Nuzied: missing field goals and extra points badly Used in a sentence: The kicker from Rutgers just nuzied that kick.

On Saturday afternoon, the UCONN Football Huskies season came to an end on a loss to the Louisville Cardinals 48-17. Louisville now waits to see where they will be going to a bowl game. They do have a chance of still getting a BCS berth if Rutgers loses to West Virginia on Saturday night. For UCONN, there will be no bowl game for the second year in a row as they finished with a 4-8 record this year.

Notes and observations:

• Redshirt freshman, Donald Brown II, had 122 yards rushing in the game. This was the 4th time this season that he has gone over the century mark.
• UCONN got hosed by the replay officials in the first half. Chris Pavasaris boomed a 78 yard punt that was fumbled by the Louisville returner and picked up by UCONN’s Terry Baltimore and returned for a touchdown. Or so we thought. The replay official ruled that he muffed the punt and therefore the ball can’t be advanced. Another stupid college football rule. Anyways, UCONN was unable to put the ball in the end zone and settled for a Tony Ciaravino chip shot field goal.
• Matt Bonislawski was awful today going 7 for 19 for 89 yards with 1 interception.
• Terry Caulley scored a late touchdown in his last game as UCONN Husky.
• Surprise surprise! Matt Nuzie missed another field goal. And of all things, he wants to try to make it to the NFL. Good luck in the Arena League Matt if you can even do that.
• UCONN’s defense gave up 562 total yards. 341 of them were by QB Brian Brohm, who also threw 3 touchdown passes.

Really not much to say about this game. As Kirk Herbstreit said before the game, “The game hasn’t even started yet and Louisville has scored.” UCONN was well overmatched in this one but this game and season will have been a great learning experience for a young UCONN team. I sure hope that Coach Randy Edsall asks Santa for a new placekicker, quarterback, and a defensive backfield for next year’s team.

In a move I didn’t understand at first, the Red Sox have offered their former closer, Keith Foulke, salary arbitration. Basically what that means they have until Dec 7th to come to terms with him. If he decides to sign with another team, then the Red Sox would receive a draft choice in the next draft. Essentially that was the main reason why the Red Sox offered Foulke salary arbitration.

Also it’s sad to say but Trot Nixon probably won’t be back in a Red Sox uniform next season. With the impending signing of  J.D. Drew, the Red Sox must feel as though Nixon doesn’t fit in their plans. Plus his probable salary for next season ($6-8 million dollars), is a little high to be paying a 4th outfielder.

For those who don’t understand salary arbitration, basically what it means is that a team can offer it to any of their free agents. If they do offer it, they have until Dec 7th to come to terms with the player. If the player signs with another team, the team the free agent came from would receive a draft pick in the next years’ draft. By not offering the player arbitration basically all the team is losing is a draft pick. In year’s past, if a player wasn’t offered arbitration, he couldn’t re-sign with his old team until May 1st.  Under baseball’s new labor agreement, this has changed and the player can re-sign at anytime.

The Red Sox also didn’t offer arbitration to Mark Loretta, Gabe Kapler, and Doug Mirabelli. One notable player, Barry Bonds, was not offered salary arbitration by the San Francisco Giants. Odds are he will finish his career and pursuit of Hank Aaron’s home run record in an A’s or Padres uniform.

There is no news to report on where Manny will play next year. Rumors have him going to San Diego now. Before he was being linked to the San Francisco Giants. I am sure this will heat up a little with the start of baseball winter meetings next week. I’ll be sure to keep you informed as information comes out.

@ Louisville 12:00 Noon on ESPN

Behind Renee Montgomery’s 26 points, the UCONN Women defeated the Purdue Boilermakers 66-55. Montgomery’s 26 points tied her career high and was the only scorer in double figures for the Huskies. Charde Houston added 9 pts, Mel Thomas 8 pts, and Tina Charles added 6 pts in limited minutes.

