Cards dump on UConn, 80-59

The Cards came out with suffocating defense in the second half and ran strait at the UConn defense on their way to victory Monday night.

Don’t look now, but the Cards are winners of five strait and none of those five wins were more impressive than the Cards 80-59 licking of UConn.

The Cards put it together on both ends of the floor and used their second half defense to start the break and dump bucket after bucket on the Huskies. 51 second half points. Woof.

Jared Swopshire gets a deserved shout-out for picking up a big three, a dunk and a couple blocks. Swop really did his thing Monday and added a big lift for the Cards off the bench.

Swop, Swop, Swop, Swop, Swop, Swop.

Also providing some excitement off the bench was Angel Nunez. The freshman was 2-of-2 from the field, both threes and did all of his damage in the last five minutes of the game. Nothing like seeing the future hit a pair of treys cold off the bench.

As far as the heavy lifting, Gorgui Dieng picked up a solid 15 points and six boards, and a most impressive six steals. Chane Behanan rebounded well with 12, five on offense, but only scored seven points.

Chris Smith led Cards scorers with 16 and was excellent from beyond the arc, shooting 4-of-6 from three. Kyle Kuric was a rebound away from a double double and scored 10 points. There were a number of huge plays that got the house rocking, such as a second half Kuric Dunk, a second half Gorgui dunk, a second half Swop dunk and a second half Chris three. Most of these were brought to you via the fast break and or lane penetration.

Peyton Siva was leading that break and really pushed the ball in the second half and finished with nine assists. He had a rough shooting night and finished with seven points, but his aggressive pushing of the basketball really made it possible for the Cards to dump it on the Huskies.

PeyPey pushed the ball on the break and pushed the Cards to an 80-59 win over UConn.

What really made the Cards click though was their lack of foul trouble. Recently Gorgui and Peyton have both had to battle early game foul trouble, but didn’t in this one. Each got more than 30 minutes of playing time and head coach Rick Pitino didn’t have to worry about keeping his guys out of trouble.

Alex Oriaki was very good for UConn inside, but Ryan Boatright was the only Huskies player to really play his game. Boatright rocked those retro Jordan X “Chicago” and dropped a game high 18 points in them. He was all over the floor and either had the ball in his hands, or was on the ball. The Cards student section paid him special attention all night and paid his apparent parent attention too, sitting behind the UConn bench.

Ryan Boatright's Jordan X "Chicago"s looked a lot better than he did down the stretch.

This was the kind of game we have been waiting for and was a huge win for the Cards as they look forward to their remaining schedule. The squad goes on the road Saturday to Morgantown to get after it with Mountaineers, always fun, and return to town next Monday for Syracuse.