The Tennessee Volunteers had beaten two Big East brethren of the UConn Huskies in the Villanova Wildcats and Pittsburgh Panthers already this season. But on Saturday afternoon, a total team effort helped the Huskies avoid becoming another victim of the Volunteers.
Jeremy Lamb and Kemba Walker led the Huskies with 16 points each to help the No. 8/8 Huskies to a 72-61 win over the Volunteers before a sold-out crowd and nationally-televised audience on CBS at the XL Center in Hartford, CT.
The win pushes the Huskies record to 16-2 and they finish non-conference play at 12-0. Bruce Pearl’s Volunteers fall to 12-7.
Walker also led the Huskies with seven assists and added three rebounds. Alex Oriakhi had his seventh double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds. Roscoe Smith also had 12 points, coming on 4-of-5 shooting from three-point land, four rebounds, two steals and three blocked shots.
Melvin Goins paced Tennessee with 15 points to along with six rebounds and five assists. Scotty Hopson added 13 points while Tobias Harris had 10. Brian Williams led the Volunteers with seven rebounds and had four points.
Tennessee spent a good portion of the first half with the lead but eventually UConn would come back and take it from them.
After the visitors went up 4-2, a Smith three-pointer gave the Huskies the lead but the Volunteers responded with an 8-0 run to take a seven-point lead. UConn responded with a 6-0 run to cut it back to one before another run by Tennessee, this one at 7-0, gave them their largest lead of the game at eight points.
The Huskies then used a 13-3 run to get back into the game and tie it up at 24 with 3:32 to go on an Oriakhi tip in. The two teams exchanged the lead six times over the final 3:32 with UConn taking the lead for good on a Walker buzzer-beater three-pointer to give them a 32-31 lead at the half.
UConn came out strong in the second half scoring the first five points forcing Pearl to call a 30 second timeout to get things back in order. The TO worked as the Vols scored the next five points to put the deficit back at what it was at half time.
Tennessee would tie the game up at 39-all and again at 41-all and they would keep it close for the next eight minutes. With UConn clinging to a one-point lead at 52-51 with 8:35 to go, they reeled off a 7-0 run to take control of the game. The Volunteers would get no closer than five points the rest of the way with UConn’s lead getting as high as 12.
It’s another quality non-conference win for the Huskies given that the Vols had beaten Pitt, ‘Nova and Memphis who were all ranked at the time. But the story to me is the continued development of Lamb and Smith.
Ever since his brief benching a few games ago, Lamb has stepped it up on both ends of the floor. He works hard on defense and is moving more effectively in UConn’s offense setting himself up for some easy shots.
Smith has turned into UConn’s defensive stopper and unless the other team’s leading scorer is a guard, you can bet Smith will be doing his best to shut them down. Plus it doesn’t hurt when he can step out and drain a few threes. With those two stepping their games up and continued great play from Oriakhi, these young Huskies could be turning this season into something special.
UConn now will play their final 12 games of the season in the Big East Conference. The first of the final 12 will come on Tuesday night when the Huskies head to the Bradley Center in Milwaukee, WI to take on the Marquette Golden Eagles. Game time is scheduled for 9 p.m. and the game will be televised locally here in CT on SNY.
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Notes and musings:
Tennessee Volunteers @ UConn Huskies 1.22.11 box score
Here are quotes from UConn head coach Jim Calhoun, Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lamb, Alex Oriakhu, Charles Okwandu and Roscoe Smith.
The starters for the Huskies were Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lamb, Roscoe Smith, Tyler Olander and Alex Oriakhi.
This was the first time this season that Walker didn’t lead the team in scoring by himself.
Walker has now scored 450 points in the first 18 games. Only Wes Bialosuknia and Donyell Marshall have had more at UConn at the same point.
Charles Okwandu and Jamal Coombs-McDaniel both had good games off the bench with six points each.
Bruce Pearl had watched his team’s last four games at home due to his eight game suspension during SEC games. He’ll now be back home for the next four as well.
His teams were 6-1 against the Big East before Saturday’s game. The lone loss was against the Louisville Wildcats in 2008 NCAA Tournament.
UConn finishes its non-conference schedule 12-0, the 4th time in the last 15 seasons they’ve finished with an unbeaten non-conference record. In two of the three previous instances — the 1998-99 season and 2008-09 season — they went to the Final Four (won championship in 1998-99). The other instance — 2005-06 season — they lost in the Elite 8.
UConn shot 48.2% (27-56) from the floor while the Vols shot 42.9% (24-56).
The Huskies had 15 assists on their 27 made baskets.
UConn was 9-of-19 (47.4%) from three-point land. The Vols were 6-of-20 (30%).
The nine threes by the Huskies was their most since hitting nine against FDU back in early December.
UConn was 9-of-13 (69.2%) from the charity stripe. Normally I wouldn’t complain but two of those misses came late in the game and that just can’t happen.
The Huskies won the battle on the boards 39-31 however the Vols owned the scoring in the paint at 28-22.
Tennessee outscored UConn on the fast break 13-12 but the Huskies had a 14-11 advantage on second chance points.
The Huskies had 24 points off of 12 Vols turnovers. Tennessee had 14 points off of 12 UConn turnovers.
