Thursday, February 15, 2007

The Valentine Blizzard


Uconn 67 Seton Hall 55

Everything was leading up to a disappointing loss. The first half had its stagnant offense, scoring only 27 points. The defense had done its job holding the oppisition to 25. But than in the second half, Seton Hall stormed out with full court pressure, luring the Huskies into turnovers, than the most miraculas thing happened, the stars shined.

Dyson splashed threes from around the arch and Thabeet had a good ole fashioned block party. They finally dispelled the plaguing drought. The Valentine Blizzard drowned it out with an offensive outburst of 40 points a half.

This win goes to the defense though by holding Seton Hall to shooting 28.8 percent. The 14 blocks is simply incredible. The guards have been rotating well, putting a body on every body. Uconn out rebounded Seton Hall, 52 to 40 with 6 more offensive boards.

Credit goes to Seton Hall for the effort. They played an up tempo game and even applied full court pressure that gave the Pirates the lead. But they had a short bench playing eight deep to Uconn’s 12. If not for Dyson’s outburst, they could have stole this game.

The Guards did a good job driving into the lanes and kicking out. Dyson is our best weapon and shot 7 for 22. He’s going to have to shoot us into the tournament. Austrie did a create job setting up plays and went 4 for 11 but had 7 assists. Wiggins is still finding his role. Am I a shooter or an assist man? He finished 3 for 10. The guards also rebounded, grabbing 16 boards.

The Small Forwards didn’t play, only getting 6 minutes. They did each get a shot, going o for 2. Marcus Johnson did get a rebound.

The Big Men did their job. They blocked, rebounded and scored. Jeff Adrien had a great day continuing his stellar field goal percentage, going 5 for 7. Thabeet had back to back impact games, blocking 7, grabbing 9 boards and for bonus, scored 6 points. Back ups Gavin Edwards had a good game. In nine minutes he got to the line twice and grabbed 4 boards.

Uconn still had a bad free throw night, converting 15 of 23. Seton Hall cashed in on 14 out of 17.

You can look at this win in two ways. They have turned the corner or they are an inconsistent team that will fall flat one game but rise against lesser talented teams. Times running out and these Huskies need to keep that steering wheel turning.

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