The game was close early until Ketia Swanier came in and sparked the Huskies on a 10-3 run hitting a 3 pointer and dishing out a nice assist to Tina Charles. Brittany Hunter played well for the Huskies adding some much needed post presence with Tina Charles looking like a deer in headlights during the game. Mel Thomas didn’t have her usual scoring game tonight but was tremendous on defense playing all 40 minutes and holding Purdue’s best player, Katie Geralds, to 4 points on 2 of 18 shooting.

UCONN committed 26 turnovers tonight while forcing 24. They will need to improve on this before they start to play the better teams. Teams like UNC and Tennessee, who they face later in the year, will eat them up if they continue to play sloppy basketball. Overall, a good win for the Huskies tonight. Coach Geno Auriemma is now 7 wins from 600 in his career. Next up for the Huskies is a road game on Monday night Dec 4th at Holy Cross.
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Yes I know what your thinking. You are expecting to see that the Sox have signed Daisuke Matsuzaka. Sorry to say, no they haven’t signed him yet but instead have signed Japanese pitcher and lefty specialist, Hideki Okajima.

Okajima comes to the Sox via the Nippon Ham Fighters of the Japanese League. Okajima had spent the his entire career with the New York Yankees of Japan, Yomiri Giants. Last season in Japan, Okajima had 2.14 E.R.A. and had 63/14 strikeout to walk ratio in 54 2/3 innings. Scouts say he has a major league curveball which is his out pitch.

Okajima will be the top lefty out of the Red Sox bullpen next season. Besides him and Timlin, the bullpen is not set at all. With winter meetings coming up in Florida next week, I’d expect Theo Epstein to be very active on the trade and free agent front.

Led by Craig Austrie and a balanced scoring attack, the UCONN Men killed the Sacred Heart Pioneers by a final score of 86-43. Austrie and Doug Wiggins both had 12 points off the bench to lead the Huskies. AJ Price and Jerome Dyson each chipped in 11 as well.

Notes and Observations:

• The starters were Price, Dyson, Johnson, Thabeet and Adrien.
• Doug Wiggins’ 12 points were a career high for him. He also had a career high 5 assists. He was the player of the game for the Huskies. It was close until he entered the game and his speed changed the complexity of the game.
• Hasheem Thabeet continues to improve offensively. He looks more poised in the lane when he gets the ball. He scored 8 pts, had 6 rebounds and blocked 2 shots.
• This was the first game that Jeff Adrien didn’t score in double figures. He had 8 pts, 8 rebounds and a team high 3 blocks. Overall in the game, the Huskies blocked 11 shots.
• A Calhoun first for the season. He didn’t make a substitution until after the first tv timeout.
• A few things I have noticed so far this season. First, during introductions, every Husky usually shakes hands with the referees. Secondly, every time Doug Wiggins, Jeff Adrien, and Hasheem Thabeet come out of the game, they high five everyone on the bench.
• Stanley Robinson added 8 pts off the bench. He still looks a little lost out there at times. I thought he might have been in the doghouse when he hoisted an ill-advised 3 pt shot. He did get yanked but eventually got back onto the court.
• UCONN’s free throw shooting was excellent as they were 16 of 18 (88%) from the line last night. Even Thabeet made both his free throws. Shocking I know.
• The Huskies didn’t allow anyone from Sacred Heart to score double figures.

I can honestly say I expected a much better game from Sacred Heart. They played North Carolina very close in the beginning of the season as they decided to run with the Tar Heels. Last night, they decided to play zone and pack the middle but when Doug Wiggins entered the game and Craig Austrie got hot, they played a little more man to man on defense. UCONN’s speed overtook them. A lot of the time it looked like the Pioneer’s players were in slow motion as the UCONN guards would blow right by them. Plus Sacred Heart’s 3 point shots weren’t falling.

Next up for the Huskies should be another laugher as they host Texas Southern on Sunday at 2 pm at Gampel. The game is not televised.

vs Purdue University at 7:00 at Gampel