A.J. Price’s career-high 25 points led four UConn players in double figures as the Huskies easily disposed of the St. John’s Red Storm 81-65 at Gampel Pavilion on Tuesday night.
Price paced the Huskies (11-3, 2-1 Big East) with 7 assists as well. Jeff Adrien had a monster night as well racking up another double-double with 20 points and 14 rebounds. Stanley Robinson had a bounce-back game after Saturday’s poor performance with 15 points and 8 rebounds. Jerome Dyson narrowly missed an unconventional double-double with 12 points and a career-high 9 steals.
The Red Storm (7-7, 1-2) were led in scoring by Justin Burrell with 17 points. Anthony Mason, Jr. added 14 points and 9 rebounds. Larry Wright added 11 points off the bench to round out the Red Storm in double figures.
Price started the first half with a 3-pointer. With UConn up 8-7, the Huskies went on a 6-0 run capped off with dunks by Robinson and Dyson forcing St. John’s to call a timeout. The Red Storm responded with the next five points to pull within 2. UConn then went on a 7-0 run to go up 25-14 and never looked back as they went into the locker room with a 45-32 lead.
The second half started the same way as the first half did, with a Price 3-pointer. UConn kept plugging away in the second half as at one point they held a 21 point lead over the Red Storm.
UConn will next play on Saturday when they travel to the nation’s capital to take on the #8 Georgetown Hoyas at the Verizon Center. Tip-off is scheduled for 2 PM and the game will be covered nationally on ESPN.
Notes and Musings:
The starters were A.J. Price, Jerome Dyson, Stanley Robinson, Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet.
Former UConn forward Marcus Johnson, who decided to transfer, has decided to attend Oregon State. He will be eligible to play for the Beavers in December.
In case you were wondering St. John’s guard Anthony Mason, Jr., is the son of former NBA player Anthony Mason.
UConn head coach Jim Calhoun was not on the bench for the second half. The reason given was that he was under the weather. This usually happens to Calhoun once per season.
Curtis Kelly was the only bench player to score in the game. He made one free throw and that came with 28.5 seconds in the game.
Dyson’s 9 steals tied Scott Burrell’s UConn record for steals in a game.
UConn held the Red Storm to 34.3% (23-67) shooting on the night. UConn shot 52.5% (32-61).
UConn’s free throw shooting tonight SUCKED ASS. They were 12-of-26 (46.2%). It’s a good thing this game didn’t come down to free throw shooting tonight because if it did, they would have probably lost.
UConn forced 17 turnovers and scored 19 points off of them. UConn committed 14 turnovers and St. John’s turned those into 15 points.
Both teams pulled down 43 rebounds in the game.
