MEN’S BASKETBALL GAME DAY
NC STATE vs. UCONN
When: Saturday, noon
Where: Mohegan Sun Arena
Records: NC State 3-0, UConn 3-0
TV: ESPNU
Radio: UConn Sports Network (97.9 FM-ESPN Hartford, WAVZ 1300 AM, WICC 600 AM, WINE 940 AM, WGCH 1490 AM, WILI 1400 AM)
KEEP AN EYE ON
Oh, zone! Zone defenses seem to be on the rise in college basketball this season, and UConn has certainly seen its fair share.
CCSU and Hartford zoned the Huskies up for much of their first two games, certainly due at least in part to UConn’s size advantage over them. UConn struggled offensively at times in both games, particularly against Hartford.
USC, a team full of talented players 6-foot-9 or taller, went zone for most of Thursday’s game. While the Huskies were effective against it for good stretches of the first half, they struggled mightily in the second, missing 14 of 15 shots during one stretch. Until UConn proves it can handle zone defenses — lengthy ones like USC’s or more pedestrian ones like CCSU’s — it figures to see more zone. Freshmen follies: It was a rough night Thursday for UConn’s two most-highly touted freshmen, Andre Jackson and Adama Sanogo.
Jackson, a 6-6 forward, played just four minutes, took just one shot and finished without a point or rebound. Sanogo, a 6-9 center, got his first collegiate start but picked up two early fouls and wound up scoring one point in 10 minutes of action as senior Josh Carlton played the hero’s role off the bench.
“He was overwhelmed,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said of Sanogo. “This was a great learning experience for him. This year, he’s gonna have some monster games.”
The coach added that the 14-day quarantine the team had in early November hurt the early-season development of both freshmen.
“Dre still has some things we’ve got to take a look at,” Hurley said.
History lesson: NC State boasts a 3-2 advantage in its all-time record against UConn. The teams’ last meeting came in the Jimmy V Classic on Dec. 4, 2012, at Madison Square Garden, a 69-65 Wolfpack win that was helped, in part, by seven points off the bench from a freshman guard named Rodney Purvis.
The two biggest links between the two programs are probably Purvis, who wound up transferring to UConn the following season and scoring 1,301 points in three seasons for the Huskies, and Jim Valvano, who coached NC State to the 1983 national championship and spent two seasons as a UConn assistant coach from 1970-72.