Williams Gives Connecticut Upper Hand

They’d never played against each other before in basketball, Connecticut and Kentucky. The Wildcats have a history and pedigree that Huskie Coach Jim Calhoun wants for his team.

The two teams had played in 73 NCAA tournaments, 46 for Kentucky, which has won seven national titles. But Connecticut has won two championships since 1999. And still the two had never met.

So this NCAA tournament second-round matchup in the Washington, D.C., Regional was a measuring stick for Connecticut. Even if the Wildcats weren’t particularly enthralling this season they are still, as Connecticut guard Marcus Williams said, “Kentucky, man. It’s Kentucky.”

But not here Sunday at the Wachovia Center. Top-seeded Connecticut sprinted to a big lead, took a direct punch to its core and held on for an 87-83 victory over the No. 8-seeded Wildcats (22-13). The win moves Connecticut (29-3) into the regional semifinals Friday against Washington.

“It was amazing we were playing Kentucky for the first time,” Calhoun said, “but we’re trying to earn being known as a lead program in America like Kentucky has been and hopefully we’re on our way. And this was obviously a tremendous, tremendous basketball game.”

Williams, the Connecticut point guard from Los Angeles Crenshaw who missed the first semester as punishment for his part in the theft of computers from a campus dorm, played what Calhoun called “a near-perfect game.”

In the first half, when the Huskies were building a lead that reached 13 points and stood at 43-31 at halftime, Williams was the consummate playmaker. He wasn’t flashy, but the stocky junior who sees the game vertically for himself and knows where to find the high spots for his big men, made passes that caused the crowd to go “aah.”

Not all of them led to baskets, but that was only because his inside guys, Hilton Armstrong and Josh Boone, weren’t quick enough off the ground to make their dunks.

And Williams knew when to connect with reserve Rashad Anderson. Anderson, a senior, is the three-point missile to Connecticut’s arsenal, and he made four of them in the first half because Williams always put the ball in Anderson’s hands when Anderson was ready to shoot in rhythm.

“Marcus knows where and when to find me,” Anderson said. “He’s got great vision.”

It was Anderson’s shooting that helped destroy Kentucky’s 2-3 zone defense, and because that defense was shredded, Wildcat Coach Tubby Smith put on his full-court pressure midway through the second half. That press almost did in the Huskies.

After the Wildcats fell behind, 58-45, with 13:37 to go, Smith let them loose to pressure everywhere. There was a stretch of two minutes where the Huskies turned the ball over four times in a row and missed two off-kilter jumpers. With the Wildcats revved up, guard Patrick Sparks let loose.

The Kentucky senior, who looks too slow and too small, finished with a game-high 28 points on 10-of-16 shooting. His three-pointer started Kentucky’s comeback, another drew the Wildcats to within four, 81-77, with a bit more than a minute remaining, and his missed three-pointer led to a Bobby Perry rebound basket that put Kentucky within two, 83-81, with 18.7 seconds left.

But it wasn’t quite enough. Williams took on scoring duties during Kentucky’s run. He finished with 20 points to lead five players in double figures. His free-throw shooting was near-perfect (eight of nine) and Smith said simply, “Marcus Williams played great.”

And it was the nouveau riche Huskies that moved on while old money Kentucky went home.