A Much Needed Victory

The Huskies locked down Harvard when it mattered most.

That was a relief, I feel a lot better. Well the Huskies look like they're back to remembering that they enjoy playing basketball and with it came a solid, if not very pretty, win over a solid, well coached Harvard Crimson team. UConn fans received pleasant news about 20 minutes before the game when they learned that Harvard's leading scorer Wesley Saunders was scratched from the lineup with a sore knee. The Huskies were unable to take full advantage however as sophomore guard Siyani Chambers and senior guard Laurent Rivard each hit a pair of threes for Harvard, and were able to score 14 points off of UConn turnovers to take a 31-26 lead into the half. UConn was stagnant on offense for most of the first half, often taking around 20 seconds off the shot clock before getting into their offense while Harvard was moving the ball around as fluently as I've seen a team move the ball all season.

In the second half some beautiful things happened. First, the offense started pushing the tempo, and the Crimson didn't have any points off of turnovers for the entire second half. Second, the Huskies started getting out and defending the three point line and held Harvard to 33.3% shooting from 3 in the second half (after allowing them to go 5-10 in the first). Then the most beautiful things I saw all night happened; guys besides Shabazz stepped up.  Lasan Kromah sparked the Huskies defense by guarding and denying Chambers from getting the ball which stunted the Crimson's free-flowing offense (Seriously though, how did Kromah only get credited with one steal?! I thought he had at least 4). Ryan Boatright then continued his great decision making (my lone positive of the Texas trip) and was able to get to drive the lane, get to the line, and only had 1 turnover. Then, DeAndre Daniels hit a couple threes, started eating up rebounds, and was in great position on both ends of the court. It's amazing how different a player he is when he makes a couple baskets. His whole body language changes and he turns into an absolute beast who wants the ball. It's a beautiful thing to watch but unfortunately only comes in brief spurts. I digress, DeAndre ended with a solid 11 points, 8 rebounds, and 4 blocks. One of our keys before the game was that the big men had to do two of the following three things; score inside, rebound, and block/alter shots. Well the inside scoring didn't happen (as expected), but UConn out-rebounded Harvard by 2, and blocked 9 shots.

All if this recap so far has not mentioned Shabazz Napier's play in this game and that is because he is the closer. Shabazz is going to show up in crunch time, but he needs his teammates to help him get to that point. Tonight, we saw his teammates finally step to the plate and open up the court so that at the end of the game Shabazz had space to do his thing. After Harvard cut the UConn lead to 2 at 49-47 with 3:08 to play, the stage was set for Napier to have his moment. His first three attempt missed but an offensive rebound gave him another shot and when he saw he had Laurent Rivard on him, knocked the three down in his face. After a stop on the next possession, Napier came down and rattled home a ridiculous contested, step back, fadeaway three as only Shabazz can do. After some weird plays at the end and some foul shots, UConn had their 12th win of the season, and better yet a win they can build on.

Moving out of non-conference play now and into strictly AAC play, I think we see the blueprint to the Huskies success. This team needs to be one that plays with desire, and the team needs to play well enough as a whole so that it can be in a position at the end of the game to give the ball to the closer. Because at the end of the game, at the end of the season, we have Shabazz Napier, and other teams don't.