UCGrad1992
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RE: Cincinnati Bearcats vs. Connecticut Huskies Game Thread
From the Hartford Courant (embedded video from Ollie post game):
Quote:No. 8 Cincinnati Holds Off UConn Men, 65-57
This wasn’t the complete capitulation seen from UConn on several other occasions.
Though the Huskies were never a threat to pull an upset Saturday, they fought through a tough afternoon of playing catch-up, toughened up under the boards and staved off the humiliation that seemed inevitable after the first 7½ minutes, with their fans still standing and waiting for their first points.
In the end, these things and $12 would be good for a spot in the parking garage across the street and Geno Auriemma’s sympathy. For the UConn men it amounted to a 65-57 loss to eighth-ranked Cincinnati before 9,170, the largest crowd of the season at Gampel Pavilion.
“I’m always positive, because I know what this team is capable of,” said Jalen Adams, who led the Huskies with 20 points, “If we put a full 40 minutes together, I like our chances against anybody. It’s just a little frustrating when we don’t put those full 40 minutes together, and we show spurts of a good team and other spurts of not doing what we’re capable of.”
UConn (11-12, 4-6 in the American Athletic Conference) has lost three games in the last seven days, and all had a familiar ring. On Saturday, with its home crowd ready to cut loose, the Huskies came out missing everything in sight, their first 10 shots. By the time Christian Vital scored on a layup to put them on the scoreboard, the Huskies were in a 13-0 hole, and 7:46 of the game was gone.
“You just can’t give Cincinnati that type of lead,” coach Kevin Ollie said. “… You can’t spot a team a 13-0 run. We’ve got his great crowd in here, you’ve got to give them something to feed off of. You can’t miss your first 10 shots. Some of those shots were layups, or 3s that were wide open, you’ve got to make your shots to settle your defense down, get the crowd going.”
After their 0-for-10 start, the Huskies made 8 of their next 15 and were within seven, 21-14, on Adams’ bucket with 4:28 to go in the half. Cincinnati, after going more than six minutes without a field goal, made three 3-pointers, two by Jacob Evans III, who finished with 19, and one by Keith Williams at the buzzer to send the Bearcats to halftime with a 32-21 lead.
“Every time we tried to get over the hump, they made a play,” Ollie said, “that’s what top teams in the country do.”
The Huskies were hanging in there in the second half when East Hartford’s Cane Broome, who transferred from Sacred Heart to Cincinnati, came off the bench to hit a pair of 3-pointers, helping to stretch the Bearcats’ lead to 17 with 12:04 to play. UConn was down 19 with 7:58 left, but made a late run and got within single digits in the final minute, within six on Adams’ 3-pointer with six seconds left, forcing Cincinnati (20-2, 10-0 in the conference) to at least make free throws to clinch the game.
It was UConn’s first loss of the season at Gampel.
“They play with a lot of pride,” Cincinnati coach Mick Cronin said, “They play a lot of freshmen on the front line; we have guys like that, but they are on the bench waiting their turn. I thought they competed extremely hard. … Obviously, they couldn’t get anything, you know our defense bothered them early. It wasn’t a pretty game by any stretch.”
Broome had 10 points and three assists in 24 minutes, and Kyle Washington had 13 points and 11 rebounds. The Bearcats controlled, but did not dominate up front against the Huskies’ young big men, accumulating a 38-33 edge in rebounds, getting 10, below their 13.6 average, on the offensive boards.
“Usually, when you box out and rebound, it’s the first effort,” said Mamadou Diarra, a redshirt freshman. “But they go first, second and third effort, so we just kept fighting with them and didn’t let them get their usual numbers. We kept working the whole time.”
Diarra, getting a start with Isaiah Whaley limited by a strained hip, had eight points and six rebounds in 23 minutes. Vital, 8-for-16, scored 18 points to go with nine rebounds. But Terry Larrier (1-for-8) still looked lost playing with the mask, airballing a few of his shots, and the Huskies finished 36.1 percent from the floor. Cincinnati shot 38 percent, but went 9-for-25 on 3-pointers, with UConn 5-for-17.
For a team that has lost six games by 20 or more points, the effort was respectable, but all the good UConn did must be seen through the prism of the 0-for-10, 13-0 deficit to start the game, which made much of what came afterward academic.
UConn got only one field goal in the first 10 1/3 minutes at UCF on Wednesday night, falling behind 11-3 and losing by nine, and were down 7-0 and 11-4 in the opening minutes at Temple last Sunday, eventually losing by 27.
“Maybe we just need to come out and be more aggressive, try to put pressure on the defense,” Vital said. “Sometimes, we try to see what the defense is going to give us and obviously that’s good sometimes. But if we put the pressure on the defense, make them react to us, that may get us off to a quicker start. Maybe just a different approach.”
Slow Start Forces Crowd To Stand
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