Dyson, Wiggins remain suspended

UConn sophomore guards Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins remain indefinitely suspended from the UConn men’s basketball team for game competition, coach Jim Calhoun announced Thursday.

Wiggins, however, was allowed to return to practice Thursday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion while Dyson was not. Dyson, a Rockville, Md., native, will serve a mandatory 30-day suspension for failing a drug test for the second time in his UConn career, several news outlets reported.

Both players, who are 20, were issued infractions for possession of alcohol by UConn police last Thursday night, and were ordered to take drug tests by the athletic department under probable cause.

Wiggins — who already failed two tests during his UConn career, according to a published report — passed his while Dyson did not, it was reported. A third test would entail an automatic suspension for the remainder of the year, as specified in the UConn Student-Athlete Handbook.

Calhoun has the option of playing Wiggins Saturday when the team hosts No. 18 Pittsburgh at 1 p.m. at the XL Center, though it was no apparent if he would. Calhoun made the initial decision to suspend the pair last Friday prior to the Huskies’ 68-63 upset win at then-No. 7 Indiana and for Monday’s 69-67 victory over Louisville.

A small amount of marijuana was also found under Wiggins’ car at the scene on King Hill Road, but the neither of the two players were charged because “ownership or possession was not able to be established,” according to Maj. Ronald Blicher, the spokesman for the UConn police department.

Wiggins also was issued a summons for driving with a suspended license, and is due in Rockville Superior Court Monday.

Calhoun told reporters Monday following the win over Louisville that he did not agree with UConn athletics director Jeff Hathaway’s decision to release the public report of Wiggins and Dyson’s infractions. But Blicher said it was the police department’s decision to do so.

“It’s not a release that is authorized by the athletic department,” Blicher said. “The A.D., Coach Calhoun, they do not decide what the police department releases, and in fact, it was my decision as the public information office for the police department.”

Dyson leads the team in scoring (14.3 points per game) and steals (36). Wiggins, an East Hartford native, is the team’s primary scorer off the bench at 6.6 points per game.

No news on Dyson, Wiggins

There is no official update on the indefinite suspensions of Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins. At the time being, they remain suspended, though it is unclear for how long.

Wiggins is due to be in Rockville Superior Court on Monday, Feb. 4 , at 9:30 p.m,. to answer to a charge of operating a car with a suspended driver's license.

Big (B)East

This got lost in the notes from Monday's game, but Rick Pitino weighed in, almost voluntarily, about why he feels the Big East is the nation's best conference during his post-game press conference at the XL Center.

"The reason it’s so tough, people think it’s the number of teams, but there are two variables that make it so tough," Pitino said. "There are so many teams. … You don’t have time to learn (other coaches’ systems) now. I know Jim (Calhoun's) system because we’ve known each other for 90 years, but it’s very difficult playing these Saturdays-Mondays (games) because the preparation’s not as good, and it’s always different teams so you never get used to one team. The second thing is there are tough kids in the Big East, tough kids. They’re all tough, hard-nosed guys. Connecticut and Seton Hall, even St. John’s the other day, they never wilted.

"So it’s the toughest conference in basketball. I don’t care what the RPI says. I’ve got respect for every conference, I never knock a conference. This is by far the toughest because of the type of kids. (People say), ‘Well, we’ve got six coaches who went to the Final Four.’ Coaches don’t make this conference, the toughness of the kids make this conference."

What jogged my memory of Pitino's quote? Check out RPIRatings.com (or any other RPI site) and you may be surprised. The ACC is ranked No. 1, the Pac-10 sits at No. 2 and the Big East comes in at No. 3. Many people, including SI's Grant Wahl think the Pac-10 is the country's best conference (he says so in his latest mailbag), and as he points out, the ACC is in a down year. RPI Ratings can be quirky but sometimes they don't make sense: Outside of Duke (No. 3) and North Carolina (No. 4), no other ACC team is included in the Top 25 of the latest AP poll, the latest ESPN/USA Today poll or the Top 25 of the RPI. Among the Top 50 teams in the RPI, the Pac-10 boasts five, the ACC five, the Atlantic 10 five and the Big East a whopping nine. (I'm going off the RPI ratings on ncaasports.com, by the way.)

I'm not totally drinking the Big East Kool-Aid, though solely because RPI ratings don't mean as much as end-of-season results. Since UConn's 2004 championship, just one Big East team (Georgetown) has made the Final Four, not counting Louisville, which did in 2005 as a member of Conference USA. Now, you can obviously argue the Big East is so tough it beats up on teams all year, making it even tougher to do well as the season progresses into the NCAA tournament. Then again, you can argue the Big East has so many teams (16), if it's such a good league, it should be producing more end-of-season contenders. The debate over the best conference is always a fun one.

Blog poll sitta

I'm an idiot: All week I trumped up how much attention the blog poll question and I forget to react and update it. And it's right there, staring at me in the right corner? I guess I'm still trying to recuperate from not sleeping for two days.

Well, thanks to ALL of you who checked in. Forty-eight votes is by far the most this season (like almost 10 times more than the previous season-high) and it seems like it was a good balance of opinions.

The question: Who can the Huskies least afford to lose (or have play poorly) at this point in the season? The votes: A.J. Price (24), Hasheem Thabeet and Jerome Dyson (10 apiece), Jeff Adrien (3) and someone else (1), who wasn't identified by the voter. With the developments over the weekend and then again Monday (after the voting closed), Price is just the right choice here. Several people made good points about Thabeet and how without him, how much that defense changes. But as the point guard, the Huskies' most consistent scoring threat in the backcourt and surely the leader of this team, Price, as I've written before, is invaluable to this team. Dyson is, of course, important too, but obviously the Huskies have proven they can without their leading scorer by outworking teams and staying composed down the stretch in the face of fatigue. As pointed out in the last post (and Rick Pitino) how long that can last is a different story. As for Jeff Adrien, he's so consistent, it's easy overlook how important he is to this team. But he's out there more than anybody (he leads the team in minutes) and though Calhoun has questioned his defense at times, he's made some big, albeit subtle plays, like making Juan Palacios work for that off-balance 3-point attempt that he missed in the final seconds of the Louisville Monday.

As for voting, can I explain why there was such a rise? Not really. Maybe several people voted several times. Maybe it was just a good question that can even more interesting after Dyson and Doug Wiggins' suspensions. I can't point to one thing. Just hopefully you guys keep checking in with votes and comments. It really makes this blog more interesting when there are other opinions flowing through it.

Cardinal win

The news that dominated Tuesday's Huskies coverage was two-fold:

Obviously, there was the Hartford Courant's story of how marijuana was found at the scene where Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins were issued citations for underage drinking and (for Wiggins) driving with a suspended license. The Courant also reported that Wiggins has twice before failed drug tests during his UConn career and if the results from a drug test he took come back positive (his third strike, essentially), he'd face a suspension for the rest of the season, as outlined by the UConn Student-Ahtlete handbook. The handbook reads: "A student athlete who tests positively for street drug use for the third time during his or her career at the university will be barred from practice and competition for the remainder of the academic year in which the third positive test result was obtained." (Here is the link to the Student-Athlete handbook, in PDF form, if you want to read it for yourself; drug-testing procedures and punishments are outlined on pages 53-55).

Dyson, it appears, has no previous offenses, and if he tests positive, he will be "referred immediately to the appropriate personnel in Student Health Services for evaluation and for recommendation of specific treatment," according to the Handbook. The Handbook, however, does not detail a required period of suspension. How long Jim Calhoun would extend his own suspension of the sophomore is up to the coach.

Check the previous blog post for today's story on the situation.

