Spring Break
Thabeet, Price too much for game USF
Kevin Duffy
Issue date: 2/23/09 Section: Sports
HARTFORD - It wasn't the blowout that everyone expected, but nonetheless, UConn (25-2, 13-2 Big East) bounced back from its loss to Pittsburgh with a convincing 64-50 victory over South Florida (8-18, 3-11) Saturday at the XL Center.
Though the Huskies never trailed, their lead was in doubt at times throughout the second half. A fast-break dunk by South Florida guard Dominique Jones with 11:50 remaining in the second half made the score 46-40 and caused UConn coach Jim Calhoun to burn a timeout.
At that point, the lowly Bulls had the No. 1 team in the country on its heels, and South Florida coach Stan Heath could feel the momentum shifting.
"I was really happy where we were," Heath said. "You'd like to be in the lead, but we felt good about that ... but then they made a run."
The Huskies bounced back from the timeout by reeling off nine straight points - seven of which came from senior guard A.J. Price - increasing the lead to 55-40 at the 7:41 mark. Aside from that four-minute outburst, Price shot just 2-for-9 from the field for four points the rest of the game.
"A.J. [Price] played O.K. today," Calhoun said. "But he had the seven points that made the difference."
The biggest difference-maker - as has been the case in most of UConn's victories - was center Hasheem Thabeet.
The 7-foot-3 junior scored 21 points, grabbed nine rebounds, blocked six shots and altered many, many more as South Florida shot 32 percent from the field for the game.
The Huskies did a particularly good job of shutting down Jones, the leading scorer for the Bulls and a player Heath called "our do-it-all guy."
"We threw a lot of bodies at him," Price said. "We really tried to funnel him into the big guy [Thabeet]."
Jones got into the paint with ease, but he was reluctant to go up and challenge the nation's second-leading shot-blocker. Instead, South Florida's 6-foot-4, 210 pound sophomore guard kicked the ball out to open 3-point shooters when the defense collapsed - and that strategy didn't go well for the Bulls.
Though the Huskies never trailed, their lead was in doubt at times throughout the second half. A fast-break dunk by South Florida guard Dominique Jones with 11:50 remaining in the second half made the score 46-40 and caused UConn coach Jim Calhoun to burn a timeout.
At that point, the lowly Bulls had the No. 1 team in the country on its heels, and South Florida coach Stan Heath could feel the momentum shifting.
"I was really happy where we were," Heath said. "You'd like to be in the lead, but we felt good about that ... but then they made a run."
The Huskies bounced back from the timeout by reeling off nine straight points - seven of which came from senior guard A.J. Price - increasing the lead to 55-40 at the 7:41 mark. Aside from that four-minute outburst, Price shot just 2-for-9 from the field for four points the rest of the game.
"A.J. [Price] played O.K. today," Calhoun said. "But he had the seven points that made the difference."
The biggest difference-maker - as has been the case in most of UConn's victories - was center Hasheem Thabeet.
The 7-foot-3 junior scored 21 points, grabbed nine rebounds, blocked six shots and altered many, many more as South Florida shot 32 percent from the field for the game.
The Huskies did a particularly good job of shutting down Jones, the leading scorer for the Bulls and a player Heath called "our do-it-all guy."
"We threw a lot of bodies at him," Price said. "We really tried to funnel him into the big guy [Thabeet]."
Jones got into the paint with ease, but he was reluctant to go up and challenge the nation's second-leading shot-blocker. Instead, South Florida's 6-foot-4, 210 pound sophomore guard kicked the ball out to open 3-point shooters when the defense collapsed - and that strategy didn't go well for the Bulls.
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