< Back | Home

UConn center Hasheem Thabeet thunders home a dunk in Monday night's 99-56 thrashing of the Hartford Hawks at the XL Center.

TOMA-HAWK'D

Huskies' second half explosion fuels rout over Hartford Hawks

By: Justin Verrier

Posted: 11/18/08

HARTFORD - Maybe it was because A.J. Price, the one player who dug them out of so many graves the past season, was sitting on the bench, nursing a sprained left ankle and foot. Or perhaps the team checked out for their date in the Virgin Islands four days too soon.

Whatever the reason, after coming out flat, the Huskies found themselves only one point ahead of a surging Hartford team and on the brink of being upset with 16 minutes left to play.

But once Jerome Dyson left his defender in the dust with a behind-the-back dribble after stealing the inbounds pass and dunked the ball to a raucous applause, the Huskies burst out to a 44-7 run over last 13 minutes, turning a near stumble into a 99-56 rout before 11,849 at the XL Center.

"It got the crowd into it, everybody on the bench" said Dyson, who scored 18 points on 8-for-15 shooting and added four assists. "I could see everybody was really back into the game and then we just continued it on the defensive end."

Guards Kemba Walker and Craig Austrie both finished with 21 points apiece, but it was the senior Austrie that received a heaping dose of praise from UConn coach Jim Calhoun after the game.

"Craig's composure makes a difference," Calhoun said. "And that helps Kemba, and then it kind of feeds, and once we fed, we started to make foul shots, we started running and everything started going right for us."

After poor shooting and what Calhoun called a "morphing" defense left the Huskies up just 41-32 after the first half, the Hawks jumped out on UConn right out of the gate after halftime.

On the strength of four points by forward Kevin Estes and two steals by Joe Zeglinski, Hartford went on a 10-2 run to open the second half and narrowed UConn's lead to 45-44 with 16:39 to play.

But after Austrie hit a runner in the lane to push the lead back three, the Huskies were off to the races.

On the ensuing play after his game-changing dunk, Dyson locked onto to Andres Torres on the defensive end, forcing a five-second call that resulted in a technical foul when Torres said some unfavorable things to the referees.

Austrie hit both foul shouts from the technical to bring the score to 59-49, and the Huskies would go on a backbreaking 40-7 run thereafter.

"Craig is not really known for leadership vocally, but today he definitely led by example," Walker said. "He came out with aggressiveness in the second half, and he got everybody else ready to play."

Although he played a team-high 19 first-half minutes, Adrien scored just two points before halftime and didn't get on the board until he hit two free throws with 2:03 left to play. He finished the first half 0-for-4 from the field and 2-for-6 on free throws.

But after continuing to play solid defensively, according to Calhoun, Adrien's offense eventually kicked in. The senior forward threw down a forceful dunk to put UConn up 55-49 in the second half, and would go on to finish with 12 points and a team-high 15 rebounds.

"I feel like I'm a different player than I was in years past," Adrien said. "Offensively, if I'm not going I can always play defense, and I think I showed it today with some steals, some blocks and some defensive rebounds."

After the Huskies failed to score on their first two possessions of the game, Calhoun made a mass substitution, putting in Donnell Beverly, Charles Okwandu and Scottie Haralson in favor of Dyson, Hasheem Thabeet and Craig Austrie.

The move paid some dividends, as Beverly scored five of UConn's first seven points, and the Huskies jumped out to a 9-4 lead with 15:40 to play. But the Hawks continued to stick around, never falling behind by more than 12 points until the Huskies broke free in the second.

"I think everybody just turned it up defensively," said Beverly, who finished with nine points in 18 minutes. "We rebounded once we got a couple stops. I think they were a little tired and we noticed that, and we just kept running."