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After taking care of business against one of this season's elite Big East teams in Notre Dame Wednesday, the Huskies now look forward to a matchup with a Big East bottom-feeder.
South Florida may be stuck at the bottom of the conference, but while the Huskies were taking care of the Irish Wednesday night, the Bulls were taking down Syracuse. All of a sudden No. 17 UConn (19-5, 8-3 Big East) has a road game against South Florida (11-14, 2-10) that doesn't look as easy as it did three days ago.
"They're going to be better tomorrow, at least initially coming off some confidence and a big win over Syracuse," said head coach Jim Calhoun. "Watching the tape today, it wasn't the same South Florida team that we've seen and you don't know - have they reached the point where they're ready to go?"
Saturday's game will be played in Tampa at the Sun Dome (noon, MyTV9), which just happens to be the same building where the Bulls beat Syracuse, 89-78.
"They had been scoring 61, 63, 58, 59 and it wasn't even a contest last night," Calhoun said about South Florida's offensive explosion. "They led 38-24 at halftime over a good Syracuse team that we just beat by two."
The Huskies just finished their toughest stretch of games this season, dating back to the Georgetown game Jan. 12, where they faced five teams that are currently ranked in the Top 25. With South Florida nowhere near that level, there is the potential for a possible letdown, and Calhoun knows the Bulls can put an end to his team's eight-game winning streak.
"We've been playing very emotional games and I just hope that we can maintain our emotion to keep playing as well as we have," he said. "The positive for us is it should get our players attention, beating Syracuse."
South Florida has two players averaging 16 points per game this season in Kentrell Gransberry and Dominique Jones. These players gave the Orange fits as they scored 23 points and 29 points, respectively.
At 6-foot-9, 270 pounds, Gransberry is a force on the Bulls frontline, and averages a double-double this season. The Huskies have had success against him in the past, as they held him to just 12 points and four rebounds in last season's matchup. Jones is a freshman guard who twice this season has scored 30 points and is shooting 40 percent from 3-point range.
"They're a dangerous team, they got enough talent," Calhoun said. "[We need to] keep making sure that we do, basically we've been doing, and that's play better inside defense than we played [Wednesday], continue to run our offense."
As enjoyable as this eight-game run has been, Calhoun still has some reservations because of the team's lack of depth.
"It feels great. I think it's validation in the sense that I think we have good basketball players," Calhoun said of the streak. "Right now I think we're a little bit thin still, I think we miss Jerome [Dyson].
"I think the reason we miss people is we don't have as much margin for error. It took a tremendous performance - and another career-high - from A.J. [Price] to kind of get us over the top."
Calhoun also said that contributions like Gavin Edwards' eight points and Stanley Robinson's 3-pointer toward the end of the game Wednesday were also key factors in the win and very important because the Huskies are lacking depth right now.
Calhoun and the players admit this winning streak has been fun, but in order for it to continue, the team will have to remain mentally strong.
"No doubt in my mind - no doubt in my mind - that we're going to have to keep the same type of focus and they should enjoy this," Calhoun said. "We're a game out of first place and half a game out of second place and obviously [with] the NCAA [Tournament] looming there's a whole bunch of stuff that we can certainly play for."
Contact Dan Olender at
Daniel.Olender@UConn.edu.
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