The Daily Campus

Issue date: 2/17/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Dan Gindraux Senior guard A.J. Price had an impressive game with 18 points and eight assists but the Huskies couldn't overcome the inside presence of the No. 4 Pitt Panthers. Hasheem Thabeet scored just five points with only four rebounds.

Two weeks ago, Jim Calhoun pumped up Hasheem Thabeet for National Player of the Year on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption."

After Thabeet's eight-point, 16-rebound, seven-block performance against Syracuse, he did the same.

And after UConn's 7-foot-3 center posted 25 points, 20 rebounds and nine blocks in Saturday's victory over Seton Hall, even Pirates coach Bobby Gonzalez was a believer.

"To me, Thabeet might be the best player in the country," Gonzalez said. "I don't know who has a more dominant guy. In my opinion, from what I've seen, he's the No. 1 player in America. I'm not trying to push him out the door, but if I was in an NBA franchise, I'd take him No. 1 in the draft."

Then Thabeet met DaJuan Blair.

The final box score for Thabeet: five points, four rebounds, two blocks and five fouls in 23 minutes.

And for Blair: 22 points and 23 rebounds in 38 minutes.

That, in short, was the game.

"Blair is a good player," Thabeet conceded. "I played a lot of big guys who tried to come at me, but today I didn't have a good game."

Instead of shying away from the nation's third-leading shot-blocker - as many teams have done this season - the Panthers went right at him, and it paid off.

"That's what we do here at Pitt," said coach Jamie Dixon. "We do it year after year. We're not going to change what we do in the middle of February."

"But, you know, Thabeet got in some foul trouble and that certainly helped," Dixon continued.

Thabeet was whistled for his third foul of the game just 57 seconds into the second half. He sat on the bench until the 13:32 mark, but was called for his fourth personal-a questionable off-the-ball foul where he and Blair bumped into each other-with 11:20 remaining.

"It was tough," Thabeet said. "I never really got going because I wasn't really in the game."

Continued...

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