Battle in the Big East
Hartford, CT - The number one ranked Connecticut Huskies flexed their muscles on Saturday afternoon, in a dominating performance on both sides of the court, winning 81-53 against the number four ranked Marquette Golden Eagles. Tristan Newton, point guard for the Huskies, had an exceptional day from the floor. Putting up a near triple-double, he finished with 15 points, eight rebounds, and eight assists. Even with all those stats, Newton wasn’t the player of the game. The 7 '2 280lb center, Donovan Clingan, scored a game-high, 17 points and collected an additional 10 rebounds.
The Golden Eagles squad never found a rhythm in their matchup today. Frontrunner for the Big East Player of the Year Award, Tyler Kolek, had maybe one of the worst performances of his career yet. He shot two for 11 from the field, only scoring seven points and only dishing out two assists. On the season, he averages 16.1 points per game and around seven and a half assists per game. The Huskies’ dreadful defense did an exceptional job limiting his ability to steal today's win. Marquette also only had two players score in double digits, a lot of it coming from the intimidating Clingan locking down the paint.
It was a team win for the Huskies. The Huskies had four players score 14 points or more, which was crucial as they blew out Marquette. In addition, as a team, they grabbed 18 offensive rebounds which created an abundance of second-chance points. Of the 29 field goals made, 24 of them resulted from an assist which is an exceptional 82% assist to field goal ratio. It was the 11th time this year that UCONN has surpassed 20 assists in a game this year. All in all, it was a total team performance in the win against Big East foe, Marquette.
UCONN extends their winning streak to 14 games, the nation’s longest winning streak. The Huskies now lead the second-place Golden Eagles in the Big East by three games in the loss column with five to play. Connecticut is looking for their first Big East regular season title since the 2005-2006 season. These two teams will face off in a rematch on March 6, near the end of the regular season.
