University of Connecticut Athletics
Fields' Late Heroics Sink Huskies, 76-68
2/16/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Game Statistics [] []
HARTFORD, Conn. (February 16, 2009) — Levance Fields scored all 10 of his points in the game’s final 3:12 and DeJuan Blair scored 22 points and had 23 rebounds to lead No. 4 Pittsburgh to a hard fought 76-68 victory over top-ranked Connecticut before a sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center.
The Huskies, who saw their 13-game winning streak end, drop to 24-2 on the season, 12-2 in BIG EAST play. The Panthers improve to 24-2, 11-2 in the conference.
The Huskies had trailed since the 17:46 mark of the first half, but battled to take the lead at 50-49 on a fast break layup by freshman Kemba Walker (Bronx, N.Y.) with 9:50 to play. The Huskies extended their lead to five after junior Stanley Robinson (Birmingham, Ala.) hit two jump shots and senior Jeff Adrien (Brookline, Mass.) hit another to put the Huskies in front, 56-51 with 7:31 to play.
Jermaine Dixon made a pair of free throws for the Panthers, and Blair followed with a three-point play to knot the score. Walker hit another layup to put the Huskies back in front, but Dixon answered with a three to re-take the lead for Pittsburgh. Adrien gave the Huskies their last lead on a layup off of a pretty pass from senior A.J. Price (Amityville, N.Y.) but the lead was short lived. Blair made two more free throws to put the Panthers up one, and Hasheem Thabeet (Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania) made one of two from the line to tie the score for the fifth and final time.
Fields made back-to-back threes on consecutive possessions, and the Huskies got no closer than four the rest of the way.
The Huskies were led by Price, who scored 18 points, 15 in a dazzling first half that kept the Huskies alive when his teammates struggled to score. He hit a dramatic three-pointer at the buzzer that cut what was an eight-point deficit to three at intermission. Price made four three pointers on the night and had eight assists against just one turnover. Adrien struggled mightily in the opening half, being held scoreless. However, he made six of seven field goals after the intermission and finished with 13 points and nine rebounds.
Walker scored 13 points in 24 minutes off of the bench, marking the first time since the St. John’s game that he had reached double figures in scoring (a drought of nine games.) Robinson scored eight points and grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds. Gavin Edwards (Gilbert, Ariz.) chipped in with six points and three rebounds for the Huskies.
The Huskies were forced to play long stretches of the contest without Thabeet, who was plagued with foul trouble. He played just 23 minutes and was held to just five points, four rebounds and two blocked shots before fouling out with 29 seconds to play.
Blair was terrific all game in registering his 20-20 effort. His work in the lane helped the Panthers become the first team this season to out-rebound the Huskies (48-31.)
The Panther were led in scoring by Sam Young, who scored 25 points. Young made four three-pointers and was eight-of-13 from the field.
The Huskies return to action on Saturday, February 21 when they entertain South Florida at the XL Center. Tip-off is set for 2:00 p.m. and the contest will be televised-locally by MyTV9 and SNY.
Post Game Quotes
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I want to congratulate Pittsburgh on a terrific job. They came in here and played a particular style of basketball that we hadn’t seen this year, and it was very effective against us.
After playing tentatively early, and physically…getting handled early, we made a nice comeback. Then we made some poor decisions, and Fields made two great shots to end the game.
The problem was, when we had the five-point lead, I did a very poor job of substituting in the backcourt. I should have gotten the freshman out of the game, and tried to get someone else in to run the offense. The offense got stagnated at that time, so it’s my fault. But they made big play and did a great job and congratulations to Pittsburgh.
It’s just a different type of game than we’ve played all year…We haven’t played in that kind of basketball game.
Pittsburgh won the game. When you get caught in a game – racehorse, whatever it may be – you have to adjust. And we did adjust and got the lead, and then we didn’t get into offense and they made some big plays.
On Blair
He was wonderful. He’s a great, great basketball player. A terrific player, great warrior. When he’s allowed to roam the post like that and use his physicality in the post, he’s absolutely wonderful. He’s a nightmare for every single coach.
Did you expect the game to be as physical as it was?
Pittsburgh is always physical. It’s always a battle. We went out there and battled. We tried to claw back, but we just couldn’t hang in there and ended up losing the game. Pittsburgh is a great team and we’re looking forward to our March rematch.
On Blair’s play
Blair is a good player. I played a lot of big guys who tried to come at me. Today I didn’t have a good game. He took advantage of that. And they ended up getting the win
I was worried about it. It didn’t look good, but I just had to fight through it. I’m in pain, but it’s not going to stop me from playing next game.
They executed down the stretch, and we didn’t. It’s just one of those games.
Pittsburgh is definitely one of the toughest teams in the country. I haven’t seen anybody else that tough. I give them a lot of credit. They work hard.
We knew what type of game it was going to be coming in. It’s going to be a physical, knock them out, drag out kind of game.
I said it all day, whoever was tougher was going to win the game, and that’s exactly what happened.
We fought. We matched their toughness at times. Coming down the stretch, in the last five minutes, their will was stronger.
On the last five minutes
I guess we just relaxed. When we play against great teams we can’t relax. We had the five point lead we became tentative.
It’s a 40 minute game, and we need to play 40 minutes.
On Pitt’s defense
When you make your move, they do a good job of clogging-up the lane. There just a tough team.
As a team, I don’t think we talked to each other very well. At the end of the game there wasn’t too much cooperation out there.
I’m obviously very proud of our guys and how we battled through. I know everyone was talking about this game going into it and obviously it lived up to it, especially in our minds as far as the result.
It was a great performance by a number of our guys. I was very impressed how we battled through some things -- had foul trouble, they had foul trouble. It really came down to a war of attrition. DeJuan obviously was big on the boards. He played phenomenally.
I told them in the huddle that we were going to knock some shots down the stretch, when we were missing some wide open ones. And sure enough, we did. Levance’s two threes, and Jermaine’s, really changed the game. Obviously I can’t say enough about Levance, he’s been hitting big shots all his career at Pitt. And I would certainly say those two fit into that category.
I thought the key to the game was, simply put, rebounding. I never thought we could win by that many, but Thabeet being in foul trouble was key.