The second piece of news to come out was the Huskies' play, which in many ways was dwarfed by the off-the-court news. But for the second time in three days against a very good team (though this article would dispute that) the Huskies overcame fatigue to win a close game. With its short bench, UConn has essentially bocame a different team: it's playing more zone, it's slowing things down at times (thus scoring fewer points) and without Dyson and Wiggins, it's obviously become a slower team. And though neither Indiana or Louisville played their best games (both didn't shoot particularly well), UConn proved it can close games, particularly from the free throw line, and make the necessary runs early in the second half to take control of the game. You could argue that if UConn wasn't undermanned, they'd have the legs and bench to prevent some of the late runs Indiana and Louisville made, meaning those close wins could have been "convincing" wins. But the scores aside, they were convincing. This team turned a corner against Marquette and Cincinnati last week and the suspensions have given them only more fuel to keep plowing ahead.


The worry is this: if neither Dyson or Wiggins return, it may be difficult for UConn to sustain this run or duplicate it later in the season during the Big East tournament and (this is optimistic thinking) the NCAA tournament. Fatigue would become a major factor and frankly, the Huskies don't have the same offensive firepower they once did.

"What I’ve found in coaching, the wounded Tiger is much more dangerous," Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "For the next few games, it’s not going to hurt them at all. It didn’t hurt them against IU, it didn’t hurt tonight. Where it hurts you is longevity over the span of time."

Still, the Huskies have played great and here are some of the highlights from Monday's win:

(1) Jeff Adrien (12 points, 10 rebounds) and Stanley Robinson (16 points, 10 rebounds) each recorded a double-double for the second straight game.

"Stanley Robinson, who was cramping up the entire game, was absolutely magnificent," Calhoun said. "Jeff, who was taken our early for not playing defense, played terrific defense down the stretch and his play at the end of the game did not allow a 3-point (by Juan Palacios) to get up."

Robinson said his cramps got so bad, it got "to a point where I couldn’t walk on the court." Nonetheless, after struggling to an offensive slump that saw him score four or fewer points in three of four games, he now has made 10 of his last 23 shots and collected 21 rebounds.

"It’s to a point where you can’t look behind you and say you have a Jerome Dyson," Robinson said of stepping up his play. "We also have A.J. Price, he’s always been there, and Hasheem, he’s always been there. All of us are doing pretty good."

(2) A.J. Price continued his development into a premier point guard. Calhoun said "I thought A.J. Price is starting to prove he’s one of the best guards in the country." I've already discussed in several stories and blog posts Price's maturation, which has become even more evident the past two games, so here's a link to ESPN.com story that weighs in on Price's performance. Reggie Rankin of Scout's, Inc. makes several good observations of Price's play.

(3) The Huskies defense gave up 33 3-pointers and Louisville did miss a lot of them with no real UConn pressure. But the Huskies' defense did many things extremely well, specifically they controlled the boards (40-29) and took out most of Louisville's big guns. Terrence Williams, who has two triple-doubles this year, hit just 2-of-20 shots for seven points while Louisville's backcourt of Andre McGee and Jerry Smith combined for 12 points, six assists and three rebounds). (Price and Craig Austrie combined for 29, 7 and 10.) David Padgett's 12 points were also quiet.

Also, another part of the story that emerged following the was Calhoun's unhappiness with the media and it's pursuit of the information around Dyson and Wiggins' suspension. Here's the transcript of the first minute of his press conference.

"If some of you guys would work as hard on our team as you would on trying to be P.I.’s, it would really help everybody. You’re really trying to help some kids and I really appreciate that what you’re trying to do.

"I would like to work as hard on our team and doing you (expletive deleted) job than you would trying to do things to hurt young people because you feel someone’s pressuring you; it’s really unfortunate. It really is. You’ve done your job, things are reported, you’ll know the information as soon as it comes out. I told you they would not be playing tonight or the next game and I told you this week that something would come out. But that’s not good enough for you.

"If that's what you want, go ahead. But just make sure, when you make that call (to Calhoun) and it doesn't get answered — you're fooling with my kids. You can fool with me now. Say I'm a bad coach, shouldn't discipline. Everybody understand that? So we all understand."

The Dyson and Wiggins situation

Here is the full story that ran in today's Bulletin, with details from the UConn police on the alcohol they found Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins with and the updates from the Hartford Courant story on how marijuana was found near the scene of the two player's citations:

By MATT STOUT
Norwich Bulletin

HARTFORD -- It’s unclear how long Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins will be away from the UConn men’s basketball team. But the story behind their indefinite suspensions took another twist Monday.

A day after UConn police made available a news release describing how the two 20-year-old sophomores were caught with alcohol while parked in an on-campus lot late last week, The Hartford Courant reported on its Web site Monday night that a small amount of marijuana was also found at the scene where the two players were issued their citations.

“Marijuana was involved,” UConn Police Maj. Ronald Blicher told the Courant. “They were not charged, but a small amount of marijuana was found at the scene. ... I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was abandoned, but upon officers checking with the occupants of the vehicle, marijuana was found in the vicinity of the car.”

Blicher told the newspaper, “Unless Mr. Dyson or Mr. Wiggins walks through my door and says, ‘I forgot ... that was mine.’ We would not and should not charge anyone with possession unless we can actually establish possession.”

Dyson and Wiggins were suspended indefinitely Friday and didn’t make the trip to Indiana when the team upset the Hoosiers, 68-63. They remained on suspension Monday and were not in attendance for the Huskies’ 69-67 win over Louisville.

According to a UConn police press release, at approximately 11:51 p.m. Thursday, university police saw a car driven by Wiggins pull into a parking lot off King Hill Road. When they approached the vehicle, officers found the two underage players with a bottle of cognac and a bottle of vodka.

Wiggins, an East Hartford native, was issued a summons for operating a vehicle with a suspended license and both players were issued infractions for possession of alcohol by a minor. Wiggins is scheduled to appear in Superior Court in Rockville Monday for the suspended-license charge and to answer to his failure to resolve the previous motor vehicle violation that led to the suspension, according to the Courant.

Dyson, of Rockville, Md., does not have to appear in court and can pay a fine or plead not guilty by mail, the newspaper reported.

According to the Courant article, both players have since taken drug tests and the results are expected Wednesday at the earliest, but it is not uncommon for any student athlete who is issued a citation related to alcohol to be tested for drugs.

A source also told the Courant Wiggins has already failed two drug tests in his UConn career. The second failed test, the Courant reports, was what led to a suspension before practice officially began in October. A third positive test means the student athlete is suspended for the rest of the season.

Jim Calhoun opened his post-game press conference following the victory Monday at the XL Center by blasting the media for its pursuit of the information, saying “if some of you guys worked as hard on our team as you are trying to be P.I.’s, it would really help everybody.”

“You’ve done your job, things are reported, you’ll know the information as soon as it comes out,” Calhoun later added. “I told you they would not be playing (Monday) or the next game and I told this week something would come out. But that’s not good enough for you.”

UConn, which has now won four straight games, hosts Pittsburgh on Saturday.

* * *

More reaction from Monday's night's win and Calhoun's ripping on the media to come later today, as well as a look at last week's blog poll question.

UPDATE: Huskies edge Cardinals, 69-67

Juan Palacios missed a potential game-winning 3 in the waning seconds and the UConn men's basketball team held on for a thrilling 69-67 win over Louisville at the XL Center. A.J. Price led all scorers with 20 points and Stanley Robinson (16 points, 10 rebounds) and Jeff Adrien (12 points, 10 rebounds) both had double-doubles.

UPDATE: Huskies, Cardinals tied at half

The Huskies overcame some early foul trouble from Hasheem Thabeet and limited their turnovers against the Louisville press to enter intermission tied at 30-all. Stanley Robinson leads the Huskies with 10 points and A.J. Price has eight. With UConn playing well in a 2-3 zone, the Cardinals fired up 20 3-pointers, making five (all coming from different players). Louisville's David Padgett and Edgar Sosa each have five points.

Thabeet (two fouls) played just 10 minutes, scoring four points.

