DeAndre Daniels almost didn’t play. Coach Kevin Ollie intimated as much leading up to UConn’s matchup with Harvard on Friday night, but when tip-off time came, Daniels was in the lineup and on the court. That was the hard part. From there, Daniels made it look easy. Although he was visibly bothered by his back injury, Daniels led UConn to a 57-49 victory by dropping a career-high 23 points.
UConn had another odd statistical night. The big man tandem of Tyler Olander and Enosch Wolf – who started in favor of the struggling Olander – combined for only 2 rebounds (both by Olander). The team went 4-17 from three. Star guard Shabazz Napier only took 2 shots in the first half – and missed both. Only three UConn players – Daniels, Wolf and Ryan Boatright – scored in the first half. Despite all that, UConn surged in the last ten minutes of the game to pull away for a hard earned victory.
Napier had an especially odd performance. As he’s done so often this season, he completely disappeared on offense in the first half. He had similar problems scoring early on in the second, but a look at his stat sheet showed his was finding other ways to contribute. In fact, UConn’s leading rebounder was…Shabazz Napier. By the end of the night, Napier had racked up 6 points, 9 assists and 7 rebounds.
With Napier playing the role of facilitator, the scoring load fell almost exclusively on Daniels and Boatright. Those two combined for 39 of UConn’s 57 points. Each played with incredible efficiency, passing up bad shots for easy ones – minus 2 circus shots by Boatright that miraculously went in. The two shot a combined 16-23 and only had one turnover each.
Notes:
- Enosch Wolf’s start was the first of his career and he played reasonably well. I’d be surprised if he didn’t start against Maryland-East Shore next week.
- I’d love to see Olander and Wolf on the floor together. Olander seems so physically overmatched playing center, some time matched up at the 4, might be good for his confidence.
- Niels Giffey had a couple really nice plays, including two dunks, and played some impressive on-ball defense. His offense vanished the last two games so it was nice to see him show some initiative.
- UConn struggled once Harvard went to a zone defense against them. It’s tough to beat the zone when you don’t shoot threes well. It felt as if they were being exposed, so it’ll be interesting to see if other teams employ it against them as well.
- I loved the student section faking out Harvard with the fake shot clock count down. It worked at least once and is, in general, a fantastic idea. Kudos.
- I was a bit under the weather today and skipped covering the game from the sidelines for the comfort of my couch, so I apologize for the lack of quotes.
Up Next
- The next game isn’t for 10 days! Unreasonable! UConn will take on something called Maryland-East Shore on Dec. 17th at the XL Center. Game time is 7pm and will be on SNY.
