UConn-Louisville: Every Dog Has His Day

What can I say about UConn? On three days rest after knocking off  No. 7 powerhouse Indiana, they came back to beat Rick Pitino's Louisville 69-67, despite heroic efforts by Terrance Williams and Jorge Sosa.

Junior guard A.J. Price led the Huskies in scoring, and Jeff Adrien and Stanley Robinson both had 10 rebounds apiece. Craig Austrie repeated his role from the prior game and hit a pair of game-sealing free throws for the surging Huskies. 

For the Louisville Cardinals, Juan Palacios led in scoring with 12 points, and Terrence Williams led them in rebounding with seven. Early, on two words summarized the game: The Drought, and no, I'm not talking about the Lil’ Wayne mixtape.

I got thirsty watching this game. Louisville opened up the game on 7-0 run while Uconn went four-plus minutes without a FG.

Then it was Louisville's turn.  After starting off the game 4-16 from the field, Louisville went seven-plus minutes without a field goal.

Hasheem Thabeet was picked on and seemed to be intimidated by Scott Padgett in the first half and, as a result, got banished to the bench after picking up two quick fouls. 

Louisville fell in love with the “three” in the first half.  The only problem was, it didn't love them back as they shot 6-19 (3PT) and finished a frigid 11-33 from downtown.

At the end of the first half, the score was 29-24 in favor of Uconn. At the start of the second half, the teams picked up the pace and eclipsed their first half point totals in just over ten minutes. With 6:14 left on the clock, the game got tight with UConn leading 55-61.

Louisville’s Terrance Williams knocked down two straight three pointers during the span of 35 seconds to make it 61-61 with 5:31 left in regulation. A.J. Price reverted to Saturday's performance and banked a highly difficult layup to put the Huskies up 63-61.

The Huskies never trailed after that. Thabeet was nothing but soft serve ice cream when defending the paint and toughened up like a Ford F-150 in the second half with consecutive blocks on Jorge Sosa to continue Uconn's successful winning streak.

UConn has won nine of its last 11 games, and it will be interesting to see how the returns of suspended guards Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins will affect UConn's chemistry.