Top 27

UConn's upset victory over Indiana has it back on the edge of the national polls. The Huskies are receiving 108 votes in the AP Top 25 and 35 in the ESPN/USA Today poll, putting them (unofficially) at No. 27 in the country in both sets of rankings. Here is the link, courtesy of ESPN.com

In Bloom

I can wax poetic about the Huskies' 68-63 upset of Indiana Saturday -- and tried my best at it in the game story about it -- but I think Jim Calhoun does a better job at it. Here's a partial transcript of his press conference Saturday as he tries to capture the victory's magnitude.

(Also, here is the link to today's story previewing tonight's game against Louisville, 7 p.m. at the XL Center)

"Well, this sweat that you see wasn’t the game. The sweat was me hugging every single one of those kids. Quite frankly, they deserved more than a hug from me. They deserve a hug from the state of Connecticut, they deserve a hug from the university, and they deserve (one) from our fans. And quite frankly if you’re a basketball enthusiast and you see a team that’s limited, self-imposed certainly, but the players that were brought here against a terrific team, Kelvin (Sampson) is a terrific coach, (Eric) Gordon is a great player. ... to do what we did, it’s gonan get there someplace since the national championship team beat Georgia Tech. It could even be the Duke game when we came back down 7, just the circumstances that surrounded our program.

"From an aspect of basketball and an aspect of everything that I believe in, maybe why I do this thing, when people respond that way ... I’m not saying we don’t have players, we do have players. Hasheem Thabeet made two blocks and 20 detour signs. They were in (the paint) and they left with the ball without him every blocking a shot.

"And what our kids did, it was one of the most special things. I’m not going to break down and cry, that’s not who I am. But the pride I feel with them and the hugs I gave them are why athletic competition brings out the things in people that are very, very special.

"I couldn’t be prouder of A.J. (Price), given the fact of what he had to overcome (in the last three years), some self-imposed and some by nature, and we almost lost him. To watch Craig (Asutrie), who many times has been beat out by Marcus Williams after starting 13 games in a row — undefeated by the way — and to watch him make those fouls shots tonight. And to watch Sticks, Stanley Robinson play the way he did. Every single one of them and the team, the guys on the bench, just the spirit in our team was phenomenal."

And finally ...

"I couldn’t be more damn proud of them and I’m not exactly a syrupy guy, normally I’d be up here telling you what they didn’t do. What they did do was show you everything that I hoped when I leave Connecticut, which who knows when that’s going to be … I hope that all of our teams the rest of the way through play that way. That’s Connecticut basketball to the ultimate and that epitomized what we want them to represent."

Calhoun later added he "could fly home" because of the elation he felt. The 22-year coach is always a great quote and sometimes he can trumps things up. But for him to say this win was a significant as a Final Four win, it's not far off. With the nature of Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins' suspension, the opponent, the venue and the way UConn did it -- by essentially playing a totally different style than the Huskies had all year -- it made the win something really to behold. Plus it was on national television. Just a perfect storm of emotion and execution.

Some other tidbits:

(1) The Huskies left the court Saturday cheering as IU students crowded near the hallway leading to their locker room, lobbing a few more verbal barbs at the players and the occasional piece of paper.

"Just talking, just talking (trash) to them, really," Jeff Adrien said when asked what he yelled to fans as he made his way to the locker room. "I don’t know what I was saying. It feels good that you can just shut them up, you can point to the scoreboard and they have nothing to say to you. During the game, they have a lot. They like to yell out, ‘Yo, Adrien,’ and this other crap. It’s all good."

Adrien was then asked how many times he's heard 'Yo Adrien' from the stands in his college career. He rolled his eyes and said, "Numerous times." Surely, he gets at least one a game.

(2) In a win like Saturday's, you'd think there was no room for disappointment anywhere in the Huskies' locker room. But there was, even if it was soaked in humility.

"I was actually disappointed in myself," Austrie said of missing three free throws in the final 1:40. The top free throw shooter in Big East play made nine others, though. "I should have made them all. I want to do whatever I can to help the team and Coach Calhoun he has faith in me."

(3) Even though the Hoosiers struggled shooting the ball, the Huskies put forth a defensive performance reminiscent of years past. The keys: Thabeet's presence in the middle and UConn's ability to stay in front of the men they were guarding. The Huskies' style all year has been to funnel people into the middle where Thabeet and Jeff Adrien can plug drives and block shots. At times, they purposely play to the side of their man to bait them into the heart of their defense. It works great from the a perspective of blocking shots (UConn leads the nation in that category), but it's gotten UConn into the habit of playing off their man and when their opponents drive, not being able to cover when they kick out for 3s (which have killed UConn).

Saturday, they threw help defense out the window and focused on playing straight up defense. As a result, they looked as good as any time this year.

"What we found out is we can keep them in front of us. When you play in our league, everybody scouts us a lot. And everybody kept going by us. And the 3-point shooting has been a direct correlation to people going by us and kicking out. It’s been so obvious, it’s incredible.

"So we took a chance. We talked a lot about keeping them in front of us, we talked a lot about keeping Hasheem (at the rim). … He was our goaltender."

(4) A.J. Price may never have looked more tired than he did Saturday. It forced Calhoun into trying any thing to get his point guard some rest, no matter who small the increments were.

"He was woozy and sick and I just was saying, give me two more minutes. You never see me take a 60-second timeout early and I took one with 4 minutes to go, I never do that. But I had to do that to find some way … I had to get us rest for that last two-minute run.

"We had nothing left," he later added. "We had nothing left, and I thought if I could give A.J. 10 or 20 second just off the ball, just standing there, we could win the basketball game because he was just absolutely terrific."

Price, who vomited twice in the second half, still had sweat on his forehead when he answered post-game questions.

"I got sick, It just happens sometimes," he said. "I wasn’t sick before hand. It was just the emotion of the game, I was exhausted. I was tired as hell."

Several of the players were asked how tiring the whole experience it was. Some like Austrie and Donnell Beverly (who played great by the way) said they had the energy to keep playing.

"I’m fresh, I’m ready to play Monday," Beverly said, referring to the Huskies' showdown with Louisville. "Everybody wants to play. That’s what everybody was saying in there."

Jeff Adrien started to say the same thing ...

"I think I still have a lot of energy left," he said, before laughing. "Yeah, I’m just tired man. It was a great, man."

(5) A major factor that perhaps was somewhat overlooked was the Huskies' humongous rebounding edge (44-28).

"We just went out there to fight," Thabeet said. "We know we can play defense, we know we can rebound. They focus on me, everybody doesn’t want me to get the rebound. I’ll be boxing out two people so that’s an opportunity for one of my teammates to get an easy rebound."

(6) One final random note: The Huskies 3-game win streak was tied for the longest in the Big East entering Sunday.

As for the Huskies game tonight against Louisville: The Cardinals have won 10 of 12 and now that they're finally healthy (they didn't have their starting frontcourt completely together until January), they are dangerous in so many ways.

Rick Pitino met with the local media on Sunday to preview the game, and the audio file is available on the team's Web site. Here are some key things he hit on in the session (mostly all UConn related):

(On UConn, in general) "We know pretty well that they’re one of the hottest teams in the Big East. Even the game they lost, they could have won at Georgetown. They really had the game won at the end. So they’re as physically talented as any team in the Big East."

(On Thabeet) "He’s improved his foul shooting which is a big bonus for them. He’s improved his offensive game and they position him near the rim and it’s just so tough to stop him because of his length and his size. He’s always been a great defensive player. Connecticut’s always the leader in shot blocking, great field goal defensive team, great transition team offensively because they feed off the blocked shot and the defensive rebounding.

They dominated IU on the glass, dominated them."

(On UConn's ability block shots) "Their whole team, the 3-4-5, they go after the blocked shot. It’s a pride thing for them.

It’s not one aspect. I think their transition game on offense is great, I think their rebounding is terrific, their defense is outstanding, their shot blocking abilities are No. 1 in the country."

