UConn sports

A look back at Wednesday’s UConn-Providence game:

Providence 81, UConn 66

TURNING POINT _ UConn looked powerless over the final nine minutes of the game. The Huskies didn’t run many offensive plays and didn’t stop very many Providence drives to the basket.

The Huskies went scoreless for five-and-a-half minutes and scored only one point in a span of 7:12. And 18-1 run by the Friars sealed UConn’s fate.

“We played 30 minutes of really good basketball on the road,” acting head coach George Blaney said. “We got the lead and we really were, I thought, in control.”

That control was short-lived.

Soon the Huskies were shooting too quickly on offense and watching Providence shoot too easily _ i.e. go through layup drills.

“I think we kind of just took our foot off the gas,” forward Gavin Edwards said. “We came back and as soon as we did that, we had the thought that we had the game won already.”

UNSUNG HERO _ PC freshman guard Duke Mondy scored a career-high 10 points against the Huskies, but he was just one of many reserve Friars who contributed Wednesday.

Providence used 12 players, including seldom used center Ray Hall and forward Russ Permenter. Only Mondy and Marshon Brooks played significant minutes, but all 12 helped the starting Friars save some energy.

“I felt like we might have been a fresher team,” Providence coach Keno Davis said.

Officially UConn got 20 points from its bench, with Edwards netting 17 and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel three.

In reality, Edwards is a de facto starter and one of UConn’s main contributors. And in reality, UConn’s auxiliary players didn’t contribute much.

BEST ‘X’ AND/OR ‘O’ _ For all the talk of Providence’s long distance shooting prowess (the Friars are second in the Big East in 3-pointers made per game), the Friars did nearly all of their damage with the drive-and-dish.

Of Providence’s 16 second-half field goals, only two came outside of five feet and those two were mid-range jumpers by Sharaud Curry. The Friars had 14 layups or dunks in the second half.

Curry and Vincent Council used screens from their teammates or simply pure speed to blow by UConn defenders.

“We could not contain the dribble and that just annihilated us,” Blaney said. “Because the bigs kept coming to help, and then they would slip and offensive rebound.”

The Friars had nine dunks in total Wednesday night, including six by Jamine Peterson.

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS _ Can we put a moratorium on court storming until Chaminade beats Virginia again?

When your team beats the No. 19 team in the nation _ a team from the same league, a team with six losses already and a team that your school has beaten regularly in recent years _ and you storm the court, your school should be forced to write an apology letter to the NCAA.

And when the security guards in your building try and chase reporters sitting on the baseline out of their seats with four minutes left in the game instead of even attempting to dissuade students from running onto the floor, your school should be forced to write two letters.

LOOKING AHEAD _ The Huskies (13-7, 3-4) have a date with Marquette Saturday at the XL Center.

It’s just a ho-hum Big East game against a talented opponent: the kind of games the Huskies need to win bunches of.

“As big a win as it was on Saturday (over Texas), we have to win Big East games,” Edwards said. “It’s just plain and simple. That was a great win on Saturday but if we can’t win a game in the Big East, our whole season is over. We can just say we beat Texas but that’s it.”

BY THE NUMBERS

10 _ Where UConn ranks nationally in field goal percentage defense.

1 _ Where UConn ranks nationally in blocked shots.

0 _ How much those stats mean if every defensive possession you give up two offensive rebounds and allow the opposition to score anyway.

- Neill

A few items from the Big East’s weekly conference call between the coaches and some esteemed media members (and a few bona fide knuckleheads) Thursday morning:

– UConn takes on Marquette Saturday in Hartford, and is still getting loads of respect from the Golden Eagles it seems.

“We’ll have to be almost perfect against UConn to have a chance,” Marquette coach Buzz Williams said. “I think they’re one of the best teams in the country.”

Marquette has yet to win a game on the road this season (sound familiar UConn fans?).

“It is hard to win on the road on any league, particularly in our league,” Williams said. “You have to understand that everything is stacked against you. You have to be incredibly efficient offensively. You can’t afford live ball turnovers, you can’t afford to take contested, bad shots. And defensively you have to have the ability to play to the scouting report every single possession. That’s difficult to do on the road, that’s why teams struggle.”

Marquette has also played a myriad of close games. Six of its seven league games have been decided by five points or less.

