DePaul Survives Late UCONN Run to Defeat Huskies

Draelon Burns, who scored 26 points, helped the DePaul Blue Demons survive a late UCONN run and defeat the Huskies by the final score of 66-58. Wilson Chandler added 14 points to go along with 9 rebounds while Sammy Mejia added 10 points. UCONN was led by Jerome Dyson, who scored 16 points. Jeff Adrien added yet another double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

The first half was rather ugly as both teams really couldn’t get much done offensively and had trouble keeping control the ball. UCONN led for most of the first half until DePaul went on a 9-0 run to go up by 5 points with a minute to go in the first half. Craig Austrie added a layup to cut the lead to 3 points but Burns hit a 3 point shot at the buzzer that seem to set the tone for the second half.

DePaul came out in the second half with the momentum from Burns shot to end the first half and got out to a 20 point lead. With about 11 minutes to go in the game, UCONN started to chip away at the lead and got it down to 3 points with about a minute and a half to go. But a Chandler dunk took the sails down for the Huskies. DePaul made their free throws down the stretch for the final margin of 8 points.

Notes and Observations:

• The starters were Austrie, Johnson, Robinson, Thabeet, and Adrien.
• Austrie made just his first start of the season and scored 9 points.
• Calhoun called his first timeout a minute into the game as no one rotated back to cover the break out pass. He was pissed.
• Jerome Dyson, who now looks like Michael Strahan, lost a tooth and cracked another one in half as he dove for a loose ball and hit the floor. He did return to action to lead the Huskies in scoring.
• Amazing stat of the night. UCONN was 12 of 14 (85.7%) from the foul line. It is too bad the rest of their game play sucked tonight.
• One thing I did like is that when they got down big, they went to a pressing defense. I really think that this is something that they should be doing all game.
• UCONN was 2 of 9 from 3 point land. Man do we miss Rashad Anderson.

I could sit here and totally rip the Huskies for the way they are playing. But there really is no need to. They are a young and inexperienced team. Let’s hope that they use this season as a building block for years to come as Rip Hamilton did back during the ’96-’97 season. It was a similar season to this one except we don’t have Rickey Moore and Kirkland King getting in trouble for taking airline tickets.

If the season were to end today, UCONN would not be a part of the 12 team Big East tournament. Makes me wonder if I should rename the poll in the sidebar. With the loss, UCONN falls to 13-8 (2-6 in the Big East). Next up for the Huskies is a date on Saturday versus the Scarlet Knights of Rutgers at the Hartford Civic Center. Game-time is 12:00 Noon and the game will be broadcast locally on FOX 61.

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