Shabazz Napier was one of the last Connecticut players to leave the floor at Barclays Center on Friday night, and a fan wearing a fuzzy-eared Huskies hat stopped him before he did.
'Here,' the fan said. 'Hold my baby.' So Napier posed for a photograph with the man's baby in his arms.
You might say he and the Huskies are glad to be back in the picture. UConn was ineligible for postseason play last season. The team won 20 games, finishing the season quietly on March 9. Since then, the players, coaches and fans had waited for Friday to arrive.
And, after all that, the season opener against Maryland came within a few revolutions of a basketball along the rim from a last-second loss. But a pull-up jumper from Dez Wells of Maryland slipped out, and Connecticut held on to win, 78-77, in Brooklyn.
'Oh, boy,' UConn's second-year coach, Kevin Ollie, said afterward, the color finally returning to his face.
The Huskies, ranked 18th, nearly blew a 17-point second-half lead. 'We made it interesting,' Ollie said.
On opening night for many of the top programs in the country, things remained relatively mild. Top-ranked Kentucky showed off its decorated freshman class in an easy win against North Carolina-Asheville, and No. 4 Duke opened with a battering of Davidson.
As this game was finishing, Georgetown and No. 19 Oregon were just getting under way - on Camp Humphries army base in South Korea, where the local time was 10 a.m.
Because of missed free throws in the final minutes, nine second-half turnovers and a juiced-up defensive effort by the Terrapins, Connecticut very nearly gave college basketball its first noteworthy upset.
Maryland was designated as the home team and, despite UConn's proximity to New York, there was no mistaking which direction the arena leaned. The Terrapins brought their pep band, their cheerleaders and their mascot, while Connecticut's sideline remained conspicuously subdued. Its cheering squad was at the home football game being played simultaneously.
The Huskies did not have much trouble generating energy. With Napier and the junior guard Ryan Boatright, they rankled Maryland with pace and aggressive defense.
'I want our guards to be in attack mode,' Ollie said.
UConn jumped ahead, 15-5. Maryland, missing its point guard Seth Allen, who fractured his left foot on Oct. 29 and is expected to be out more than two months, struggled getting into its offense. The Terrapins committed seven turnovers in the first 11 minutes.
Meanwhile, UConn continued to push, forcing Maryland to retreat into a matchup zone defense. The Terrapins began to settle down midway through the period, even clawing back to within four, 34-30, with less than four minutes remaining. UConn ended the half on a 14-4 run.
The lead ballooned to 17 midway through the second half, but Napier was whistled for a technical foul after yelling, according to him, 'That's what I do!' Napier could laugh about it afterward, still unsure why the referees deemed his proclamation offensive, but the foul seemed to swing momentum toward the Terrapins.
It also put Napier deeper into foul trouble, and he fouled out with 18 points with 1 minute 30 seconds remaining. Connecticut was ahead by 5 points, the crowd was raucous, and Maryland seemed to be building toward something special.
But, getting to within 1 point with 38 seconds remaining, the Terrapins could not get over that minor hump. Despite two missed free throws in the bonus in the final minute by UConn, Maryland's Wells also missed two opportunities to put the Terps ahead.
'Dez's shot goes in and everything is talking about how good we are,' Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said. 'It didn't go in, so everybody is worried about if we will have signature wins. We will have chances.'
The Huskies, on the other hand, have not been ranked this highly since Jan. 16, 2012, and return their entire starting lineup from last season. The difference, though, is there is an end in sight - meaningful goals of playing far deeper into March.
Napier, who was on the 2010-11 team that won the national title, said the concern remains on the present. 'I don't think about that at all,' he said. 'All my life I've been a guy just thinking about the next game.'
from newsandtalking.blogspot.com News And Talking
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