In the Big East opener for both teams, the West Virginia Mountaineers defeated the UCONN Huskies by the final score of 81-71 on Saturday afternoon in Morgantown, WV. West Virginia was led by Frank Young’s 22 points and Da’Sean Butler’s 16 points. For UCONN, they were led by Doug Wiggins’ career best 20 pts and Marcus Johnson’s 16 points.

UCONN got out of the gates slowly today and West Virginia took advantage of that. UCONN held the lead once at 1-0 and then trailed for the entire game. This was the first time since Dec 6th versus Northeastern that they had trailed in a game. It was also the first time they had trailed at the half all season.

Notes and Observations:

  • The starters were Price, Dyson, Johnson, Thabeet and Adrien.
  • I was impressed with Doug Wiggins play today. 10 of his 20 points kept the Huskies in the game in the first half. To me, he played like an upperclassman today.
  • UCONN came into the game today leading the nation in blocked shots with over 10 per game. They only blocked 3 shots in the entire game, 2 of them by Thabeet.
  • Thabeet was atrocious from the foul line along with the rest of the Huskies today. Thabeet was 4 for 10 from the line and the team was 13 for 27 (48.1%). I am sorry but that’s not going to get it done in the Big East at all.
  • UCONN did outrebound the Mountaineers by a final margin of 46-36.
  • Jim Calhoun picked up a technical foul in the second half as the Huskies were starting to get close again. This seemed to be the final nail in the coffin as the Huskies didn’t respond to Calhoun’s antics.
  • West Virginia’s 1-3-1 zone trap gave the Huskies fits. UCONN had trouble breaking the press the entire game.

Next up for the Huskies is the South Florida Bulls on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM at the Hartford Civic Center. The game will be televised locally on WTXX20.

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