Spring Break
FROM SWEET TO ELITE
Austrie breaks out of slump, Huskies advance to Elite Eight
Marc Gauthier
Issue date: 3/27/09 Section: Sports
|
When A.J. Price came out of the game with a little more than a minute to play, he gave Calhoun a high-five and walked to the bench amidst a sea roar of applause.
After 40 minutes of hard-fought basketball, the Huskies beat Purdue 72-60.
Like in their past two NCAA Tournament games, the Huskies got off to a quick start, scoring eight unanswered points, six of which came from Stanley Robinson.
"I think it was very important that we came out and wanted to show what type of team we were; get off to the same kind of start we got off in the previous two games," Price said.
At the 14:51 mark, Gavin Edwards came into the game and hit a jump shot that gave the Huskies a 14-3 lead, their largest lead of the first half. From there on out, the Boilermakers battled back in offensive spurts. They cut the lead to three points on Robbie Hummel's 3-pointer with under four minutes to play.
By the end of the first half, Hummel had scored 15 of Purdue's 25 points.
Despite the lead at the half, the Huskies were not happy with their first-half performance.
"We felt like we played well; we had put up 30 points on the board, but they had put up 20," Price said. We felt like that was too much for them. We all talked as a unit about making adjustments."
Through out the NCAA Tournament, the halftime lasts 20 minutes, which is five minutes more than in the regular season. In the first two games, Calhoun has given the team the first two or three minutes of the halftime for themselves to discuss the game. On Thursday, Calhoun gave them six minutes.
"Today for that five or six minutes, a little bit longer, there was an awful lot of talk in our locker room," Calhoun said. "I think that's good because they believe in each other. They can share things that a lot of teammates can't because they aren't sensitive. They have an affinity towards each other."
Be the first to comment on this story