If you wanted exciting, you probably should have watched the end of the Syracuse-Pittsburgh game. If you wanted to watch lockdown, level 5 defense, then you definitely saw during the UConn Huskies men's basketball game on Wednesday night.
The UConn men did everything they could to take away the inside presence from the South Florida Bulls and they did so on the perimeter as well.
The result? Led by the level 5 defense, the Huskies easily beat the Bulls 83-40 in front of 10,553 and a nationally televised audience at the XL Center in Hartford, CT.
No. 24 UConn improves to 19-5 (7-4 American) while USF falls to 12-13 (3-9).
All 12 Huskies who played scored and were led by DeAndre Daniels' 12 points. Kentan Facey came off the bench to score 10 points while Ryan Boatright and Amida Brimah had nine points. Boatright is now one point short of 1,000 in his career. Brimah also had six blocked shots.
Walk-ons Pat Linehan and Nmadi Amilo had four points and two points respectively. Lasan Kromah, Shabazz Napier and Daniels all had five rebounds to lead UConn. Kromah also dished out a career-high seven assists.
No member of USF hit double figures in the 43 point loss.
They were led by Musa Abdul-Aleem who had eight points. John Egbunu had seven points and six rebounds while Victor Rudd had six points. Chris Perry also had six points and a game-high seven rebounds.
UConn started off the game on a 15-3 run and followed that with an 18-4 run. The end result was a 31 point lead at the end of the first half.
It was no different in the second half. In fact the only question in the second half was whether or not the Bulls would break their lowest scoring mark (36 points) in a game. They made their run to 40 points once UConn's walk-ons and end of the bench players got on.
Absolutely great performance defensively by the Huskies. They shut down the Bulls inside and outside. Definitely a good practice game entering their next game.
That game will come Saturday at the XL Center as the Huskies will host the Memphis Tigers. Tip is scheduled for 12 p.m.
South Florida Bulls @ UConn Huskies 2/12/14 box score
Here are UConn's postgame quotes.
Here are UConn's postgame notes.
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photo credit: richard messina – hartford courant