“We’ve lost five games by a total of 11 points,” Williams said. “Four of those games have been on the road and four games of those games have been against top-8 teams.”

– Having dropped a 90-72 game to Villanova Wednesday night, Notre Dame coach Mike Brey thinks he knows who the country’s No. 1 team is.

“They would get my vote,” Brey said.

Actually, Brey said the Big East might have the 1 and the 2 (Syracuse).

“We just happen to run into two of them in the last 10 days,” Brey said.

Cincinnat coach Mick Cronin says he’d rank Syracuse No. 1 at this point.

“Absolutely,” Cronin said. “If I had a vote.”

And where would Villanova rank in Cronin’s poll?

“They’d be number two,” he said.

– For his part Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim says there isn’t a clear No. 1 at this point.

He mentioned UConn’s huge win (Texas) followed by the Huskies’ bad loss (Providence) as evidence that things aren’t so easy to gauge.

“It’s very difficult to tell what’s going on in college basketball,” Boeheim said. “Unless you’re a sportswriter.”

Boeheim meant it sarcastically but I’m taking it as the God’s honest truth. I always knew sportswriters were smarter than coaches!

– Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody scored 21 Wednesday against Villanova and moved into 7th place on the Big East’s all-time scoring list for league games only.

Harangody has scored 1,236 points in his Big East career. Next up is Boston College’s Dana Barros, who is in sixth place with 1,257.

– How is West Virginia point guard Joe Mazzulla improving lately?

“His shoulder’s getting better and he can foul with two hands now,” WVU coach Bob Huggins said.

Huggins was doing his best stand-up routine Thursday morning. Sometimes a curmudgeon with the media, Huggins had some fun.

Asked to describe the Mountaineers’ game with Louisville Saturday, Huggins replied:

“The little guy sitting over there is a pretty good coach.”

No doubt Rick Pitino appreciates such praise.

- Neill

Sorry, no elaborate post-game blog. Wireless service in the “new” Dunkin Donuts Center stinks.

- Neill

OK, finally got on for a moment. Here are some quick quotes before I lose the connection again:

“Just about everything that we hoped would not happen after the game on Saturday reared its head in the last nine minutes of the game,” acting head coach George Blaney said.

The Huskies essentially negated all the good they did against Texas.

“Definitely,” Kemba Walker said. “This was a way more important game than Saturday’s game.”

– Third game without Jim Calhoun. First loss.

“He would have given them a jolt, I’ll tell you that,” Blaney said. “I would have liked to have had him here tonight, that’s for sure.”

– UConn has four of its last five games with PC and six of the last nine.

– Providence, which leads the Big East in offensive rebounds (16.8), had a whopping 24 of them Wednesday.

It’s the second-most against the Huskies this year. Duke had 25.

– Rebounds in the second half? PC 30, UConn 15

– The problem on defense?

“We could not contain the dribble and that just annihilated us,” Blaney said. “Because the bigs kept coming to help, and then they would slip and offensive rebound.”

– The problem on offense?

“We had a lot of offense where we were just standing. It makes it harder to get up a shot when we’re not running offense full speed,” guard Jerome Dyson said. “That’s the key to our game, running offense at full speed. And we did a lot of standing around today.”

– Up next, Marquette. Will get a third court-storming in three games?

Safe to say, uh, no.

Providence is up 36-35 at the break. Bilal Dixon’s basket near the end of the half gave the Friars that lead _ their first of the game.

The Huskies led by as much as 10 points, including 29-19 with seven minutes left in the half.

But a quick 8-0 run by the Friars, which included two three’s, put the home team right back in it. A tip-dunk by Jamine Peterson tied the game at 31 with 3:44 left in the half.

Gavin Edwards has 10 points to lead UConn. Peterson has 12 for PC.

Turnovers continue to hurt the Huskies, though point guard Kemba Walker isn’t the culprit this time.

UConnn has 13 turnovers already (four by Jerome Dyson).

- Neill

Greetings from the Dunkin’ Donuts Center in lovely Providence.

As a longtime playful mocker of the building and the city, I must admit the Dunk looks pretty nice. They’ve done a good job with the renovations and it does seem much better.

Now we’ll see how the fans treat acting coach George Blaney. They always had some extra words for Jim Calhoun when he was here.

Blaney said before the game that he was rather fond of of the former Providence Civic Center. When he was at Holy Cross, Blaney says he made frequent trips down to see the Friars play.