(On change in this UConn group that struggled so much last season) "Last year’s last year, and really there’s never a correlation to the two. … They’re a totally different basketball team and Thabeet is a totally different player. We’re going against a much different basketball player this time around."

(On the suspension of Dyson and Wiggins) "It won’t change our game plan. What happens … in the short haul, for two or three games, you’re a better basketball team because the other players have that wounded tiger syndrome, that you’re wounded, you have to play better, you’re’ a little shorthanded and everybody really steps it up. In the long run, if they’re out in the long run, it’s detrimental. But in the short urn for one to three games, the guys sometimes rally and play better.

We just have to continue to do the things that we’re doing and cut down on the mistakes that we’re making. But we’re playing good basketball, they’re playing good basketball and we just have to continue to grow as a team."

(On using different defensive looks)"We’ve been changing quite a bit. I don’t think there’s one defense that I can say is great. I think all the defense have been good to us because we change a lot. It’s keeping the offense off-balance by change.

"I actually did it more at Kentucky than I’ve even done here. We had three different presses. We played mostly man-to-man but we played some zone. We play more zone here."

A final note: I covered the UConn women's game at Notre Dame tonight, an 81-64 Husky victory. I was very surprised by the Joyce Center and how, well, unimpressive it was. I'm sure with a really boisterous crowd it's a great atmosphere but the arena itself is nothing to write home about it. Though as I type this, doesn't that mean I'm technically writing home about it? Whatever. It's late, I'm tired and have a flight at 5:45 in the morning to catch. Hope you all enjoyed your weekend.

Dyson, Wiggins still suspended

Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins remain indefinitely suspended for Monday's game against Louisville, UConn spokesman Kyle Muncy said. Both sophomore guards did not attend the Huskies' hour-and-a-half practice Sunday at Gampel Pavilion and will not attend Monday's game as well.

The Huskies and Cardinals kick off at 7 p.m. at the XL Center.

I'm posting a far longer post later this afternoon with further reaction from Saturday's win and a look ahead to Louisville. Here are the links to today's stories: game story and notebook.

UPDATE: Wow ...

Behind one of their best defensive performances of the season, the Huskies proved unflappable in capturing an improbable 68-63 upset of No. 7 Indiana at Assembly Hall. By the time UConn was finished icing the play with free throws, most of the raucous crowd was already on its way out the door.

A.J. Price finished with 14 points and Stanley Robinson had a double-double. More to come when full stats are available. But really, wow. This is an immense win for this group that looked doomed after Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins were suspended.

UPDATE: Huskies take surprising lead at half

UConn went scoreless on its first even possessions, but played exactly the game it wanted to thereafter, outscoring Indiana, 12-1 at one point, to take a 29-24 lead at the half. It's a surprising turn of events for the Huskies, who are missing both Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins to suspension, but they got two big 3-pointers from A.J. Price (10 points) and have limited Eric Gordon to six points.

Perhaps UConn's most outlandish mistake: In the waning seconds of the first half, Hasheem Thabeet was tricked by the fans into heaving up a shot as they counted the shot clock down to zero, though there really was 10 seconds left. Indiana, though, couldn't capitalize as it failed to get a shot off at the buzzer.

Some other observations: UConn has gotten some great minutes from Donnell Beverly, who played solid defense on Gordon and hit a 3-pointer. ... The Huskies have gone mainly man after Indiana opened the game with a 3-pointer against it's zone. The Hoosiers, though, hit two more by the time the game was 3:03 old to take a 9-1 lead. ... The tempo of the game is playing in the Huskies' favor. With a short bench, they're not looking to run as often and Indiana really isn't making them. The few times they have gotten on the fast break, they finished, first with a Stanley Robinson alley-oop dunk from Price and later when Robinson missed the shot on the same play but Price followed it up with a lay-up. ... Craig Austrie made a great play late in the half to give the Huskies' their final points when he missed a runner in the lane but stuck with the play when no one else did and followed up his own rebound with a lay-up.

Assembly line

Greetings from Indiana's Assembly Hall. Tip-off is about 15 minutes so this update will be quick.

Speaking with UConn assistant coach Pat Sellers prior to the game, he called A.J. Price invaluable, and really the junior is. The Huskies also, as he put it, needs to find points. Both points are among the most important if the Huskies want to pull the upset.

As for Assembly Hall, it really is an amazing arena. The best way I can describe it is this: the seating curves up from the floor and seemingly extends to a ceiling. It's as if they plopped stands from a football stadium into an arena. Plus with all the photos that adorn the halls of past IU athletic greats, the 30-plus year building itself and just the feeling you get from being on the floor, it truly is one of college basketball's best venues. When the phrase "a cathedral to basketball" was first uttered, there's no doubt the man who said it was standing in Bloomington, Ind.

As usual, check back here around 2 p.m. for a halftime update.

Sharp-shooting recruit commits to UConn

Scottie Haralson, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard out of Provine High in Jackson, Miss., made an oral commitment to play for the Huskies Friday night, several news outlets reported. The high school senior is expected to give UConn the outside threat it's been searching for.

UConn coaches got their first glimpse of Haralson, who is averaging 25 points this season, when they were in Orlando in late December, according to the Clarion Ledger. Haralson was competing in the Amare Stoudemire Invitational Classic and had four "high-scoring games" the newspaper's report said. Members of the Huskies staff then made two recent trips, where Haralson again dazzled.

"They came down twice and I scored 31 in the first game and in the second game I had 34," Haralson told Dave Telep of Scout.com. "They said I was going to be able to come in and shoot. They need some shooters and I could come in right away and light it up for them. I'm trying to add some more stuff to my game."

Haralson plans to sign in April, according to the Clarion Ledger, where he'll officially join Kemba Walker in the Huskies' newest freshman class.

"My eyes got big when they offered me about three days ago," he told the Clarion Ledger. The paper reported that Haralson also received a scholarship offer from Auburn. "I couldn't really believe it at first, but I knew I was capable of something like that."

Haralson's decision now makes commit Nate Miles' arrival in Storrs appear less likely. The well-traveled 6-foot-7 forward from Toledo is awaiting word from the NCAA Clearinghouse and if cleared, hopes to enroll at UConn before the Feb. 4 deadline. But there are many roadblocks: the Clearinghouse may not approve him in time, if at all, and even if he is cleared, he then has to be accepted by the university, all within the next six business days. Miles had attended six different high schools, and received a diploma last week from The Patterson School in Lenoir, N.C.

Haralson's shooting ability fills a need that Miles would have given the Huskies.

Just so you have it

Here's the link to today's full story on NorwichBulletin.com.

As for some other random things:

(1) I almost didn't make it in town in time to report this story. My 2:10 p.m. flight from Providence was delayed by more than 20 minutes, and I made it into Cleveland for my connector with 10 minutes to spare. Then, after arriving in Indianapolis around 5:50 and needing to get to Bloomington (about an hour's drive) by 7 p.m., I practically ran from the terminal, got my bag and rental car faster than I could have imagined, and made it to the team hotel by 7:10. Luckily, the Huskies were also late and didn't make it there until about 7:45 or so. Then, as if my head wasn't spinning enough, Calhoun breaks the news of Dyson and Wiggins. Frankly, right now it's about quarter to 2 in the morning and I feel like I haven't slowed down. I'm sure the Taco Bell I ate an hour and a half ago (my first meal all day) will certainly help in doing so.

(An aside: Really, is there anything worse for you than Taco Bell? Certainly, lead poisoning and bullet wounds qualify, but as far as fast food goes, most of the other chains at least have some "healthy" options. But if you're pulling into Taco Bell, you're essentially saying, "You know, I think I'm going cut five years off my life." Two Chalupas and a cheesy Gordita Crunch later, mission accomplished. If it wasn't so damn delicious, it would be easier to avoid such perils.)

