Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien of the Huskies threw their arms into the air and gave a big smile to the gathered fans during the final few moments of the game on Saturday. This gesture was meant to tell the Irish fans that the game belonged to them and there was no hope for the Irish team.
The Huskies who were at 18-1, 71 forced the Notre Dame team who were 12-6, 3-4 to get their lowest season score so far of just a 33 % shooting. They also made use of a 13-1 run to turn the game in their favor.
Adrien shot his career high of 19 rebounds and also scored 12 points. Hasheem Thabeet scored 9 points as well as 11 rebounds and another 5 blocks. However, this wasn't what made Thabeet the match-winner for his team. His superb blocking of the lane and tactics for making the rival team change their shots were the main reason that Notre Dame could not set a record in Saturday's college basketball results.
A.J. Price of the Huskies, who was able to score a precious 13 points against the Irish basketball team, said that the reason why his team defeated their rivals was because they 'did everything (Huskies) wanted to' and left no trick from defense to rebounds and stops to make sure their team secured a win.
Coach Jim Calhoun was overjoyed at his team's brilliant performance on Saturday and said he could find no faults with his team's play except perhaps an improvement in their free-throw shooting. Calhoun was not being unreasonable to say that as the Uconn could only shoot 15-30 off their free-throws.
He was all praise for Thabeet's excellent play. It isn't every day fans see really great players miss shots but Thabeet forced them to make errors from real close range which made all the difference for the Huskies.
Notre Dame's star player Kyle McAlarney could not score off 15 consecutive shots despite getting three initial 3 pointers without making any errors. His final score was a disappointing 9 points.
Another Irish player, Luke Harangoy, was also unable to deliver for his team. He was only 10-of-23 from the field and finished off with 24 points. Harangoy has been in good form with this being the 11th consecutive game that he has scored a minimum of 20 points. As for the other Irish starters, they only had a shooting average of 21 % and could add 22 points.
This was a game the Irish would like to forget soon as this was a consecutive 3 straight in a period of 3 years and their first defeat in 3 years on home turf.
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