All’s Well at Home for Huskies
The Story: The men’s basketball team routed Wichita State 80-60 on Saturday afternoon in a game that was never close and in which it never trailed. Christian Vital was stellar with a season-high 21 points on 11 shots while Jalen Adams added 19 points.
WHAT WE LEARNED: UConn (12-8, 3-4) comfortably handled Wichita State (8-11, 1-6) in a “white out” at Gampel Pavilion. Vital was 5-of-8 from 3-point range and Adams had his first double-double of the season with 12 rebounds. Four starters scored in double figures with Josh Carlton having another strong game and Tyler Polley putting together his best game in a month.
VITAL RAISES HIS GAME: Vital’s play in conference has been very good as he had five rebounds and five assists in addition to his scoring and has shown NBA range on his shot. The athletic Vital has started taking better shots in the last month and has been UConn’s most consistent player for some time. He has scored in double figures in 10 straight games and is averaging 13.7 points on 47.4 percent shooting, including 43 percent from 3-point range. He’s also over 80 percent from the foul line while also leading the Huskies in rebounding with 5.6 boards per game. No one is talking about how Vital should come off the bench anymore.
POLLEY SHOWS UP: Nice to see you, Tyler! Not only did Polley rebound from one of the worst shooting slumps we’ve ever seen — 3-for-23 from 3-point range over the course of a month — but he also did what we never expected him to do on defense. Polley was instrumental in holding one of the top players in the AAC, Markis McDuffie, to only nine points, fewer than half his season average. He also made three 3-pointers on his way to 12 points for his first double-figure game since Dec. 5, when he had 16 against Loyola.
GILBERT WITH A SCARE: Alterique Gilbert took a shot to his surgically repaired shoulder on a screen (a clean play) and crumbled to the floor in a heap. Initially thinking he reinjured the twice-repaired shoulder, he was said to be OK by Dan Hurley.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: The rebounding was stellar with the Huskies securing 47 boards, the most they’ve ever had in an AAC game, and they dominated the Shockers in all areas. UConn shot 50 percent and 45.8 percent from 3-point range. The defense was outstanding, holding Wichita State to 33.8 percent shooting. And, Mamadou Diarra made his season debut after missing the first 19 games as he recovered from surgery to repair a torn meniscus in his left knee. He had two points in four minutes.
MORE GAMPEL IN THE FUTURE … PLEASE! We are among the few who like the XL Center, with one big caveat — it has to be sold out. If not, the place is a graveyard. UConn isn’t even nearly selling out the XL Center anymore and there was a noticeable buzz about this game. It was the first sellout in the Hurley era and was a raucous one at that.
Now, here’s the bad news: UConn isn’t slated to play in Gampel again until March. That is a shame. Playing in Gampel will help UConn win games. Perhaps it’s time (in reality, it’s long past time) to reassess the role of the aging XL Center in UConn athletics. The school pays money to play in Hartford, doesn’t sell out, and the atmosphere and facility is subpar. Why are so many games there again?
UP NEXT: UConn will play an opponent for the second time this season, heading to UCF (15-4, 5-2) on Thursday night as it enters its most difficult portion of the conference schedule. The Huskies lost to the Knights 65-53 in Hartford earlier this month.
Knights and Easy as Women Roll
The Story: The difference between the best team and the second-best team in the AAC is nearly 40 points, which the women’s basketball team proved with a 93-57 destruction of UCF yesterday afternoon at the XL Center. Napheesa Collier scored 23 points and Megan Walker had 21 points and 11 rebounds for her second double-double.
WHAT WE LEARNED: That UConn (18-1, 7-0) remains very good, and anyone who said this was the moment where it could suffer its first AAC loss, well, let’s just say don’t listen to their Super Bowl picks. This was supposed to be a challenge for UConn, yet it ended up as just another blowout and showed just how talented the Huskies are. They claimed a 17-2 lead not even four minutes in and pushed the margin to 30 points with five minutes left in the first half.
BIG ON THE BOARDS: UCF’s leading rebounder, Nyala Shuler, averaged 7.7 rebounds a game this season but was held to just two as the Huskies claimed a 43-31 advantage on the glass. Walker’s increased focus on her rebounding certainly helped — she has had at least nine rebounds in three of her last four games — and Collier grabbed nine boards herself, leaving her two shy of becoming the eighth UConn player with 1,000 over her career.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: Crystal Dangerfield scored 17 points and had nine assists without making a turnover, leading to Geno Auriemma to say it may have been the best game she has ever played. UConn turned the ball over 14 times against feisty UCF (17-3, 6-1), which had made its living this season by stealing the ball and thriving in transition. Although it was slightly above the Huskies’ season average, the Knights scored just 14 points off turnovers, whereas UConn scored 24 points off UCF’s 19 mistakes. And, Geno emptied the bench yet again, with Kyla Irwin and Olivia Nelson-Ododa each scoring five points.
WHAT DID GENO SAY? “If you do execute your game plan and the ball goes where it kind of needs to go at that time when it needs to get there, you end up with a pretty good shot. The way we came out, I thought the energy we played with, just the edginess that we played with, I thought that was a big factor.”
UP NEXT: The third-ranked Huskies will face their most difficult challenge until late March on Thursday when they head south to face longtime rival No. 4 Louisville (19-1, 7-1 ACC).
Morning Read
SHERMAN STARS IN PRO BOWL: Former UConn fullback Anthony Sherman scored a touchdown in the Pro Bowl on Sunday. Sherman scored only one touchdown at UConn in his career, though he was a terrific blocker and special teams superstar at fullback paving the way for Donald Brown and Jordan Todman in his career. (Kansas City Star)
CALLING FOR CUTS: The Courant’s Mike Anthony calls for cuts to some UConn sports, but not football. That’s the only way to make the money work. (Hartford Courant)
WILLIAMS DISHES: Former UConn guard Marcus Williams, playing for the Stockton Kings of the G-League, had 17 assists in a win yesterday and is averaging 9.4 assists per game. (Stockton Kings on Twitter)
UNH MELTS THE ICEBUS: It wasn’t a pretty Saturday night for the men’s hockey team, which was annihilated 6-0 on the road on Saturday after a 2-2 tie the night before. (UConnHuskies.com).
BLACKED OUT: Goaltender Morgan Fisher had 33 saves as the women’s hockey team followed up a 5-2 loss at Maine on Friday with a 0-0 tie on Saturday. (UConnHuskies.com)
IRISH FALL: The top-ranked Notre Dame women’s basketball team lost at North Carolina yesterday afternoon, setting the table for a new No. 1 when the rankings are released. (Associated Press)
