UConn Heads to Madison Square Garden and the BIG EAST Tournament as the No. 2 Seed to Face Notre Dame

NEW YORK, NY (March 9) – The Connecticut men’s basketball team enters the 2004 BIG EAST Tournament as the No. 2 seed earning a first-round bye and will play the the No. 7 seed Notre Dame on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Game time is set for 7:00 pm and will be televised nationally on espn2. Notre Dame and West Virginia will square off on Wednesday night at 7:00 pm on ESPN.

Madison Square Garden has been the home to the BIG EAST Tournament for the past 21 years, and will again be the site for the 2004 Championship. All games will be televised on either ESPN or its counterpart of espn2 as the games run from March 10-March 13.

The ninth-ranked Huskies enter the weekend with a record of 24-6 overall and finished league play with a 12-4 record. UConn goes into the BIG EAST Tournament with a 25-19 all-time mark. The Huskies have won 14 of their last 17 tournament games, 17 of the last 21 BIG EAST Tournament games and 19 of their last 24 in the championship round.

UConn is a five-time BIG EAST Tournament Champion winning the title in 1990, 1996, 1998, 1999 and 2002. The Huskies have been the tournament runner-up three times, in 1995, 2000 and 2003. UConn is one of only two teams to play four games in the tournament, turning the trick in 2000. The Huskies are also the only team in league history to win both the Regular Season and Tournament titles in consecutive seasons (1997-98 and 1998-99).

Connecticut is playing as the No. 2 seed in the BIG EAST Tournament for the third time in its history and second straight season holding a 5-1 record as a No. 2. The Huskies were a No. 2 seed in the 1990 Tournament and captured its first title that season, beating Seton Hall, Georgetown and Syracuse en route to the championship. Last year, UConn beat Seton Hall and Syracuse before falling to Pittsburgh in the title game.

In quarterfinal play, UConn holds a record of 10-10 and will be playing in the quarterfinal round for the 21st time. The Huskies have won eight straight quarterfinal games, last losing in that round in 1993 to Providence.

The Huskies have never met West Virginia in BIG EAST Tournament play and are 1-0 against the Irish. UConn beat Notre Dame in a semifinal game in 2003, an 82-77 win on March 8. This season, UConn handily defeated West Virginia 88-58 on February 7 at Gampel Pavilion and split decisions with Notre Dame, both grabbing wins on their respective home courts on February 9 (South Bend, IN) and February 21 (Hartford, CT). West Virginia holds an overall record of 15-12 while Notre Dame stands at 16-11 overall.

As the regular season has closed, postseason honors have been pouring in for the Huskies. Most recently, junior Emeka Okafor was named the 2003-04 BIG EAST Player of the Year, BIG EAST Defensive Player of the Year and Aeropostale/BIG EAST Scholar Athlete of the Year, as well as being named to the All-BIG EAST First Team as a unanimous selection. He was also selected as the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA) Academic All-America of the Year and to the Academic All-America First Team for the second straight year.

Okafor becomes the first player to ever earn all three of these prestigious BIG EAST awards in his career, much less in the same season. He joins Patrick Ewing of Georgetown, Alonzo Mourning of Georgetown and UConn’s Donyell Marshall as the only players to win the Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season. Pat Garrity of Notre Dame is the only other Player of the Year (1996-97) to also earn the league’s Scholar-Athlete Award (1998-98). Okafor joins Caron Butler, Richard Hamilton, Ray Allen and Donyell Marshall as UConn BIG EAST Player of the Year honorees. Okafor has now captured the Defensive Player of the Year and the Scholar-Athlete Award for the second consecutive season.

Also named to the All-BIG EAST First Team was junior Ben Gordon. This marks the first time in UConn history that the Huskies have placed two players on the first team with Okafor and Gordon. Senior Taliek Brown was named to the All-BIG EAST Honorable Mention Team and freshmen Josh Boone and Charlie Villanueva were picked to the All-BIG EAST Rookie Team. The honor for Boone and Villanueva is the fourth time that a pair of Huskies have earned all-rookie honors in the same season.

Okafor is averaging 18.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 4.5 blocked shots per game in 2003-04. He ranks No. 1 in the country in blocked shots, No. 2 in the nation in rebounding and No. 7 in field goal percentage. He leads the country with 19 double-doubles on the season and has double figure rebounds in 21 contests. Okafor recently joined the 1,000-1,000 club. He has 1,334 career points and also has 1,010 career rebounds, only the fourth player ever to surpass those numbers in UConn history.

Brown is steadily moving towards setting a single-season record total in assists for the 2003-04 season. Brown currently has 198 assists and the UConn record is 212, held by Kevin Ollie (1994-95) and Doron Sheffer (1995-96). Brown leads the Huskies this season with 6.6 assists per game and has a 6.75 assist/turnover ratio. Brown’s league-leading assists is the second time in UConn history that a Husky ended the season atop of that category. Brown averaged 5.6 points per game for the Huskies and is just 37-points shy of the 1,000 career point mark.

Gordon is averaging 17.2 points per game and also averages 5.0 assists and 4.5 rebounds. He has scored 25 or more points five times this season and is shooting 45.3 percent from three-point range, good for No. 1 in the BIG EAST. Sophomore Rashad Anderson is averaging 9.8 points per game and has hit 58 three-pointers, No. 2 on the squad. He has recently started in three straight games, beginning with the win at St. John’s responding with 17 points in a career-high 31 minutes.

UConn head coach Jim Calhoun is in his 18th year at the helm of the Huskies and holds a record of 423-165 at Connecticut. He was recently selected as a finalist for the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame and is ranked eighth among NCAA Division I winningest active head coaches. Calhoun will be coaching his 59th game at Madison Square Garden on Thursday night. Calhoun and his Huskies have recorded an overall record of 35-22 in games played at MSG. The Huskies have won six championships at MSG- the 1988 NIT Championship and five BIG EAST Tournament titles. Under Calhoun, UConn is 6-7 in 13 regular season games against St. John’s University, 24-12 in BIG EAST Tournament games and 5-3 in NIT play at MSG (preseason and postseason NIT).