No KG, No Problem For The Celtics

Celtics Win 11th Straight: Playing without Kevin Garnett, who was home with the  flu, proved to be no problem for the Boston Celtics on Sunday, as Paul Pierce scored 36 points to lead them to a 109-101 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves. Former UConn Husky Ray Allen added 22 points and Tony Allen had 14 points off the bench. Glen “Big Baby” Davis, starting for KG, chipped in with 12 points while Kendrick Perkins had 11 rebounds to go with 8 points. All-Star snub Al Jefferson led the T-Wolves with 34 points and 11 rebounds. Randy Foye had 21 points and 9 assists while former Providence star Ryan Gomes had 17. Former UConn Husky Kevin Ollie has been out with a dislocated left elbow for Kevin McHale’s team. Next up for the Celtics is matchup with the Philadelphia 76ers on Tuesday night in Philly. [ESPN.com]

Paw Prints – The Daily Roundup – 2/1

Paw Prints The Daily Roundup

Just when the “Wanted” posters were about to go up on campus, UConn Huskies men’s basketball small forward Stanley “Sticks” Robinson decided that he was going to play some basketball, some really good basketball.

Robinson had by far the best game of his abbreviated season yesterday as he had 18 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocked shots. You could see the expression on his face that the game was fun again where as before you could tell he was going through the motions. Jim Calhoun had said earlier in the week, he may go to a 3-guard set against the Friars because of matchups but with the way Robinson played he didn’t have to do that.

The key now is for Robinson to build upon his game yesterday. They are going to need him tomorrow night because Louisville isn’t going to roll over and play dead for the Huskies.

Matt Stout of the Norwich Bulletin, Neill Ostrout of the Connecticut Post and David Borges of the New Haven Register all have postgame notes on the UConn men’s basketball team.

Stanley Robinson provided the spark for the Huskies [New Haven Register]

Mike Anthony has some extras from yesterday’s win over Providence [Hartford Courant]

Hasheem Thabeet’s triple-double helped the Huskies [The News-Times]

Stanley Robinson broke out his slump yesterday [Hartford Courant]

The Friars got swatted out of Storrs yesterday [The Sun Chronicle]

Hasheem Thabeet was just the 7th person in UConn men’s history to record a triple-double [Hartford Courant]

David Gillett has his analysis of yesterday’s win over Providence [UConn Huskies Basketball]

Academics will keep Charles Okwandu out until next year [Norwich Bulletin]

It’s another double bonus at UConn [Hartford Courant]

The Stanley Robinson of old was back yesterday [Waterbury Republican-American]

The flawed Huskies will probably be No. 1 and we should enjoy it [New London Day]

Jim Fuller of the New Haven Register has some postgame notes from the UConn women’s basketball team.

John Altavilla has some extras from yesterday’s win over Georgetown [Hartford Courant]

UConn is the ‘basketball capital of the world’ [The News-Times]

Geno Auriemma is lobbying for top honors for Renee Montgomery [Hartford Courant]

The UConn women hit blackjack in the win over Georgetown [Norwich Bulletin]

The UConn women took charge late in the first half [Hartford Courant]

These 21 players intend to play for the UConn football team next year [Hartford Courant]

The UConn men’s hockey team fell to Holy Cross 4-1 [UConnHuskies.com]

The UConn women’s hockey team lost to Providence 5-1 [UConnHuskies.com]

Georges St. Pierre Dominates BJ Penn

BJ Penn, bottom, takes a left from Georges St. Pierre during their UFC welterweight mixed martial art title bout Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009 in Las Vegas. St. Pierre won by TKO. (AP Photo/Eric Jamison)

The main event of UFC 94 brought a title defense for Georges St. Pierre against BJ Penn. And after almost 4 full rounds of domination, it was GSP who kept his UFC Welterweight Title.

GSP just absolutely owned Penn for the final 3 rounds of the fight. The first round was spent mostly in the clinch with the pair trading blows a few times.

