Adams Sends Message as Huskies Roll
The Story: Relax, finally. The men’s basketball team ended its three-game losing streak and picked up its first AAC win of the season last night as Jalen Adams scored 21 points and Alterique Gilbert added 19 in a 76-64 win over SMU at Gampel Pavilion.
UP AND ADAMS: Adams, who woke up Dan Hurley with a text message yesterday saying he was pumped up for the game, had one of his better performances of the season. He made seven of 10 shots, including a pair of 3-pointers, and was much more in control with only two turnovers. We like players who can score without a high volume of shooting, and when Adams is playing well, he is that kind of player.
HURLEY’S A MANIAC: We love Hurley. He yells at referees (and he should) and wears his emotions on his sleeve. We get the feeling that he yells at referees and gets fired up watching basketball even when he isn’t coaching. What better way is there to show how crazy he can be than to get run over by one of his players who is diving for a ball? We think Hurley was going to dive for it, too, before Tyler Polley knocked him over.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: The Huskies shot 65 percent in the first half and 52 percent overall, including an excellent 9-of-19 from 3-point range. No player took more shots than Adams or Gilbert, who also attempted 10. The Huskies were even 23-of-31 from the foul line.
Also, UConn had only 10 turnovers, one shy of matching their season low, and actually scored more points off turnovers than SMU, 13-9. SMU did control the glass with a 41-26 rebounding advantage, including 23 offensive rebounds, and it took 24 more shots than the Huskies, which at one point helped trim a 15-point second-half deficit to just six points. That is worrisome, but the Mustangs missed enough of them that the Huskies were unscathed.
WHAT WE LIKED: A Josh Carlton sighting! Carlton, who has struggled with production in recent weeks, had eight points and seven rebounds and was a team-high plus-19. He helps anchor the Huskies’ defense and having him out there helped. Eric Cobb, though, struggled in six minutes and was a minus-8 in his time on the floor. We aren’t big believers in plus/minus, but that is stark. And, with Kassoum Yakwe likely out for the rest of the season with a right foot injury, it was Sidney Wilson who stepped up big by grabbing six rebounds and blocking three shots in 21 minutes.
SMU’S AWFUL NIGHT: It was nice to see another team shoot blanks. SMU, which entered on a four-game winning streak, had its worst shooting night of the season, finishing 23-of-66 (34.8 percent) and 3-of-23 (13.0 percent) from 3-point range. That’s what the Huskies were doing in the last three games. Jimmy Whitt Jr. had a team-high 20 points and leading scorer Jahmal McMurray, who had 15 points, was 5-of-18 shooting and made just one of his nine 3-point attempts. And, four starters were in foul trouble all night, though none fouled out.
BOTTOM LINE: The Huskies (10-6, 1-2) have a long way to go, but for a team that spoke so much about desperation, this was like finding water in the desert. They play at Cincinnati tomorrow and then at Tulsa on Wednesday, and those two games will challenge their mettle.
Getting a win on the board is a confidence boost and ensures that UConn will return home with a winning record on Jan. 19 against Tulane. We have reset our expectations for the Huskies this year. A winning record and being competitive are the goals and hopefully, reaching them will be good enough for an NIT bid. What we liked most about Thursday night was the fact the Huskies had energy and didn’t play like a team under siege. They might not appear to be the team that scored 90 points five times early in the season, but they certainly aren’t the team we saw in clunkers against USF and UCF in the past week.
Samuelson Eyes Milestone vs. USF
The Story: Senior guard Katie Lou Samuelson will likely become the women’s basketball team’s 10th member of the 2,000-point club when UConn (13-1, 2-0) hosts USF at Gampel Pavilion on Sunday (1 p.m., ESPN).
KATIE 2K: Samuelson, who had 23 points in UConn’s win over Cincinnati on Wednesday, has scored 1,987 points during her college career. Twelfth on the all-time scoring list, she needs four points to surpass Renee Montgomery for 11th and eight to pass Bria Hartley to move into the top 10.
