As he walked off the floor Monday night at the Hartford Civic Center, Notre Dame coach Mike Brey reached to his left and grabbed a beverage, the replenishment much needed after the draining night he and his team had just endured.
Connecticut swooped and swerved and ultimately steamrolled Notre Dame 88-74 in a bigger mismatch than the score might indicate.
“I look at our offensive stats, where we shot 44 percent and we make 10 threes and score 74 points. That’s usually good enough to win most Big East games this year,” Brey said.
But Connecticut (18-6, 10-3) shot 53 percent from the floor, outrebounded the Irish 43-26, scored 42 points in the paint and had 15 second-chance points.
Leading the way was sophomore forward Charlie Villanueva, who had 25 points and four blocked shots. Denham Brown added 18 points, and perhaps most impressive was the play of sophomore guard Marcus Williams. In addition to scoring 17, Williams dished out a dozen assists, committed only two turnovers and grabbed nine rebounds.
“Those big guys should take Marcus out to dinner every night, because you talk about a guy who delivers it … he drops it on a silver platter for them,” Brey said. “If they’re not using some meal money for him, they’d better start. There is great chemistry between him and Charlie and the rest of the big guys.”
“Marcus did a great job of finding me and giving me [the ball] in the right position, where I could score,” Villanueva said. “If I keep having games like this, it’s going to be hard to beat us.”
The Irish (16-8, 8-6) could not say the same, their big men looking slow and tentative. But forward Torin Francis, who managed 15 points and five rebounds, insisted that it was not a mismatch.
“No,” he said. “They were just aggressive. They were all crashing the boards. They were just ready to play.”
Notre Dame’s scoring came primarily from the perimeter. Colin Falls had 19 points, Chris Thomas 16 and Chris Quinn 12.
Falls gave the Irish their only lead of the game at 3-2 when he hit a three-pointer from the top of the key.
Notre Dame kept it close through the first 10 minutes, but a Villanueva dunk with 9:27 remaining in the half increased the Huskies’ lead to 24-21. His ensuing free throw stretched the lead to four. Within two minutes, the Huskies had extended the lead to eight, and they went into the locker room with a 45-32 halftime lead.
The Irish never got closer than eight points in the second half.
“I feel like we only had control of the game for glimpses,” Thomas said. “We never even got three stops in a row. So you’ve got to tip your hat to them and give them a lot of credit because they really came out and showed the type of team they can be.”
“Whoever we played tonight, we would have been pretty good,” Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said after his 698th career victory. “Notre Dame is a good basketball team. They’re more than [NCAA] tournament worthy.”
The Irish will make their case again Sunday, when they play host to UCLA.
“We need some rest first,” said Brey, whose club defeated Providence by a point on Saturday. “This has been a grueling trip.”