The second round was similiar to the first except that GSP was able to execute a takedown on Penn and just absolutely pounded his face in. In the third round, GSP bloodied Penn’s nose with a jab and then suffered more punishment on the ground before being able to get out of it before trying to execute a takedown of his own that failed. GSP took him down to the ground again and inflicted more damage to Penn’s face and head.

In the 4th round, GSP threw a some nice punches that landed on Penn and then had yet another takedown. He went into side control and just threw punch after punch. At the end of the round, the doctor came over to Penn’s corner and took a look and decided that Penn had had enough devastation for one day. I highly suspect had Penn gone back out, he may have lasted about 15 seconds on the ground as the punishment he took left him completely wiped.

If you want to see the whole thing keep reading. If not, thanks for stopping by.

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UConn Men Stake Claim To No. 1 With Rout Of Providence

Hasheem Thabeet - left photo from Michael McAndrews/Hartford Courant. Right photo from Fred Beckman/AP

The No. 2 UConn Huskies men’s basketball team hasn’t exactly played it’s best basketball against the Providence Friars in the recent past and were looking to send them a message this afternoon. They did just that and more this afternoon behind the play of the big fella and the player affectionately known as “Sticks”.

Hasheem Thabeet had the finest game of his college career as the first triple-double of his career helped spring the Huskies to a 94-61 thrashing of the Friars at a sold-out Gampel Pavilion in Storrs, CT.

It was the 9th straight win for the Huskies who improve to 20-1 (9-1 Big East) while the Friars fall to 14-7 (6-3). The win should propel the Huskies to the No. 1 spot in the land after the Duke Blue Devils fell to Wake Forest earlier in the week.

Connecticut's Hasheem Thabeet, left, and Stanley Robinson go up to block a shot during Connecticut's 94-61 victory over Providence in an NCAA college men's basketball game in Storrs, Conn., on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2009. Thabeet had a triple double in the game, scoring 15 points with 11 rebounds and 10 blocked shots. (AP Photo/Fred Beckham)Thabeet had 15 points, 11 rebounds and a career-high tying 10 blocked shots for his first career triple-double. A.J. Price actually led the Huskies in scoring with 19 points, including the 1,000th of his UConn career, and added 4 rebounds and 4 assists. Stanley “Sticks” Robinson finally broke out his slump since his return to the Huskies with 18 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocked shots of his own.

Jeff Adrien had another fine game with 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocked shots. Craig Austrie came off the bench to score 9 points and both Gavin Edwards and Jerome Dyson chipped in with 8 points in the finest team effort of the season for the Huskies.

Randall Hanke led the Friars with 16 points while Jonathan Kale was the only other Friar in double figures with 12 points. Sharaud Curry had 10 assists and Brian McKenzie led the team with 9 rebounds.

The two teams exchanged baskets and the lead early on (6 lead changes in a span of 4 minutes) before UConn started to seize control of the game. The Huskies were trailing 16-14 before a 6-0 mini-run gave them the lead at 20-16. UConn was able to push their lead to only 5 points as the Friars stuck around as best they could.

Providence might have gotten closer than the 5 points but the Huskies had 10 blocks in the first 16 minutes of the game, including 5 by Thabeet. The Huskies closed out the half on a 4-0 mini-run to take a 38-34 lead.

So how did the Huskies extend their 38-34 halftime lead? They used runs of 15-0 (4 in the first half and 11 to start the 2nd) and 20-0 to put the game away. The lead swelled to 37 points as it just didn’t seem like anything would go wrong for the Huskies.

Besides the fact that they were on fire, they turned their defensive pressure up to level we haven’t seen since the late 80’s/early 90’s and were just relentless. It seemed like every time Providence went inside, it was sent flying back out by someone on UConn. Plus the shots were falling for the Huskies who shot 51.3% in the second half.

I said the other day the Huskies will need Robinson to be successful to achieve their goal of winning another national championship. Today was a start and it needs to continue for him. Hopefully this gives him the confidence that he’s shown in the past.

Things won’t be easy for the Huskies though as they will head to Louisville to take on the now No. 7 Louisville Cardinals on Monday night. The Cardinals will likely move up to maybe as high as No. 3. Tip is scheduled for 7 PM and the game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN as part of their Big Monday package.

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