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TagsBY MIKE VOKUNOV
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
The pre-game atmosphere was electric, and anomalous of recent times. A sold-out RAC was foaming at the mouth with Rutgers hoping to take down a vulnerable Connecticut team, adding to a string of impressive victories for a suddenly resurgent Scarlet Knights team.
After the game, it was familiar scene – a reminder of the darker early-season days. The small insurgency of Huskies fans screamed with pride as their team took down Rutgers, 76-58, with the majority of the crowd not sticking around to see the end.
What made the loss so disheartening was that it came in the worst possible way: With a collective brain freeze.
Down three points at halftime, Rutgers (14-13, 4-10) came out flat and allowed Connecticut (16-11, 6-8) to go on a 27-10 run to start the half.The Scarlet Knights hit only one of their first eight shots go start a half where they would shoot 37.9 percent, and each miss sunk them into a larger mental funk.
And that carried into other parts of the game.
“Mentally we weren’t there,” said Hamady N’diaye, who finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and five blocks. “We let the fact that we weren’t scoring affect our entire game. Defense, the shots that we took; we were more focused on the shots that we were missing. The mental part of the game is what got us down.”
It also prevented the Knights from rebounding. Compounding their shooting woes with their struggles on the boards, they quickly fell into an insurmountable hole.
“I think that us not making shots really, we thought about it, and then we got down on defense and we were still thinking about the shot before,” said Dane Miller, who scored 11 points and grabbed eight rebounds. “It really affected us offensively and then coming back down the floor, defensively.”
Connecticut outrebounded the Knights 45-35 for the game and 25-12 in the second half.
That led to 24 second-chance points. Half of UConn’s points came in the paint.
“We wanted their fours and fives to shoot but I guess Calhoun out-strategized us by saying just throw the ball up and we’ll go out and get it,” said Jonathan Mitchell. “They controlled the game.”
Mike Rosario started the game on the bench due to violation of a team rule, and finished it in the same place after fouling out.
In his 31 minutes in between, Rosario scored a team high 14 points on 5-15 shooting, but shot just 2-7 from beyond the three-point line.
As obvious the final numbers, which amounted to 35 percent shooting for the team, Rosario wasn’t the only one to struggle. Mitchell shot just 2-12, and 2-9 from beyond the arc, and scored six points. Miller was just 4-for-11 and Mike Coburn was 3-for-10 for seven points.
The only players, really, who didn’t have a bad shooting night were Austin Johnson and Pat Jackson. And that’s only because neither hoisted up a single shot.
