HAIL TO THE VICTORS!
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If you chose Michigan's fight song "Hail to the Victors" as the best in college sports, not many people would argue with you. Some might choose USC's, some Texas, others Tennessee. But in this case. "Hail to the Victors" is a salute to the UConn men for their hard fought Gampel win over Michigan on Saturday night at Gampel.
It was exactly the type of game you would expect from a John Beilein coached team. Any comparisons between played the Wolverines and a tooth extraction without Novacaine would be right on. They pass, pass, pass,cut, then shoot. Three different defenses, scraping for every loose ball, the same characteristics that UConn fans saw from Beilein coached teams at Richmond and West Virginia have been replicated in Ann Arbor.
But the better team won. UConn survived the marksmanship of Stu Douglass and won. Manny Harris didn't seem to exert as much dominance over the game as he did on Thursday night against Penn State. The reason for that is named Jerome Dyson. The UConn defensive stopper played Harris man up all night long and still found the time to score a team high 19 points. 'Rome was still grimacing in the postgame from taking a large Hasheem Thabeet sneaker to the chest late in the game, perhaps the only thing that has stopped him over the last 11 games.
Thabeet had another dominant game in the middle, though to the credit of Michigan, they were much more aggressive taking the ball at Hash than Louisville was on Monday Night. It was the type of performance that Thabeet needs to show every night for the rest of the year for UConn to stay in the upper echelon on the rankings.
Congrats to Jeff Adrien for becoming a member of the rare 1,000 points and 1,000 rebound club at UConn. When you look at the names of the other Husky stars who accomplished that feat, it is truly a terrific accomplishment.
And congrats to Jim Calhoun for his post game press conference dig at Richard Phelps, Notre Dame apologist extraordinaire.
Next up, Syracuse which has given up 100 points twice in the last ten days. But don't sleep on the 'Cuse , they can still score and are reaching a phase of the season where they have to continue to gather wins for their post season resume.
One other thing, I was embarrased by the behaviour of some in the UConn student section during the singing of the National Anthem on Saturday night. The sound system didn't work for the group of students who were performing the Star Spangled Banner. That allowed everyone to hear some of the disgusting things that a very,very few of the students chose to yell. I don't care if there were similar things being yelled from the Michigan fans in the upper reaches of Gampel,. it doesn't excuse such bad behaviour from the UConn student section. Again, it was a very select few but it reflects badly on all.
SportsTalk Monday Night @ 6:10, then the game on Wednesday with Husky Talk to follow!
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