Having averaged 19.6 points per game this season, and with 16 regular-season games and the postseason remaining, it’s conceivable Samuelson could pass Tina Charles and her 2,346 points to finish third all-time. That’s … pretty good company.
PUSH THE THROTTLE: After an abysmal shooting performance (by anyone’s standards) in the loss to Baylor last week — the Huskies shot just 29.4 percent, their worst mark in more than two decades — Geno Auriemma urged his players to be less passive. That stood out in the win against Cincinnati as UConn made 31 shots and finished with 26 assists, with Crystal Dangerfield accounting for 10 of them. All told, Dangerfield contribued to 36 points against the Bearcats, which is right in Geno’s happy zone.
SEEING RED: USF (10-6, 1-1) was down to just nine healthy players — a rotation that’s still bigger than Geno’s — in their 62-49 loss to UCF on Tuesday. Senior Kitija Laksa, one of the best players in the conference, tore the ACL in her right knee in November, and promising freshman Beatriz Jordao was just shut down for the season with an unspecified leg injury.
The Bulls, usually one of the conference’s better teams, have never won against UConn, with the Huskies holding a 26-0 advantage in the series. The last few meetings have had a little extra juice given USF’s recent success, but its injuries have taken a lot of the luster out of this one.
Football Donations
The Story: The athletic department received a donation of $1 million for the football program from booster Chris Fraser, who has earmarked the money for improvements to the Burton Family Football Complex.
WHO IS FRASER? A Class of 1980 graduate and a Norwalk native who is formerly the CEO of OCT Chemical in Shelton, Fraser has been involved in UConn athletics for more than 20 years and was involved with the initial fundraising for the Burton Complex and the Shenkman Center.
WHY THE DONATION? The Burton Complex is a state-of-the-art facility, but after more than a decade of use, it is in need of some capital expenditures — specifically in the weight room and locker rooms. The school estimates that it will need $2 million to upgrade the facilities and Fraser’s donation gets the program halfway there. Perhaps the biggest news is that Randy Edsall said he will match future donations toward the remaining $1 million, with a $25,000 gift for every $250,000 raised, up to $100,000.
“It’s important to me that we try to do everything we can to get this program back,” Edsall said. “This is what you have to do. This is what we’re charged with, and we’re fortunate to have a good friend like Chris.”
EDSALL THROWS SHADE: Edsall also wasn’t too kind to those in charge of the upkeep of the facilities, saying that “nobody tended to the store” after he left the program in 2010 and that the building remained status quo. Yes, this means we can finally get rid of George DeLone‘s famed wallpaper (not real) and maybe hire a professional to paint instead of having Bob Diaco design it himself (which really happened!).
OUR TAKE: This is excellent news for the football program and every little bit, or in this case a lot, helps. The donations to the athletic department this fiscal year will likely surpass $20 million and with the state’s fiscal crisis, necessary upkeep would be very difficult to get from the university’s general funds.
This also shows that some of the school’s top financial backers are still willing to put their faith in the football team and in Edsall, whose donation is a nice gesture, too. Coaches typically don’t donate back to their employers and his willingness to invest his own salary in upgrading the facilities, which will have an impact long after he is gone, shows his commitment to the school.
Morning Read
‘THEY WOULD NOT LET ME QUIT’: Former UConn linebacker Vontae Diggs addresses his fight to make it onto an NFL roster in this inspiring short film. We’re behind you, Vontae. (Sports Illustrated)
WILLIAMS BACKS TEAMMATE: Freshman Christyn Williams stood up for USA Basketball teammate Maori Davenport, who has been banned from playing during her senior season of high school because of a clerical oversight. (Journal Inquirer)
GOING STREAKING: The women’s hockey team (11-9-1, 6-7-1) carries a four-game winning streak into a home series against Hockey East opponent New Hampshire, with games tonight at 6 p.m. and tomorrow at 3 p.m. (UConnHuskies.com)
IRISH RALLY: Notre Dame defeated Louisville 82-68 last night in the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 women’s basketball game not to involve UConn in seven years. (ESPN)