“I kind of like the place. I even liked it when it was run down,” Blaney said. “But they’ve done a great job with remodeling it and done a great job cleaning it up.”

– At least on member of UConn’s traveling party probably isn’t in love with the building.

Overheard about two hours before the game on a walkie talkie in the bowels of the building:

“I’ve got a guy here,” the talker says. “He says he’s one of the UConn coaches and his name is uhhhh…Patrick…ummmm….Sellers.”

A short pause before the same talker continues:

“But he’s not on the list!”

Apparently you can be on a lineup card, in a media guide and in other official publications but if you’re not on the list at the door to the Dunk, forget it!

Do you think if Jim Calhoun tried to make a last-minute drive to Providence and showed up, the same call would have been made to a superior?

I can hear it now: “Hey boss. I’ve got some guy down here says his name is Calhoun or something. I don’t gotta let him in if he’s not on my list, right?”

- Neill

A few words from Gampel Pavilion before UConn practice Tuesday afternoon. Head coach Jim Calhoun remains on a medical leave and the Huskies are trying to focus on Wednesday night’s game against Providence at the rat-infested crime-ridden refurbished Providence Civic Center Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

– Yes, UConn is coming off a huge win over Texas but the Huskies are trying to get back to the business of winning Big East games.

“We immediately tried to bring them back to Earth,” associate head coach Geoge Blaney said. “The Texas game, they accomplished something historical in the history of Connecticut basketball. They’ve become only the second team to beat a No. 1 team.

“I told them that would be something they could remember for the rest of their lives, and that they should be very proud of it,” Blaney continued. “But that they could throw it all away if they don’t come to play on Wednesday night. The Big East road game has as much a bearing on our season as the win over Texas.”

– Calhoun remains separated from the program but he and Blaney talk on the phone.

“He seems to be doing well,” Blaney said. “He’s talking more aggressively.”

Is he going crazy watching the team from afar?

“I think he’s going crazy, yeah,” Blaney said.

The players would like him back but don’t know when it will happen.

“We never knew a time he was coming back,” guard Kemba Walker said. “As of now we still don’t know. Of course we’re getting worried, but like I said before he’s a fighter and he’ll be back shortly.”

Is anyone surprised Calhoun isn’t back yet?

“I’m not really surprised that he’s still out. That would be a little odd of he comes back after we won the Texas game, after only being out for three days,” forward Gavin Edwards said with a laugh. “That would be a little suspect to me.”

It appears Calhoun is following his doctor’s orders while on leave and not getting too involved with the business of running the Huskies.

“To my knowledge, this is the best he’s ever done with following instructions toward anything,” Blaney said.

– Providence is second in the Big East in 3-pointers made per game (7.95 per).

“They really spread the floor on you, which means you have to come out further to pick them up and guard them,” Blaney said. “Which then leads to easier baskets for (Jamine) Peterson and (Bilal) Dixon and guys inside. While they’re a 3-point shooting team, probably the tougher part to guard is their slipping to the rim for dunks.”

Providence is also the best offensive rebounding team in league (16.8 per game).

“They don’t hesitate to shoot a three, rebound a missed three and shoot another three on the next pass,” Blaney said. “It’s a game we have to really defend and really make them pay at the other end.”

– As good as Providence as been offensively, the Friars have been terrible on defense (at least statistically). PC is last in the league in scoring defense (78.5 ppg) and 15th in field goal percentage defense (44.2 percent).

– A nice 2-0 week helped the Huskies put their losing streak behind them quickly.

“It was two huge games for us,” Walker said. “Coming off three straight losses we got two big wins, a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence.”

– They’re playing better but the Huskies still haven’t won a true road game this year (0-3).

“That’s real big. We haven’t got a road win yet, so it’s going to be huge for us to get this win right here,” Walker said.

– Providence is coming off a painful overtime loss to USF, a game it led by nine points with 44 seconds to go. It’s likely the Friars will be pumped up but..

“We usually get everybody’s best effort regardless,” Edwards said.

– Expect the same starting lineup, with Ater Majok up front. Majok has pulled ahead of Charles Okwandu in the race to be the third big man. (We all know Edwards is No. 1 even if he comes off the bench).

As far as the rotation and the minutes go, the Huskies are still looking for a little more offense off the bench.

