The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Huskies slay Dragons
UConn shoots 60 percent from field in tune-up for Villanova
HARTFORD — You’ve heard of Super Sunday and Big Monday?
We now have Atonement Tuesday.
That’s what coach Dan Hurley labeled UConn’s bout with Drexel on Tuesday night at XL Center — a chance to atone for an “empty ... hollow” win over Manhattan three nights earlier.
Suffice to say, the Huskies atoned.
Jalen Adams, sans headband, and Tarin Smith led the way with 20 points each, Christian Vital added 17 and the Huskies shot an eye-popping 60 percent overall and 58.8 percent (10for-17) from 3 in a 97-65 romp before 6,951.
Alterique Gilbert added 10 points for the Huskies (9-3) and Tyler Polley scored all nine of his points in the second half, via three straight 3-pointers. Smith was a perfect 7-for-7 from the floor.
“Obviously, much happier with today’s performance than Saturday night,” Hurley said. “I thought the guys responded well. The older players, the leaders, prepared the right way, coming off of the dreary performance vs. Manhattan. We just looked sharp, we looked determined.”
Leading the way was Adams, who led the team in Hurley’s criticism following a 61-46 win over Manhattan on Saturday that even Vital momentarily thought the Huskies had lost. Adams scored just two points and turned the ball over four times in that one, leading Hurley to reaffirm the team’s need for the senior guard to play at a high level every night, and even question Adams’s work ethic.
Despite picking up two early fouls (as he had Saturday night, as well), Adams wound up hitting 8 of 12 shots and doling out three assists. More importantly, he showed leadership in practice the prior couple of days.
“I have sky-high expectations for Jalen Adams, and so does he,” Hurley said. “He handled it the right way, in terms of owning it in everything we did — super-attentive, super-serious, in terms of his preparation for this one. We talked about Atonement Tuesday. We wanted to atone for our performance on Saturday, and he led the charge that way.”
“I think mainly where I took the challenge was in practice, leading up to the game,” Adams noted. “I know if I do the right things in practice, it’ll carry over. I wasn’t trying to force things too much on offense. I think my teammates, mainly Alterique, he was putting me into good situations to score the ball, and coach was calling the right plays.”
Vital said he spoke with Adams following Saturday night’s game.
“We need him to be one of the best players on the court at all times, and at both sides of the court,” the junior guard said. “He knew he didn’t have his best game, and he did a great job of responding tonight. That shows what kind of a person he is, and the leader for this team that he is.”
Troy Harper’s 20 points was tops for Drexel (6-6), which Hurley called probably the best midmajor the Huskies will face this season.
If UConn was looking ahead to its Saturday afternoon bout with another Philadelphia denizen, defending national champ Villanova at Madison Square Garden, it didn’t show it. The Huskies used a 14-1 run to the midway point of the first half to open up a 21-9 lead, and were never really threatened again.
Behind 13 points off the bench from Smith, the Huskies owned a 42-28 lead at halftime. The most impressive sequence
came via redshirt freshman Sid Wilson, who violently blocked a Drexel shot to start a fast break, then capped the break with a putback dunk with 5:47 left in the half.
And now, on to Villanova. Are the Huskies ready for their fourth and final big non-conference challenge? They’ll find out Saturday at the World’s Most Famous Arena.
“We wanted them to stay in the Top 25, for obvious reasons,” Vital said of the Wildcats, who’ve dropped two in a row. “But, we know they’re gonna do really well in the Big East. They’re having some problems right now, but that’s a good conference and a good team, who’s gonna get some good wins. So, we definitely want to be on the winning side of that game on Saturday.”
RIM RATTLINGS
⏩ Senior forward Kwintin Williams was battling illness and was not at Tuesday’s game.
⏩ As for the headband that Adams wore in his awful game Saturday night? It appears to be a thing of the past.
“It’s over for the headband,” he said with a smile. “My hair was twisted up, so I wanted to try something new ... I gave it up on my own.”