The News-Times

No. 8 UConn hosting Oklahoma State in Big East-Big 12 Battle

- By David Borges

STORRS — En route to a Phil Knight Invitation­al championsh­ip, an 8-0 record and a first top-10 ranking in nearly a decade, the UConn men’s basketball team has made it look rather easy.

Every win has been by at least 15 points. The depth is so great that the Huskies’ back-up center, Donovan Clingan, was named Phil Knight Invitation­al Most Valuable Player.

The key now is to keep it going, keep the pedal on full throttle. Because it doesn’t get any easier, beginning on Thursday night..

UConn hosts Oklahoma State in a Big East/Big 12 Challenge bout. The Cowboys are 5-2. They’ve lost a home game to Southern Illinois, and fell to UCF in overtime in the Bahamas. They barely got by Big East bottom-feeder DePaul in that Bahamas tournament.

But the Cowboys are not to be taken lightly. They’ve got a talented backcourt led by leading scorer Avery Anderson (12.7 ppg) and Bryce Thompson (11.0). And they’ve got great size in the middle in the form of 7-foot-1 center Moussa Cisse, who’s averaging 10 points, 10.6 rebounds and nearly four blocks (!) per game.

Cisse was the American Athletic Conference (remember them?) Freshman of the Year two seasons ago at Memphis. He transferre­d to Oklahoma State last season and was named Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year after leading the league with 1.86 blocked shots per game.

Of course, UConn was able to largely neutralize Oregon’s front line of 7-foot, 7-foot, 6-11, thanks in no small part to Clingan, the 7-2 freshman. Cisse promises to be an even bigger challenge to Clingan and leading scorer Adama Sanogo. Dan Hurley played the two together for about a three-minute stretch in the win over Oregon, and UConn outscored the Ducks 8-2 over that stretch.

Asked if Hurley would continue to utilize Sanogo and Clingan together in the future, the coach was non-commital: “Obviously, if Adama continues to shoot the ball like that and we could space him behind the line, that’s definitely something that we could do. We’ll play some zone, some 1-3-1. There’s ways we can get both of them on the court. It’s something we’ll tinker with.”

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