“I think Jamal Coombs is a terrific offensive player. I think he really knows how to play offense,” Blaney said. “We just need to get him going a little more, like he did in the first half of the Georgetown game.”

- Neill

The UConn basketball team re-entered the Associated Press rankings this week, checking in at No. 19.

The Huskies moved up to No. 19 in the ESPN/USA Today (coaches) poll. They were 21st last week.

UConn (13-6) visits Providence Wednesday night to take on the Friars.

- Neill

A look back at Saturday’s UConn-Texas game:

UConn 88, Texas 74

TURNING POINT _ Much like it had the previous game against St. John’s, the UConn half-court offense was pretty successful. In addition, UConn’s defense created numerous turnovers in the second half that led to easy baskets.

“We’re running full speed offense,” said Jerome Dyson, who led the Huskies with a career-high 32 points. “We’re getting into offense quickly. We’re not waiting until it’s 15 seconds on the shot clock or something like that. And we’re setting screens, running people off screens.”

Interim head coach George Blaney says his team simply has to be patient with its halfcourt offense _ while at the same time running full speed.

“We get anxious sometimes. We get anxious to make home run plays,” Blaney said. “Because we’re so athletic at some positions, we tend to do that.”

And with Dyson, Kemba Walker and even Donnell Beverly picking off passes at the other end Saturday, it turns into the kind of offense UConn and its fans really like: 2-on-1 and 1-on-none fast breaks.

UNSUNG HERO _ The most minutes freshman forward Ater Majok had played in a game before Saturday came when he played 20 against Cincinnati.

So even though Blaney thought Majok might play better against Texas and decided to re-insert him into the starting lineup, the coach never expected Majok would be on the court for 31 minutes against the nation’s top-ranked team.

“I probably didn’t expect that, I just thought his length would help us in this game and I thought we could run (Dexter) Pittman a little bit more with him,” Blaney said.

Playing just his 11th college game, Majok was at his best. His modest line of five points, six rebounds and four blocks don’t fully describe his contributions.

“Everybody had to bring it,” Majok said.

BEST ‘X’ AND/OR ‘O’ _ Blaney has a way of making coaching look pretty simple. Either that or the veteran teacher has a magic touch.

When UConn went to the locker room at halftime trailing Texas 42-34 and having committed 16 turnovers, Blaney had some words for his point guard. Walker already had six turnovers to his credit.

“Yeah, I told him ‘Don’t turn the ball over,’ ” Blaney said. “I’m serious.”

Apparently the strategy worked. Walker did have two more turnovers right out of the gate, but played inspired basketball in the second half. As a team UConn didn’t have a single turnover in the last 16-and-a-half minutes of the game.

Blaney’s mind control/positive thinking approach to coaching didn’t stop there on Saturday. Later he had another message for Walker.

“I told him another time ‘Go tell Alex (Oriakhi) to make two foul shots,’ ” Blaney said. “He looked him like I was crazy and I said ‘Go tell him!’ So he did, and he made them.

“Then when Kemba missed one I said ‘Ask Alex to tell you to make a foul shot.’ ”

Do you think Blaney will bring Walker into his office this morning and say “Go tell the team to win the last 12 games of the regular season?”

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS _ Saturday’s was at least the loudest crowd in Gampel Pavilion in a decade. It might have been the loudest in the building’s 20-year history.

Perhaps some of the students in attendance were even more excited when the game began after Blaney let them inside much earlier in the day to watch the Huskies go through their shootaround.

“I think coach Blaney was rewarding them because they had been camped out since yesterday (Friday),” forward Gavin Edwards said.

LOOKING AHEAD _ Providence is up next Wednesday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. And there’s still more than a month’s worth of games for the Huskies to play. They’re trying not to put too much stock in one victory.

“We got another win. We’re not there yet,” Majok said. “The season’s not over. We’re not guaranteed the NCAA Tournament. We have to keep working.”

BY THE NUMBERS

7 _ The number of triple-doubles in UConn’s recorded basketball history.

1 _ The number of rebounds Jerome Dyson (15 points, 10 assists, 9 rebounds) needed Jan. 6 against Seton Hall to earn the 8th.

2 _ The number of turnovers Kemba Walker (19 points, 10 assists, 8 turnovers) needed Saturday against Texas to earn the 8th.

- Neill