(2) It seems like 90 percent of radio stations in Indiana either play nothing but, A) country (and some of the really honky tonk kind), or B) Christian rock. Needless to say, neither are my bag. If you're into either of those genres, I'm sorry if this offends you. But I would kill for some Hot 97 or 104.1, just something that doesn't make my ear drums bleed.

(3) I'm staying in a Hampton Inn for the first time. It's much nicer than I thought it would be. I don't mean that as a back-handed comment or anything, but really, I was pleasantly surprised.

(4) I passed roughly 10 Steak n' Shakes (a fast food-diner chain in this area) on my way from Indianapolis to Bloomington and there's one directly across the street from my hotel. I was thinking about eating there instead of Taco Bell (probably would have been a good idea), but I chickened out. It was pretty crowded and I didn't want to look like the lonely guy in town for work getting take-out for one and having to stand there (alone) for 15 minutes while they made it. Nevertheless, I've heard some good things about it. I have a four-hour drive from Bloomington to South Bend ahead of me tomorrow. Maybe I'll work up the nerve then.

I'll be checking back in tomorrow when I get to Assembly Hall, Indiana's home court, where certainly a new chapter begins in the 2007-08 UConn men's basketball season.

Suspended thinking

Quite frankly, the news of Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins' suspension Friday blind-sided everyone -- including the man who suspended them.

Though he didn't reveal the infraction that earned Dyson and Wiggins their indefinite suspensions, Jim Calhoun said he learned of the "information" some 45 minutes before practice and then made the decision to leave them in Storrs for the team's trip to Indiana within the following hours.

"As I wasn’t sleeping last night thinking about the Indiana game, I guarantee you it was the last thing from my mind," Calhoun said. "I can tell you this morning at 10 o’clock when I was making phone calls and doing other different things recruiting-wise and etc., it was the last thing from my mind. I can tell you as late as, practice today was at 1:15, the kids got out of class at 12:50, in and around that time when I was finishing up planning practice, 12, 12:10, that’s when I was informed. I had about 45 minutes, and that’s when we allowed them to practice. And then we had about 45 minutes before we departed and that’s when I mad my decision from there. It’s that simple."

He later added: "At 12 o’clock today, 10 minutes of 12 (to be precise), those guys were involved in the game plan."

Now, the Huskies aren't really sure what that game plan is as they play the No. 7 team in the country. As the players walked into the team hotel Friday night, there wasn't much talking, there were very few hellos and most of them didn't make any eye contact with the nine members of the media present. At first, it seemed like they were tired from the travel. Then Calhoun revealed the news, and it made more sense.

"I don’t really know what’s going on," Jeff Adrien said in a low tone.

"It’s very surprising," A.J. Price said.

Adrien, Price and Craig Austrie all said they didn't know what Dyson and Wiggins did. Even they had an some sort of inkling, they surely looked taken aback by the sudden nature of the whole situation.

How this plays out tomorrow remains to be seen, but it doesn't look good. For one, the Huskies' lose a lot of offense. Dyson is their second leading scorer (14.3 points per game) and Wiggins (6.6 points per game) has proven to be instant-offense off the bench. They also lose a lot of speed on both ends of the floor and a safety net in case Price needs rest (Calhoun wanted to begin paring the junior's minutes anyway to avoid burning him out), the Huskies get in foul trouble or someone gets injured.

As importantly, for a young team that was just starting to believe in itself, this is a big blow to its confidence and momentum. After consecutive Big East wins over Marquette and Cincy (on the road), the Huskies were starting to get some swagger and a look to them that even in the toughest situations, they could find a way. That's something this particular group's never really had. Now without Dyson and Wiggins, it's hard to imagine them still carrying that over. Two players don't make a team, but their absence under these kind of circumstances can certainly help break it in the time being.

And, frankly, it couldn't have come at a worse time. Indiana hasn't lost in 29 games at home, and with 13 straight wins to their credit, they've looked absolutely dominant at times behind Eric Gordon (22.1 points per game) and D.J. White, who's been averaging more than 18 points a contest in Big Ten play. Indiana fans have also been encouraged to take part in a "White Out" where everyone (you guessed it) wears white, helping to create an even more intimidating environment. Then, after Saturday's game, the Huskies turn around and host Louisville ... then Pittsburgh ... then they travel to Syracuse ... before hosting Georgia Tech and Notre Dame. This is the meat of the schedule, and now a UConn team that was starting to build steam has just nine scholarship players and a cloud of uncertainly hanging over them.

As for some other details on the situation:

(1) Calhoun said he wasn't sure if the two sophomores would play Monday against the Cardinals, saying, "If they do play Monday it’s because I believe they should play Monday based upon any pertinent information that I get." Again, it's hard to tell what that actually means because Calhoun refused to divulge what Dyson and Wiggins did. But as Price said, it must be something serious considering the timing and the quickness with which Calhoun acted.

"There are no secrets," Calhoun said. "I made the decision on my own and we’ll go from there."

(2) In terms of guarding Gordon, which would have been Dyson's assignment, that responsibility will probably be shared by Price and Austie or, as Calhoun briefly alluded to, UConn may just go zone for a lot of the game. The Hoosiers, by the way, are the Big Ten's second best 3-point shooting team (37.5 percent).

(3) When asked if he would contact either Dyson or Wiggins while the Huskies were on the road, Price said he didn't plan to. "Not when I’m down here," he said. "I probably will wait to we get back to deal with that."

As far as the flip side of this, here are things that will probably have to happen if UConn wants to win.

(1) Price is going to have to stay out of foul trouble and be on his game. The Huskies go as Price goes, and they may never follow his lead more than they will on Saturday.

(2) Hasheem Thabeet and Jeff Adrien have to take control. The depleted guards corps are certainly at a disadvantage, so if the Huskies win the battle in the frontcourt -- and on both ends -- that can be the counter they need. A big part of that is getting White in foul trouble. That takes away the best rebounder on a team that doesn't have loads of size in the first place.

(3) Stanley Robinson needs to get going. Ever since dropping 32 on Maine, Robinson has struggled to find a flow in the offense. If he's hitting jump shots early, that's a good sign. Robinson is one of a few players who can stretch a defense by himself. If he's able to do that, that can only make things easier for Adrien and Thabeet down low.

(4) The remaining guards have to hit outside shots. The Huskies usually see a lot of zone, and now with Dyson gone, Indiana may challenge them a lot to shoot the 3. That onus falls mostly on Austrie and Price.

(5) Someone else has to make an impact. Curtis Kelly may be the best candidate. UConn needs all the offense he can get, and Kelly is certainly capable of doing that with the right amount of confidence and time on the floor.

And perhaps as important as any other factor:

(6) Indiana has to have a down day. I'm not saying the Huskies' only chance of winning is if the Hoosiers play terrible. But if they are hitting early, the crowd gets behind them, they open up a big lead and sustain it, this version of the Huskies may not be able to cope. Without reliable outside shooters, it's hard to play from behind and UConn is certainly thin on those. Plus, don't forget, this is the No. 7 team in the country. This team may wind up being a No. 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament with the way they keep winning and some teams in front of it keep losing, not to mention they have the talent to certainly qualify. Few teams can play with a team like that on its best day, even a Huskies squad at full strength. UConn, no doubt has to play above its current potential, and Indiana is going to have to play below its.

Dyson, Wiggins indefinitely suspended

Jerome Dyson and Doug Wiggins are indefinitely suspended from the UConn men's basketball team for violating an unspecified team rule and will not play in Saturday's game against No. 7 Indiana, Jim Calhoun announced upon the Huskies' arrival at the team hotel Friday night.

The two sophomore guards did not make the trip to Indiana. Calhoun said it was his decision alone to suspend the pair, adding it had nothing to do with legal troubles or the university. But he would not elaborate on what the players' did, nor did their teammates, who said they didn't know. Calhoun said he was informed prior to UConn's practice Friday of Dyson and Wiggins' infraction, allowed them to practice and then made the announcement before they left for their plane that the two were staying in Storrs.

