FINAL: UConn over Ohio State, 75-55

[aman kidwai]

By William Paxton

STORRS, Conn. – Omar Calhoun led a balanced UConn attack with 14 points and the Huskies thumped Ohio State 75-55 Saturday afternoon in front of 10,167 fans at Gampel Pavilion.

Calhoun finished with a season-high in points on 5-for-5 shooting (4-for-4 on 3-pointers), while Rodney Purvis had 13. Jalen Adams, Amida Brimah and Shonn Miller each added 11 for the Huskies (6-3). Marc Loving led OSU (4-5) with 14 points, but was held below his season average of 17.1 ppg. The Buckeyes finished with a season-low in points.

The Buckeyes used an 11-2 run to cut into UConn’s 45-24 halftime lead, but never got closer than 47-35. Hamilton snapped an almost seven-minute scoreless stretched for the Huskies with a basket at12:09.
After A.J. Harris cut the UConn lead to 20-16 just inside 12 minutes, the Huskies closed out the first half on a 25-8 run.

Calhoun scored 11 points (4-for-4 from field, 3-for-3 on 3s) in the half and five Huskies had at least six points, including Hamilton and Miller with seven apiece.

UConn shot 63.3 percent in the half, but the defense forced seven turnovers and held OSU to 31 percent from the field (35.7 percent for the game). The Huskies scored six points off the turnovers, but held a 24-10 advantage in paint points and 6-0 on the fastbreak.

UConn is 2-1 against Big Ten teams this season, having lost to Maryland on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. The Huskies beat Michigan in the Battle 4 Atlantis last month.

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

After watching this game I am now inclined to agree with Ozzie that Gibbs, not Purvis, should be the guy coming off the bench. Gibbs has not been good, even when they move him off the ball.

Ohio State IMHO is not that good and their point guard play today was very weak to say the least. Jalen Adams is better than Lyle although I have to say that Jalen doesn't finish all that well and his issue, unlike Purvis's, is a lack of strength. None of the UConn guards finish impressively, however, it was an overall very good game today and Purvis and Calhoun both played pretty well. Rodney's passing is vastly improved and we saw stretches today where the Ozzie reasoning of leaving Purvis as a starter due to his defense was very sound reasoning.

BTW Lyle had 0 points and 1 assist with 3 TOs while Adams had 11 points and 4 assists. So Louisville supposedly had escorts sex Lyle up so they could get him? Why?

Brimah and Miller both played solid games as well. UConn is now 2-1 against the BIg 10.

 

[the Blades]

OMAR....!!!!! We've missed you..... welcome back !!!!

 

[CaNOLEE]

Khalid, jaLen shoots a little too much but you can see how good he is going to be. He could join Hamilton as the best/most important husky by years end and if that happens, we are going to be a tough out.

And If this teams decides to be nasty on the defensive end and back board every possession, I like our chances against anyone.

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

Why didn't Cassell play?

By the way UConn shot over 60% for the game today which they hadn't done since 2012. Omar's 5-5 from the floor, including 4-4 on 3s, certainly helped that. I wonder if Omar can do this on a regular basis? Someone needs to be a consistent offensive threat off the bench between him and Cassell.

 

[KhalidShockedTheWorld]

If you look at the minutes distribution only 7 guys really played today, the starters and Adams and Calhoun off the bench:

http://espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400816805

3 minutes from Facey, 1 minute from Enoch, no Cassell or Nolan