When Jerome Dyson went down with his knee injury, it was expected that A.J. Price would need to score some more if the UConn Huskies were to go far this season. Today, the Huskies got that and Price also got some help from Jeff Adrien.
Price had 27 points and 9 assists to help the No. 1 seed Huskies to a 92-66 win over the 9th seed Texas A&M Aggies at the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia.
UConn improves to 29-4 and now advance to the Sweet 16 and head to Glendale, AZ where they will await the winner of the Purdue/Washington game on Thursday night. Texas A&M finishes up the season 24-10.
Adrien played perhaps his best game in the months as he finished with 23 points and 8 rebounds. Stanley Robinson added 12 points and 6 rebounds while Gavin Edwards had a great game off the bench with 10 points and 6 rebounds. Even walk-on Jim Veronick scored 2 points which excited the UConn bench.
Donald Sloan and Bryan Davis led the Aggies with 12 points each with Davis pulling down a team-high 8 rebounds. David Lobeau was the only other Aggies player in double-digits with 11 points.
The Aggies were thoroughly overmatched throughout the game and it showed early on when Hasheem Thabeet (3 blocks on the day) and Adrien blocked their first two shots. The Huskies got it going early again today as they raced out to a 10-0 lead. The Aggies finally got on the board at the 16:34 mark on a Derrick Roland jumper.
Loubeau got the Aggies to within 6 at 14-8 but a 13-1 run by the Huskies increased their lead to 18 points at 27-9. Texas A&M could only get as close as 13 points the rest of the first half and a Price layup gave the Huskies their first twenty point lead at 43-22. Price made the lead 24 points on a three-pointer as the Huskies enjoyed a 51-33 lead at the break despite Thabeet’s limited minutes due to foul trouble.
It was slow going for the Huskies in the second half as Thabeet picked up his third foul just 14 seconds into the half and headed to bench. The Aggies took advantage of Thabeet’s absence and cut the lead to 14 points with 4 straight points before Price quieted them with another three-pointer.
The Aggies would get no closer than 17 points the rest of the way as the Aggies could not stop Price or Adrien.
Overall a solid win for the Huskies.They got what they expected from Price and got help for him in Adrien and Robinson. Thabeet will need to do a better job of not picking up fouls because his presence is definitely needed on the the defensive end of the floor as the Aggies exploited his absence before Jim Calhoun made the necessary adjustments.
The offense is really clicking right now and let’s hope that continues on in the Sweet 16 on Thursday night.
Notes and musings:
Texas A&M Aggies vs UConn Huskies 2nd Round NCAA Tournament 3.21.09 box score
The starters were A.J. Price, Craig Austrie, Stanley Robinson, Jeff Adrien and Hasheem Thabeet.
This is UConn’s first Sweet 16 appearance since 2006 when they made it to the Elite Eight (lost to George Mason).
This is the first time since 1999 the Huskies have won back-to-back games by 20 points in the NCAA Tournament.
They also tied the 1999 Duke team for largest combined first and second round margin of victory with 82 points.
Price has now scored 20 points in 3 straight games which is a career-high.
Adrien’s 11 made field goals tied his career-high.
The Huskies shot 57.9% (33-of-57) while the Aggies shot 41.3% (26-of-63).
UConn had 20 assists on their 33 made baskets.
MUCH MUCH better effort from the Huskies at the free throw line today as they were 21-of-27 (77.8%).
UConn dominated the glass again holding a 36-22 advantage.
Surprisingly enough, the Aggies had less turnovers (7) than UConn did (9).
