Thabeet & Robinson Fuel Huskies Past Red Storm

Well the original headline of this story was “UCONN Weathers The Red Storm” but I browsed on over to uconnhuskies.com and saw their headline. So I had to change mine. Anyways on to the game story.

Using stellar play from freshman Hasheem Thabeet and Stanley Robinson, the UCONN Huskies defeated the St. John’s Red Storm 68-59 on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Thabeet had 12 points, 10 rebounds and 7 blocked shots. Robinson was absolutely amazing tonight in scoring 13 points and adding 12 rebounds. AJ Price rounded out the scoring with a game high 15 points.

UCONN got going early in the game getting out to a 12-0 lead before the Red Storm scored their first basket after the first media timeout. Their lead stayed at double digits for most of the game and St John’s never got closer then six points the rest of the way. UCONN made almost all their free throws down the stretch for the final margin.

Notes and Observations:

• The starters were Price, Dyson, Robinson, Thabeet and Adrien.
• The start was the first of his career for Robinson and he didn’t disappoint Coach Calhoun at all. Stanley looked invincible tonight. He was absolute money from 3 pt land hitting 3 of his 4 three point shots. The 13 points and 12 rebounds were both career highs. He had 6 points and 9 rebounds in the first half.
• Coach Jim Calhoun was not seen on the bench in the last 10 minutes of the second half until 55 seconds were left in the game. He was forced to leave the bench with a stomach illness.
• Even though AJ Price led the Huskies in scoring, he struggled from the field only making 2 of 8 shots. He was 10 for 12 from the charity stripe. I had seen an interview on MSG yesterday with him and he stated he’s about 95% of the way to be totally conditioned.
• Jerome Dyson led the Huskies with 5 assists.
• This was probably Thabeet’s most complete game tonight. He definitely made a difference down low in the post. Besides the 7 blocked shots, he altered or changed the direction of many more.
• The only starter under 30 minutes tonight was Stanley Robinson, who played 29.
• Calhoun only played 9 men in the rotation tonight. Besides the 5 starters, only 4 others played (Wiggins, Austrie, Johnson and Kelley).
• UCONN is now 13-0 when leading at the half and 0-3 when trailing.
• UCONN’s 69 straight weeks of being ranked is in jeopardy even with the win. UCONN was ranked #22 coming into the week but with a loss to an unranked Marquette, who knocked off West F’in Virginia today, and an 11 point win over the Red Storm might not be enough to keep the Huskies ranked.
• Coach Jim Calhoun is now 2 wins away from 500 at UCONN. Overall in his career, he now has 746 wins.

With the win, the Huskies improve to 13-3 (2-2 in the Big East). Next up for the Huskies is a trip to Pittsburgh against the 7th ranked Panthers on Tuesday night. The game is at 7 PM and can be seen nationally on ESPN2.

Technorati: UCONN Huskies, St. John’s Red Storm, Jim Calhoun, Madison Square Garden