Notes & Quotes: UConn Notches Decisive Win Over UCF
HARTFORD—The UConn Huskies ended their four-game losing streak with a 64-49 win over UCF at the XL Center on Sunday night. Rodney Purvis scored a team-high 17 points, leading Connecticut in one of its best performances of the season.
With the win, the Huskies are now 6-9 and 1-3 in the American Athletic Conference.
WHAT WORKED
1. Quick start: UConn started the game on a 10-0 run and never looked back. Amida Brimah got things started with a dunk and then Purvis hit two threes to spark an early run. He and Jalen Adams showed some full-court pressure and from there it went the Huskies' way throughout.
Kevin Ollie: “I think that was our most complete game from start to finish. I think we started on a 10-0 run to start the game… I think our pressure started the game out and kind of shocked them because that’s something we haven’t been doing but I wanted to our guys juices flowing a little bit and not being on our heels. We didn’t want to let the team punch us first—we really wanted to go out and punch. We did a good job of that and established that from the beginning of the game, got them sped up a little bit and used that to our advantage.”
Jalen Adams: “Just to see [Purvis] out there having fun and having great body language—everybody feeds off that. I think guys look to certain players on the team and he is definitely one of those guys. When he is out there scoring the ball or getting stops on defense and he is hyped up, everyone is hyped up and that’s how we were able to get out to such a big lead."
Rodney Purvis: “Me and Jalen challenged each other to see who could pickup full court and play the hardest defense. I think our teammates fed off of that. We were able to get some steals and get out in transition, we’ve been struggling on the transition side in recent games. We just tried to have some fun, get some transition, easy baskets so we didn’t have to play against a zone the entire time.”
2. Brimah devours Tacko: UCF big man Tacko Fall came into Sunday’s game leading the country in field-goal percentage (.800), averaging 14.3 points per game. But against Brimah and the UConn defense, Fall was held scoreless (0-1 shooting) and had four turnovers.
Ollie: “[Fall] is a great player and he has been playing terrific and [Brimah] took a personal challenge to take him out of the game. I thought he did a wonderful job of staying in the game, not getting silly fouls and playing 29 minutes. I just thought he did a really, really good job.”
Brimah: “This game was marked on the calendar so I just came out aggressive. I started playing aggressive from the tip. That was a good matchup for me, a game for me to get better...What we planned to do defensively was just play hard. If he caught the ball I was just going to play hard defense and if I lacked anything my teammates had my back.”
Purvis: “Amida is competitor. He is going to fight no matter what and he is going to bring energy no matter what.”
3. Jackson continues to improve: Freshman Vance Jackson continued to look sharp, scoring 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting (2 for 2 from three) to go along with four rebounds and two assists. In the last four games, Jackson is averaging 10.2 points on .538 percent shooting. He has hit on 7 of his last 15 three-point attempts.
Ollie: “It all comes back to [Jackson’s] practice habits. His practice habits have been great, he hasn’t been playing around, he’s been serious, serious about his defense. Habits are going to eat willpower for breakfast each and every day. You can have all the willpower you want, if you don’t have good habits you’re not going to be a good player. He is starting to build the right habits and it is correlating to him playing better on the defensive end. I don’t really care about the offensive end, I want him out there making shots, but he and [Christian Vital] have to become better defenders for us to win games.”
Adams: “Like me my freshman year—it is all confidence. I don’t think he wasn’t capable of doing things, it is just mental. I think he is just now figuring that out and he is just playing with confidence. Having fun, shooting shots he can make so when you get the mental part, you can dominate the college basketball part.”
4. Stellar ball movement: The Huskies dished out 15 assists on 27 made baskets. Adams had a team-high seven as it was just the fourth time this season Connecticut tallied at least 15 helpers in a single game.
Ollie: “These are the same players we got. Chris Paul didn’t show up; James Harden didn’t show up it is the same players. They start moving the basketball and this is what we’ve been preaching and we got some shots to go in. You can’t be selfish, you can’t say we are having a bad season so I’m going to get my numbers. You have to play as a team. This is not a bad season, this is a character-building season…We just moved the basketball and I think our fans really enjoyed how we played on the offensive end and the defensive end.”
Adams: “Just in practice we are working on advancing the ball and keep it moving. The ball moves faster than the defense, coach keeps preaching that over and over. I think today people just bought into the game plan and it worked really well for us.”
Brimah: “Ball movement is a great part of this game and when we are moving the ball we look great.”
5. Losing streak is over: After losing four straight, the Huskies were faced with potentially losing five straight for the first time in 10 years. But UConn rebounded in a big way, breathing new confidence into the team.
Ollie: “You can’t really look at the record because that is just going to bring stress and pressure on you. Look at the process, we are just going to keep trying to compete and work hard. It is just going to take care of itself—if we play like that the record will take care of itself.”
Brimah: “We needed this win—we need a win. We just have to keep getting better and play together like we did today.”
Purvis: “We’ve been competing super hard in practice—really, really going at each other in practice. We knew in due time it would all pay off so we are just trying to build off this.”