Road-weary Gonzaga, UConn battle in Boston

BOSTON – Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun generously offered to play tour guide for Gonzaga’s well-traveled men’s basketball team on its two-game East Coast swing.

“I was trying to get them a game in Florida for Friday night since they weren’t busy,” Calhoun quipped. “Down in Miami, and have them drive up Saturday for the game.”

Gonzaga will cap a geographically challenging nine-day stretch against Calhoun’s Huskies today at 12:30 PST in the Hartford Hall of Fame Showcase at TD Banknorth Garden. Boston College meets Providence in the second half of the doubleheader.

The 19th-ranked Bulldogs (6-1) played three contests on a neutral court in Anchorage last week, returned home for a few days and then headed to Philadelphia where they knocked off Saint Joseph’s 70-65 in overtime Thursday night.

“I guess we’ll find out,” said Gonzaga coach Mark Few, when asked if all the air miles will impact his players. “It hasn’t lined up as well as we’d like … but it is what it is. We have to step up and play.”

The Bulldogs, again, played in stretches Thursday. There hasn’t been much middle ground with Gonzaga, which was nearly flawless in the first 10 minutes before hitting a rough offensive patch that didn’t end until the last 3 1/2 minutes of regulation. In Anchorage, GU played poorly in a 10-point loss to Texas Tech before responding with a dominating victory over Virginia Tech.

“We didn’t score a bucket for something like seven minutes (against Saint Joseph’s),” junior point guard Jeremy Pargo said. “I think we got a little erratic and got away from what got us those buckets early. We were moving the ball, getting layups and good shots. We got away from that.”

Gonzaga can’t afford a rollercoaster performance against UConn, Pargo said. “We have to come out ready to play from the tip and stay within our system for 40 minutes. We can’t get out of system for 10 minutes or they will hurt us.”

Early on, points came easy against Saint Joseph’s.

“The first stretch was beautiful basketball,” Few said. “We were moving it and swinging it and picking spots when to go to the basket, and we had an understanding when we did go if it wasn’t a good idea we’d kick it back out.

“Then we were kind of holding it and keeping it on one side. And Saint Joseph’s played better defensively.”

Connecticut (5-1) has held opponents to 65.8 points and 35.8 percent shooting per game. The Huskies, whose loss was to No. 3 Memphis, have a whopping 60-17 edge in blocked shots and they’re plus-11 rebounding per game. Sophomore Hasheem Thabeet, a 7-foot-3, 263-pounder, blocked nine shots in a rout of Florida A&M on Monday. Thabeet nearly had a triple-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

The Huskies rely on balance. Guards Jerome Dyson and A.J. Price combine for 26.5 points, 8.5 rebounds and 8.6 assists. Thabeet is joined inside by 6-7 Jeff Adrien (13 ppg, 8.3 rpg) and 6-9 Stanley Robinson (9.3 ppg, 6.3 rpg).

“They’re just off the charts athletically and we won’t play a bigger, stronger, more athletic team,” Few said. “It’ll be a great challenge just being able to keep them off the glass, containing their fast break and just being able to run offense.”

The Huskies were 17-14 a year ago and didn’t play in the postseason for the first time since 1987.