It's a big blow to the Huskies as they prepare for the Hoosiers, who feature one of the country's top guards in freshman Eric Gordon. Junior Craig Austrie will start in Dyson's place, Calhoun said. Dyson was the team's second leading scorer at 14.3 points per game, while Wiggins (6.6 points per game) is the team's sixth man and primary spark off the bench. Look for more here later tonight and in tomorrow's Bulletin.

Rapid fire

Jim Calhoun made his bi-weekly appearance on the Big East conference call Thursday. Several of these topics will be discussed in much more length in Friday's story, but here are some quick hits to what he spoke about.

(1) Jerome Dyson. The 20-point performance against Cincinnati was a step in the right direction for sure, and Calhoun attributed that partly to Dyson's attempt to develop an "in-between game" -- as in, in between 3-point shots and lay-ups/dunks.

"I think last night he showed some of that, and he showed some patience," Calhoun said. "…And we need him that. And we need Stanley Robinson to start doing the same thing that we think from the Marquette game and this game, that Jerome was starting to show it."

(2) A.J. Price's minutes. Price has been in far better shape this year and has said on several occasions how much stronger his legs are compared to a season ago. (Remember, Calhoun mentioned at the start of the year that Price was dunking again for the first time since high school). But Calhoun wants to pare down his minutes, and some foul situations helped him do that Wednesday (Price played 28 minutes). Price is averaging 31.2 minutes a game for the season and 33.3 in Big East. Jeff Adrien (31.6, 35) leads the team in both instances.

(3) UConn foul shooting. During and at the end of each practice, UConn does a variation of a drill where eight of 10 or nine of 11 players each have to make a foul shot or they each have to make two, etc. If they miss, they have to run, and Calhoun said that and the team's habit of doing a similar drill even two hours before a game has helped the Huskies shoot 75.5 percent from the line as a team in league play.

(4) On Cincinnati's Deonta Vaughn, who scored 34 points: "You know what I love about him? He wanted the ball at the end and we sold out and double-teamed him. And he still was going to try and get that shot off and couldn’t and he makes a great pass. ... I had great respect that he wanted the ball in his hands at the time.

"I know people saw it," Calhoun said of the game, "but the nation should have saw his performance. He was worth the price of admission (Wednesday)."

(5) On the young talent in the Big East and it's role in the craziness in the league so far: "The talent is always watered down, or tainted at times, misguided at times, incredible at times, exuberant at times, fearless at times, ... all that creates is that nobody fears anybody anymore. No one, including Georgetown, walks into a gym anymore with people (having) fear in them because of the youth. It hasn’t been ingrained that this team has beat you a few times in a row.

"We can make on heck of a sophomore-freshmen team that can certainly win a national championship out of our league, easily," Calhoun continued. "And that’s pretty unusual. Normally you’d be worried about experience. But that also creates some of the chaos you’ve seen in games. In my 22 years (at UConn), it’s as competitive got top to bottom as it’s ever been."

(6) An unusual caveat: The Big East conference call number somehow was leaked and a blitz of prank callers posing as sports writers from either made-up or far-off newspapers starting asking coaches lewd questions that I can't even repeat here.

After the first question was asked -- no more than five minutes into the entire conference call -- Marquette coach Tom Crean said with a laugh, "That's gotta be the first prank call in Big East history." John Paquette, the Big East's director of communications, then responded (unamused), "It probably was."

It certainly wasn't the last. Crean got another prank call two questions later, prompting Paquette to cut the caller off.

"Is it me?" Crean asked. With no other real questions, Paquette excused Crean, who said, "Good luck to the next coach getting through this." Of the seven remaining coaches who came on, nearly every one of them had to field a fake question, which led Paquette to ask the moderator to first read who was on deck to ask a question and then screen them that way. It got so bad at one point that the moderator reeled off four or five straight names from strange papers (the Topeka Country Journal was one, if that's even real, and the Sacramento Bee was another) with Paquette blocking each one.

Some got through who sounded somewhat legitimate ... until of course they asked their question. During Calhoun's call, one caller identified himself from the New Haven Register, to which Paquette responded, 'I don't recognize that name.' He blocked the question, and wouldn't you know it, who was the next reporter on deck? Dave Borges, the real New Haven Register reporter.

"I wish some people would get some lives," Calhoun said of the prank-callers.

I could appreciate a joke as much as anyone, but after a while it got so annoying and the questions so vile, it got in the way of people trying to do their jobs. Plus, where do you get the stones to ask someone like Bob Huggins or Stan Heath something down-right sexual? It was just wrong.

Alright, I'm getting pumped ...

It's 1:30 p.m. on Thursday and eight people have voted on the blog pole. Eight! A season-high by far. Now, I know this blog post doesn't particularly contain any actual news (there will be one later today), but that's because I wanna hear more about why you think a particular UConn player is most important to the Huskies right now. I appreciate the voting, but please, post a comment. I want to here some opinions because of right now, we have a split decision (two votes each for Hasheem Thabeet, Jerome Dyson, A.J. Price and Jeff Adrien).

I am thoroughly intrigued. (As you can see, I'm a pretty excitable person.)

Marcus of Troy ... and Yes, they are the Kings of the Queen City (for a day)

I call it breaking news, but I'm not the one doing the actually "breaking."

Former Husky Marcus Johnson has transfered to the USC Trojans, the Los Angeles Times reported. The Los Angeles native and former Westchester High star practiced with the team Wednesday, according to the Times report, and told the newspaper, "I just felt it (USC) was the right place for me. I wanted to be close to home and it's a good program with a good coach (Tim Floyd)."

Johnson, who won't become eligible until December, had said earlier he was transferring to Oregon State, according to several news outlets, but after practicing with the Beavers for one day, left school and returned home to mull over his options.

It probably was the best choice for the 6-foot-7 swingman. Oregon State has since fired coach Jay John and released one of its other transfers who had actually played in 10 games this season. This means he'll also be very close to home, something he wanted when he left Storrs in November.

But the Times article also said Johnson will have almost two full seasons of eligibility when he's able to play for the team midway through the next season. When Johnson transferred from UConn, it was believed he'd have only one season (or essentially a half of one) because he played six minutes in the Huskies' exhibition opener. He sat out the next exhibition game with what the team described as an elbow injury, and then he told Jim Calhoun he wanted to leave the school. Apparently the elbow injury isn't serious enough to keep him out of the Trojans' practice, but he did have the option of applying for a medial red-shirt and if granted approval, he could earn back a season. The Times' report didn't make any mention of that, though.

As for the the players who still play for the Huskies, they earned a thrilling 84-83 win over Cincinnati Wednesday night, thanks to a torrid comeback with less than six minutes to play and a little luck in the end. Down 74-62 with 5 minutes, 52 seconds left, UConn went on a 12-2 run, tied it at 80-all with 1:30 to play and then took an 82-81 lead on two free throws from Adrien.

Cincinnati's Rashad Bishop hit an off-balance jumper in the lane with 9 seconds to play to again put the Bearcats up, 83-82, but with Price attempting to take an inbounds pass, Bishop inexplicably fouled him with the Bearcats already over the limit. Price swished two free throws and the Huskies forced Cincinnati star Deonta Vaughn (34 points) to loose the ball momentarily and kick it into the corner to Marcus Sikes, who missed the jumper at the buzzer.

I'll have more reaction tomorrow after Jim Calhoun goes on the weekly Big East conference call, but here are some key things to take from the win.

