With a light fluffy snow falling outside the XL Center on Tuesday night, the UConn Huskies men's basketball team was inside making it rain with baskets.
Coming off a bad loss to the Louisville Cardinals where the Huskies were outplayed, they needed to make a statement against a Temple Owls team who's been to the past six NCAA Tournaments but is struggling this year. For that to happen, DeAndre Daniels would need to re-emerge.
Daniels did just that with a career-high 31 points and 12 rebounds to help UConn to a 90-66 win over Temple in front of an announced crowd of 4,741.
The Huskies improve to 15-4 (3-3 American) while the Owls fall to 5-12 (0-6). UConn was playing without Ryan Boatright, who was back in Chicago at the funeral of his cousin.
Shabazz Napier added 27 points, seven rebounds and six assists. Niels Giffey chipped in with 11 points while Lasan Kromah had seven points and eight rebounds.
Will Cummings paced the Owls with 20 points. Anthony Lee added 14 points while both Quenton DeCosey and Dalton Pepper both had 12 points. DeCosey led them with six rebounds.
With UConn trailing 9-6, they went on a 12-3 run. They followed that up with a 14-0 to push their lead to 32-16 and enjoyed a 48-34 lead at the half.
The Owls would get no closer than 14 points during the second half.
It was nice to see Daniels make a nice comeback after the stinker against Louisville. The one thing he needs to do is perform consistently. While Memphis was a good team where he had a superb game, this year's Temple team is no where in that category.
That's where the consistency of doing this on nightly basis comes in. If he can find that, good things can happen for the UConn men.
The UConn men are back in action on Saturday when they head to New Jersey for a matchup with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at the RAC. Tip is scheduled for 7 p.m.
Temple Owls @ UConn Huskies 1/21/14 box score
Here are UConn's postgame quotes.
Here are UConn postgame notes.
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZvujU5mDMKY?list=UUCpTipFQZJNTTpIFx-j-aSg |
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photo credit: john woike – hartford courant
