Dig up those orange trees and ship them to Storrs, because it’s now official: UConn owns Florida. After dispatching of USF 66-53 on Sunday afternoon, the Huskies will finish 4-0 against teams from the Sunshine State this season.
While that factual tidbit might be interesting, Sunday’s basketball game was not.
For the first time in a UConn game this season, there were more fouls called than field goals made (37-41). The close of the first half was especially excruciating as 13 fouls were called over the final 5:30 without a single successful field goal attempt.
While the halting style of play surely affected the teams, they didn’t help their own cause. UConn took a 30-20 lead into the locker room at halftime, but would let USF stay in the game. The lead would dwindle all the way to two midway through the second half as UConn’s offense stagnated.
That’s when Ryan Boatright took over.
With UConn leading 39-37 with 12 minutes left, Boatright would score 19 of UConn’s final 27 points as they sealed the victory. Boatright finished with a career-high 28 points and appears fully recovered from the various ailments that have slowed him at times this season.
Rodney Purvis was UConn’s second scoring option on Sunday, contributing 17 points off the bench. Eight of those points came at the free throw line, where he went 8-12, seemingly righting the ship following a three-game slide that saw him go 2-9 from the charity stripe.
At this point in the season, UConn just needs to win games, and they accomplished that on Sunday, but USF is a bad team who was without arguably their best player in Chris Perry. The Huskies should have run the Bulls out of the gym, and they didn’t.
UConn shows occasional flashes of brilliance and talent but has yet to demonstrate the consistency needed to compete against the nation’s best teams. With no one left on the schedule to truly wow the selection committee, the Huskies will need to continue stock-piling wins and working out the kinks as they eye the conference tournament.
Notes:
- Phil Nolan had a team-high three steals in nine minutes. He did not have a single steal in 196 minutes coming into the game. Basketball’s a funny sport.
- Daniel Hamilton’s turnover-free streak ended at one game. He gave the ball away five times against USF, but did lead the team with four assists and ten rebounds.
- Amida Brimah played impressive defense against USF’s undermanned front-court. Despite struggling mightily — again — on the offensive end (one point), he registered five blocks and six rebounds in 29 minutes. It was Brimah’s fourth game this year with five or more blocks.
- UConn improved to 11-7 on the season and 4-2 in the AAC, currently good for fourth place. A win on Thursday would move them into third.
- This was a horrible basketball game. It’s games like these that help illustrate college basketball’s problems. Any casual fan without a rooting interest in either school wouldn’t have made it through five minutes of this game without changing the channel.
Up Next:
Tune into ESPN2 at 8pm on Thursday to see UConn take on Cincinnati.