(1) It's a win. And a road win at that. In today's story, Price said, "We’re young, and it’s the first time we’ve been in a hostile environment and come out with a win." The man speaks the truth. The Huskies had already won at Central Florida and Seton Hall, but both those games came on winter break with most of the students gone and even if they were there, they wouldn't have compared to the 10,481 that showed up to Fifth Third Arena. Judging by watching the game on television, it certainly wasn't an easy place to play (just as it wasn't for Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh). The Huskies are now at 4-3 in the league, which ties them with Cincinnati for fourth in the league (though there are six teams separating them from first-place and 5-1 Georgetown).

(2) Jerome Dyson snapped out of his scoring slump, and how. His 20 points are impressive enough, but he did it on 5-of-9 shooting from the floor, 8-of-9 shooting from the free throw line and made several big shots down the stretch, including two 3-pointers and a lay-up. The sophomore limited his fouls (one), came up with three steals and also made a huge block late.

Dyson hadn't scored in double figures in three straights and had never really gotten into the floor for most of them. But he's a scorer, plain and simple, and he did just that Wednesday.

The only criticism: Dyson was again called for a technical foul for hanging on the rim too long after a break-away dunk, marking the third time that's happened this season and second time in five games. (He also was whistled against St. John's and way back against Buffalo in the second game of the season.) You could argue the one against the Red Storm -- and Calhoun and Hasheem Thabeet laughed after that one, almost in disbelief -- but the one in Cincy was pretty concrete, at least from the camera angle they had on the court. There was a man trailing but he didn't have to hang on the rim. Even if Dyson felt he was under him, it's happened to him so many times this season, you'd think he'd be aware not to even give the officials any inkling of T'ing him up. When Dyson landed, he immediately raised his arm as if to say, 'I didn't do it (at least no on purpose).' But neither the refs -- or Calhoun, who was visibly angry with Dyson this time, not the official -- gave him any slack.

Overall, officials are making those calls more often this year. I've heard the argument of while players do it even with there are no players under them, namely because when they're on a fast-break, they use the rim to slow themselves up so they naturally hang on it longer. But like most calls, it's all up to the refs discretion, and when you do it on a fast-break, you're leaving yourself wide open to it. There was a dunk later in the half when a Cincinnati player got behind the UConn zone, took a pass and slammed it, giving himself a little extra swing on the rim. But he wasn't T'd, most likely because there was a group of people around him and it's harder to call him on that.

But other than that, Dyson looked the best he has in the last four games.

(3) Hasheem Thabeet also looked as good offensively as he has in quite some time. Sure, he had 15 points against Marquette but the majority of those came in the second half on fouls shots with UConn already up big. Wednesday, he made 7-of-9 shots from the field, 8-of-9 from the line and added seven rebounds. He was really moving in the post and he even displayed some great athleticism on a reverse lay-up and foul.

His improved foul shooting has been touched upon before -- it really may be the part of his game that's taken the biggest leap -- but this deserves mention: Since going 2-for-5 against St. John's, he's made 26 of his last 33, good for 78.8 percent. Remember this is a player who shot 51.3 percent from the line last year. Just an amazing turnaround.

As with Dyson, there is one caveat (and if Calhoun didn't mention it in the post-game press conference, I'd be surprised if he didn't at some point in the next day or two to the media): Thabeet had just one block after having at least three in every game since the Huskies' win over Florida A&M (and six against Marquette). But you can nit-pick all you want, Thabeet was a force one way or the other against Cincinnati.

(4) Some interesting statistics from Wednesday's win (and the full box score): It wasn't just Thabeet making foul shots, either. As a team, UConn shot 32-of-27 from the line, which equates to a season-high 86.5 percent. Against Marquette, the Huskies made 33-of-39 (85.3 percent). UConn was lacking in that area last year (62.8 percent), but it's now shooting 70.4 percent as a team. Calhoun's move to have a free-throw specialist analyze each individual Husky is apparently paying off. ... Craig Austrie was 8-for-8 from the foul line, which accounted for all his points. The junior has made a ridiculous 28-of-30 on the season and is riding a streak of 15 straight between Wednesday and Sunday (when he made 7-of-7). His only "blemishes" came against Morgan State (2-of-3) and Seton Hall (5-of-6). He entered Wednesday as a career 80 percent free-throw shooter. ... No Husky took more than nine shots Wednesday, but four scored in double figures. ... The Huskies tied a season-low with three blocks. ... UConn shot 53.3 percent but allowed Cincinnati to shoot 48.3 percent, the highest of any opponent this season. Odd, because the Bearcats entered the game 15th in the league in field-goal percentage. But you also have to consider that Vaughn was on fire (10-for-14 from the field, 8-of-11 from 3). ... Speaking of which: No, the 34 points are not a career high for Vaughn. He had 36 earlier this year against Coastal Carolina. But he could have been the sixth player to score a career high against UConn this year.

Feel free to add any insights you had of the game as well to the comments section. Remember, I was forced to watch this one on TV, so my scope isn't as wide as it could have been.

Kings of the Queen City?

UConn traveled Tuesday to Cincinnati -- known as the Queen City because it is the largest city in the state that's not the capital -- and it'll certainly find a test in the Bearcats. At 9-9 (4-2 in Big East), they've beaten Syracuse, Villanova and Pittsburgh at home and have taken down Louisville on the road (before the Cardinals started clicking earlier this month).

This is the Huskies' first trip to Cincy where they'll actually play the Bearcats, and as always, it's an important one: To not follow Sunday's victory with a win would diminish what the Huskies did against Marquette and would sap them of all their momentum heading into Saturday's game at No. 7 Indiana. Also, as has been stated by many coaches many times, to win on the road in the Big East is almost like "stealing" victories. Pick-pocket enough and you could be sitting on some serious loot. Winning on the road is tough enough, but the Big East -- and college basketball -- seems especially crazy this year. Just look at Tennessee's loss at Kentucky last night. If either Memphis or Kansas indeed do go undefeated this year, an extraordinary accomplish would be made that much better considering how everything else has played out so far.

Here's the link to today's advance on the game, which has a heavy focus on Jeff Adrien.

As for what didn't make into the story, here are some points UConn associate head coach George Blaney hit on before the Huskies left in search of their third road win this season.

(1) The Huskies' confidence obviously took a huge boost with their 89-73 win over Marquette, their first over a ranked opponent in nearly two years (and essentially the first for this current group). But Blaney said he felt that started building after the Georgetown game, though "it came back to bite us on the tail when we just didn’t play well against Providence."

"(The Providence game) was a poor performance from a lot of different standpoints, including effort so that kid of shook everybody up I think," Blaney said. "The good news is they came back, (and) Coach didn’t let them think about it very much. He just went right on to Marquette and us. We really don’t spend a lot of time on teams that we’re playing. We spend a lot of time on what we do."

(2) The numbers didn't exactly show that Jerome Dyson broke out of his recent slump against Marquette (nine points in 24 minutes, the third straight game he scored below double figures, a first in his UConn career). But Blaney saw signs the sophomore is starting to come around.

"The two things that I loved about Jerome in the game against Marquette was when he went to the bench with two fouls and he probably wasn’t going to get back in the whole first half, he was vocal on the bench, he was in the game," Blaney said. "He didn’t sit and sulk or anything, feel sorry for himself or any of the emotions that you go through when you’re not playing. He stayed in the game, he was cheering, he was off up the bench, he was doing all those things.

"And secondly when he got back in, in the second half he played very solidly," the coach continued. "He was terrific defensively and made some very good plays offensively. I liked what he did in that game offensively and I thought that he came out of it in a good frame of mind for himself."

It's not as if Dyson is never vocal though, Blaney said.

"I just think it’s very easy when it’s, ‘Not again, I gotta sit out the whole first half,’" Blaney said. "It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself in that situation and he didn’t. He stayed in the game and kept in the game."

Dyson did seem more into the game from the bench, though, more than he's had in the past when he got into foul trouble. When the Huskies were running off the court for halftime, several of them were clapping and hollering, including Dyson, who the cameraman followed with his lens on the sophomore's way to the locker room.

(3) When asked what has made Cincinnati successful, Blaney said it's simple: they have good players.

