The Daily Campus

Issue date: 11/18/08 Section: Sports

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

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.

Continued...

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