No style points, but it’s a win

George Blaney walked into the interview area following Saturday night’s Big East Conference men’s basketball game between his University of Connecticut Huskies and visiting DePaul at Gampel Pavilion and presented a little nugget from his past.

“My father was a judge,” said Blaney, the associate head coach of the Huskies who was subbing for the sixth straight game for head man Jim Calhoun, still sitting out an indefinite medical leave of absence. “And ever since I played basketball since I was 8-years-old and up to the time I was finished, he always used to tell me that Ws are better than Ls.

“I told the team after the three losses that I felt sick, I felt bad. Tonight, after the win, I still feel a little sick but I also feel good.”

Saturday’s exhibition by the Huskies will do that to anybody.

DePaul came limping into Gampel with a 4-game losing streak in tow and the Blue Demons had dropped 10 of their previous 11 decisions. Four games into that stretch of futility, head coach Jerry Wainwright was relieved of his duties and assistant Tracy Webster was hired to lead the Blue Demons on an interim basis.

But the Huskies entered Saturday night’s action with a 3-game losing streak of their own to worry about and a 2-6 struggle over the past eight games that had NIT written all over it.

Would the match-up against a woeful DePaul squad be just what the doctor ordered for Blaney’s crew?

Well, not exactly, and Blaney didn’t have a doctor’s remedy in mind when describing UConn’s eventual 64-57 victory in front of a sell-out crowd of 10,167 fans.

“I told the team that the definition of that game is a pure dentist game,” said Blaney. “It was grind it out, hang tough. We got behind early, fought back and the last six or seven minutes of the first half we really locked down and played some really good defense.

“I think we out-scored them 16-4 and kind of took control of the game which, we thought at halftime, we could have pretty good control from that point on.”

So now we have a head coach who has talked about judges and dentists. But Blaney might have been better suited to bring up the name of a psychologist or two given the way his Huskies tried and tried and tried to give DePaul opportunity upon opportunity to come back and steal this game.

Even though the Huskies (14-9 overall, 4-6 Big East) wiped out an early 20-12 DePaul lead with a 22-7 run to close out the first half with a 34-27 advantage, here the Blue Demons (8-15, 1-10) were with 5:49 remaining, actually taking a 52-51 lead when 6-9 sophomore forward Devin Hill somehow was allowed to roam free and collect an inbounds pass for an easy layin to cap an 8-2 run.

“No excuse for that or any of the other times we just lost focus,” said senior Husky guard Jerome Dyson, who led the Huskies with 20 points while knocking down 10-of-11 tries from the free throw line. “It just seems like we continue to make it tougher and tougher on ourselves after we do some good things.”

With 6-foot senior guard Will Walker, unstoppable in the second half while knocking down 5-of-7 3-point tries and scoring 17 of his 24 points after the break, looking to extend DePaul’s lead with a three from the top of the key, sophomore Husky point guard Kemba Walker provided UConn with the defensive gem of the game.

Walker reached in and stripped Walker of the ball before he could shoot, then beat Walker to the rim with the dribble for a layup and a 53-52 advantage at the 4:54 mark with UConn’s first field goal since Dyson converted a lefty drive at the 12:09 mark.

Senior forward Gavin Edwards (10 points) and Dyson would each hit 2-for-2 from the line over the next 90 seconds as UConn eased away to a 57-52 lead and the Huskies completed their 13-5 game-winning run over the final 5:49 by knocking down 7-of-8 attempts from the charity stripe despite only converting two shots from the field over the final 12:09.

For the game, the Huskies made up for 41.3 percent (19-of-46) shooting from the floor overall and a 9-for-26 (34.6 percent) struggle in the second half by converting 25-of-35 (71.4 percent) from the line.

“In the second half, we just seemed to go in spurts,” said Blaney. “Fortunately, we got to the foul line 35 times and that helped us a great deal. That meant we got a lot of points by going to the basket with good, hard plays.”

Senior forward Stanley Robinson, who was fighting cramps throughout the game while Dyson (ankle, stomach ailment) and Walker (sore legs) were also less than 100 percent, added 10 points and seven rebounds for the Huskies, who out-rebounded the Blue Demons by a 36-29 margin.

Forward Ater Majok added energy as well as six points, four rebounds and five blocks for the Huskies while fellow freshman Alex Oriakhi contributed a 9-point, 6-rebound effort.