"They’ve got some good young freshman players, they’ve got some size, they certainly have some strength," he said. "But (Deonta) Vaughn and (John) Williamson certainly are two of the better players in the league and they have the big kid (Adam) Hrycaniuk, a 6-10 kid. So they’ve got good players and on top of that, they play pretty good defense, they’re very physical and aggressive."

(4) On Hasheem Thabeet, who had 15 points, seven rebounds and six blocks Sunday: "The difference is he’s a work-in-progress on offense. He’s still learning how to play offense, he’s a very young basketball player particularly in the offensive area of the game. And offense is hard. Offense takes much longer to learn than defense does, for teams and individuals. He’s a lot of repetitions and a lot of hours away from being a good offensive player."

(5) Also, because this doesn't get online, here is the Scouting Report from today's scout box on the game that ran in the print edition (Excuse me if it looks so daunting as one paragraph; we write it up as a big notes section):

Cincinnati is off to its best start in conference play in three years (in 2005-06, it started at 3-3) and is 2-2 against Top 25 teams, beating Pittsburgh and Villanova in the span of eight days. The Bearcats have also doubled their Big East win total from a year ago when they finished last in the league. … Cincinnati is very good at closing out games. It is 8-0 this season when leading with five minutes to play and is 17-3 overall under second-year coach and Cincinnati alum Mick Cronin. … The Huskies have played in Cincinnati twice before, but this is the first time they’ll actually play the Bearcats on the road. They beat Nebraska in the first round of the 1992 NCAA tournament at Riverfront Coliseum before losing in the second round to No. 1 seed Ohio State. … UConn associate coach George Blaney lauded Craig Austrie not just for his scoring in Sunday’s win over then-No. 13 Marquette (a career high-tying 15 points) but also for an attribute that’s often overlooked in the junior guard. “I just love the way Craig hangs in and gives us what we need,” Blaney said. “He’s very steady, very consistent and very tough. It’s one of the things that Coach (Jim Calhoun) has always like about him. He’s a really, really tough kid even though he’s somewhat mild-mannered and you don’t look at him as being one of those tough kids. But he’s really tough.” … Hasheem Thabeet, who leads the Big East in blocks (4.1 per game) is three away from tying Hilton Armstrong (191) for fifth on UConn’s all-time list. Jake Voskuhl is in fourth with 193 career swats. … UConn is 2-2 on the road this season, which matches its road win total from a year ago (2-8). Cincinnati is 8-3 at home (3-0 in conference play) and has won seven of its last eight at Fifth Third Arena.

The game tonight is on MyTV9 at 7:30 p.m. I leave Friday for Indiana but expect a few posts from now until then with reaction from tonight's game.

Not that that's out of the way

With its 89-73 win over No. 13 Marquette Sunday (here are today's stories: game story, notebook), UConn accomplished several things, but three stand out:

(1) The Huskies beat a ranked opponent for the first time in nearly two years. The last was seven chances ago in an overtime win over No. 17 Washington in the 2005-06 tournament. Then again, a win over Marquette doesn't ensure they're out of the woods either. They're just in a much better position (at 3-3) to keep building.

(3) The bench is finally contributing. In three games now, a reserve has scored 15 points (Doug Wiggins twice, Craig Austrie on Sunday) and Curtis Kelly for the first time in a long time looked confident and active, especially on the defensive end. Remember, this is the same player that had 13 points and nine rebounds in the season opener, and at the time, it seemed in line with that the Huskies could expect from him all year. He only had two points and two rebounds Sunday, but if Kelly can build confidence on the defensive end, that usually translates to offense. Gavin Edwards didn't play for the first time this season, but that's mainly because Kelly matched up better with a quicker, undersized Marquette team.

All year, UConn has been balanced, especially offensively, but being 'balanced' and being 'deep' can be two very different things. I'll delve into this much more in Tuesday's follow-up.

(A note: The Huskies' domination inside was a big part of the win, too, but I don't think it was as important in the long run as far as the other story lines go. Marquette was (and always is) severely undersized and though impressive, at least two of Hasheem Thabeet's six blocks came on two of Marquette's shortest players: 5-foot-11 Dominic James and 5-foot-8 Maurice Acker. The Huskies were more supposed to do what they did than it being considered an area to build upon.)

Other tidbits: UConn's Jeff Adrien remained on a tear, as he now has scored in double figures in nine straight games and grabbed at least six rebounds in seven of those contests. This development goes somewhat unnoticed because 1) Adrien is so consistent grabbing rebounds the whole game, the number kind of surprises you in the end, 2) Adrien's gotten to the point where you expect the powerful forward to control the middle, muscle for points and be the strongest player on the floor. There's a good chance he'll explode in a game or make a series of huge plays to carry UConn to a win, but he'll most likely be overshadowed by a high-scoring guard on most days. "Jeff Adrien was playing outstanding (Sunday)," said Marquette coach Tom Crean. "But you know what, he was playing outstanding. He was averaging 18 and 12 the last four games, shooting 16 times a game. He's playing excellent." ... UConn was actually outscored in the paint by the Golden Eagles, 30-24, but a lot of those came on late lay-ups. ... Marquette also grabbed more offensive rebounds, 15-11, continuing a trend for the Huskies.

As for what didn't happen as a result of the win:

(1) Jerome Dyson (nine points on 2-of-5 shooting) still struggled to get going and has now failed to score in double figures in three straight games for the first time in his career. He again was hampered by fouls early and never really got into the flow offensively. On one of the Huskies final possessions, when they were looking to run the clock down but needed a shot before the shot clock ran out, A.J. Price seemed intent on driving or kicking to the wing where Stanley Robinson was. But Robinson kept pointing to Dyson, indicating for Price to get the sophomore the ball, so he could have a chance at notching double figures. Price ended up taking it himself, but it's apparent the Huskies are very aware Dyson needs to start getting his points.

"I felt badly for Jerome," Jim Calhoun said. "I didn’t feel bad for him the other night. I felt bad at him. But he really, really the last couple days has been terrific. He lost some of that immaturity probably by my taking him into my office and asking him serious questions about the rest of his life or if he’s going to have one."

(2) The Huskies hardly moved in the national polls. They actually dropped out of the receiving votes section in the AP poll (no doubt a result of their performance against Providence) but picked up five votes in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' poll. Here is the link to both Top 25 polls, courtesy of ESPN.com.

(3) The UConn student section didn't get the best of Lazar Hayward. The Marquette sophomore forward was a target of taunts from Husky fans all night and when he fouled out late in the second half, the student section broke into their expected chant where they say 'Left!' or 'Right!' with every step the player takes toward the bench before yelling, 'Sit down!' when he finally takes a seat. Hayward was obviously aware because as he made a motion to sit down, he faked it and quickly popped back up, dooping the fans into still saying the chant. He then stood for the rest of the game, clapping his team on with a satisfying smirk on his face. It was pretty clever -- I was told a CCSU player pulled the same trick a few years back and actually waved his finger toward the fans as to say, 'No, no, no, you're not getting me.'

Some news: A source clarified the on-going Nate Miles saga, saying additional information on the UConn commit was sent to the NCAA Clearinghouse but has not been acted upon. It was reported in Sunday's advance that Nate Miles wasn't cleared by the Clearinghouse but he wasn't rejected either. (It's more of, the Clearinghouse won't say, 'No, you're not eligible,' but they don't have to say, 'Yes' either.) That additional information, which included his diploma and three remaining course grades from The Patterson School (Lenoir, N.C.) may not be reviewed however for five or 10 days, meaning if that happens, Miles won't be attending UConn this semester, which has been a goal for the Toledo native since the fall. The Hartford Courant, in its reports, has commented that Miles may attend junior college to improve his academic standing in the meantime before he tries to earn eligibility and enroll in the fall. Even then, he still has to be accepted by the university.

But for no