By Neill Ostrout
STAFF WRITER
STORRS _ The UConn basketball team wasn’t ready to call it a season just yet. And senior Jerome Dyson wasn’t about to call it a career, either.
Dyson scored 11 of UConn’s final 13 points to rally his team to a 59-57 win over Northeastern in the first round of the NIT Tuesday night in Gampel Pavilion.
UConn (18-15) scored the final seven points in the game.
UConn will play the winner of Wednesday’s Virginia Tech-Quinnipiac clash in the event’s second round. The date and time for that matchup have yet to be announced.
UConn survived despite the fact that Kemba Walker missed the front end of two 1-and-1’s in the final minute. And UConn snapped its four-game losing streak despite a scare at the buzzer.
Baptiste Bataille’s long 3-pointer that would have won the game for Northeastern came close to falling, but bounced off the back of the rim as the horn sounded.
UConn trailed by six points with less than six minutes to play in the game but rallied behind its once struggling senior guard.
Dyson finished with 18 points and Stanley Robinson 14.
Matt Janning led Northeastern (20-13) with 17 points.
Dyson, who missed seven of his first eight shots in the game, came around a screen and hit a jumper to get UConn within three with 3:42 to play. After Chaisson Allen scored for Northeastern, Dyson then calmly nailed a 3-pointer with 2:45 to play that cut the deficit to 57-55.
Following Dyson’s trey, Walker drew a charge on Allen to give his team the ball again. With Northeastern’s defense focusing on Dyson, he lobbed a pass to Robinson for a layup that tied the game at 57.
Two free throws by Dyson with 53.6 seconds to play gave UConn a 59-57 lead, a score that narrowly held up.
