Led by six players in double figures, including Jeff Adrien’s sixth double-double of the season, the UCONN Men defeated the Coppin State Eagles by the score of 80-48. Adrien has 16 pts and 11 rebounds to lead the way for the Huskies while Hasheem Thabeet had his first career double-double with 11 pts and 12 rebounds. He also had 4 of UCONN’s 14 blocked shots. Also in double figures for the Huskies were Curtis Kelly with 14 pts, AJ Price with 11 pts, Jerome Dyson and Craig Austrie had 10 pts.

Notes and Observations:

  • First all before I get into my notes about the game, I just wanted to say that the webcast experience for me was not a good one at first. For most of the first half the game went in and out and actually from the 6 minute mark until the start of the second half, there was no feed. So I emailed them and found out they were having on site streaming issues. So to me for $7.95 it wasn’t really worth it. I will say though, the feed during the second half was spotless. It played thru all the way til the end.
  • The starters were Price, Dyson, Johnson, Thabeet and Adrien.
  • Curtis Kelly’s 14 pts were a career high for him. He was also 7 for 7 from the floor.
  • Jonathan Mandeldove played 7 minutes tonight. While he didn’t score, he did block 5 shots in his playing time.
  • Coppin State didn’t score in the game for the first 8 minutes 45 seconds.
  • Ethan Kennedy for Coppin State was 4 for 6 in the first half while the rest of the team was 1 for 29. Also, no starters for Coppin State scored until the 1st minute of the second half.
  • UCONN’s foul shooting was abysmal. They were 13 for 25 (52%) in the game. This is just not going to cut in the Big East. It will be a long season for the Huskies if they don’t start shooting their free throws better.
  • UCONN held Coppin State to 21% field goal shooting, which was the lowest by a Huskies opponent all season. Also the 41 points by CSU was the lowest as well.

UCONN did look a little rusty in the beginning as they shook off the Christmas layoff. They did pick things up and started to execute a little better. All in all a good win for the 9th ranked team in the country. Are they deserving of that ranking? Only time will tell. Next up for the Huskies is their first Big East game on the road against West Virginia in Morgantown on Saturday afternoon at 2:00 PM. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.

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