’t get to watch practice during the season, I was wondering how the freshman from St. Paul had been performing.

He’s still listed as a wide receiver in some spots by UConn but apparently his move to safety in August will be permanent.

“I plan to keep him there,” Edsall said.

- Neill

Cleveland Melvin, a 6-foot-7 forward originally from Baltimore who is currently at Notre Dame Prep in Fitchburg, Mass., has committed to join the UConn basketball team.

Melvin visited UConn Nov. 8 and attended the UMass-Lowell exhibition game.

He played with a number of other major college prospects at Lake Clifton High in Baltimore before taking a post-grad year at Notre Dame. Among his former teammates are PG Josh Selby and SG Will Barton.

- Neill

The UConn football team’s Dec. 5 game against South Florida at Rentschler Field will begin at 8 p.m. the school announced Wednesday.

The game, which will serve as the Huskies’ regular season finale, will be televised by ESPN2.

- Neill

A look back at Tuesday’s UConn-Hofstra game:

UConn 76, Hofstra 67

TURNING POINT _ Trailing by nine points with nine minutes left in the game, UConn finally got tough. It’s something coach Jim Calhoun has been waiting for since the regular season began.

“Overall I’m going to classify it as a good win at a time when this team is still trying to find its identity,” Calhoun said after the game.

The rebounding was still atrocious, the outside shooting wasn’t great and the perimeter defense was again an issue. That being said, the Huskies (3-0) may have turned a little corner with their rally against the Pride.

“Technically it wasn’t a great basketball game. We’re not going to break this one out as a teaching tool,” Calhoun said.

UNSUNG HERO _ Junior point guard Donnell Beverly hasn’t spent a great deal of time on the court during his career at UConn. That may change in the near future. And even if it doesn’t, the Huskies may start counting on Beverly for some leadership as they move forward.

Calhoun singled Beverly out after the game as the team’s most vocal leader and one of its key cogs.

“It starts in practice. The way you practice is the way you’re going to play,” said Beverly, who played nine minutes Tuesday and connected on his only shot of the game _ a strong drive to the basket. “I feel I’ve been having pretty good practices and he’s noticed that.”

Although it’s good that Beverly has tried to step up, Calhoun still believes some of his better known players have to shoulder more of the leadership.

“He may be the closest thing we have to a leader,” Calhoun said. “And that may be the problem we’re kind of facing right now.”

BEST ‘X’ AND/OR ‘O’ _ Hofstra guard Charles Jenkins is a tough matchup. Somewhat like UConn’s Jerome Dyson, Jenkins is a running back in basketball shorts.

Jenkins has a pretty good outside shot but he’s a driver and a slasher. And the Pride junior uses the screens set by his teammates on the perimeter very well.

When UConn finally tweaked its approach to the pick-and-roll, or at least got the kind of effort from its big men on the pick it wanted, Jenkins came up empty on a few drives late in the game.

“We had to get a real good hedge out of our bigs so it allowed us to get back into the play,” Dyson said. “Because they were screening so well we were getting caught on the screens. By the time we got back to the ball he was already turning the corner.

“We just had to do a better job of getting back in front of him once he went over that screen.”

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS _ No, Frank Sinatra was not blaring in their ears. Nor was Liza Minnelli. There was no “New York, New York” cue reminding the Huskies midway through the second half that a trip to the Big Apple was on the line.

There was, however, Calhoun. And he let them know often.

“Coach did not let us forget about that,” Dyson said. “We knew that if we lost this game that we could have been in the middle of nowhere.”

Teams playing in the NIT Season Tip-off (What was wrong with calling it the Preseason NIT, by the way?) are guaranteed four games. For the four teams that advance to the semis at Madison Square Garden, it’s easy.

But for the other 12 teams, they have to re-assemble at three new sites for games Monday and Tuesday. If UConn had lost, the school had no interest in hosting so the Huskies would have been headed to Charlotte, Milwaukee or Myrtle Beach. (As it turns out TCU (Fort Worth, Texas), Western Kentucky (Bowling Green, Ky.) and Hofstra (Hempstead, N.Y.) are the hosts.

LOOKING AHEAD _ UConn will face an LSU team that had some trouble in advancing out of its regional, too. The Tigers got by Indiana State Monday and then pulled away from Western Kentucky late in Tuesday’s game.

Guard Bo Spencer scored a career-high 28 points in a 71-60 win over WKU.

BY THE NUMBERS

3 _ Rebounds for 6-foot-10 UConn forward Gavin Edwards in 27 minutes of action Tuesday. Not enough for Calhoun (or Edwards, for that matter).

8,713 _ Announced attendance at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday.

7,000 _ Estimated actual attendance at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday.

3,000 _ Estimated number of fans at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday who were “active” and “into” the game.

17 _ Estimated number of fans at Gampel Pavilion Tuesday who were “active” and “into” the game who were not students.

(You can check my math on those last three but I think it’s pretty close)

- Neill