Napier rallies UConn to OT win over W. Va.
Jeremy Lamb of the Connecticut Huskies puts up a shot against Deniz Kilicli and Darryl Bryant of the West Virginia Mountaineers during their second round of the 2012 Big East Tournament. (March 7, 2012) Credit: Getty Images
The second-chance theme that carried Connecticut to the national title last year, almost co-opted by West Virginia on Wednesday, continued through another round of the Big East Tournament with the Huskies' 71-67 overtime victory.
Down by 11 midway through the second half -- and with leading scorer Jeremy Lamb having gone silent for 12 long minutes -- UConn hitched itself to sophomore guard Shabazz Napier's careening, speeding wagon.
Slashing through the lane, pulling up for three-pointers (3-for-6 in the second half), pilfering dribbles from increasingly rattled West Virginia down the stretch, Napier scored 22 of his 26 points after halftime before fouling out with 2:35 to play in overtime.
Napier finished with six assists, three steals and three blocks. His steals and breakaway layups on back-to-back possessions in the final 2:30 of regulation finally brought UConn (20-12) even at 63.
Napier scored all of the points as UConn erased a nine-point deficit in the final four minutes, then was himself the victim of a steal -- "I was upset," Napier said -- with 42.5 seconds to play in regulation and the score tied at 65. But Jabarie Hinds' layup attempt with 25 seconds left was blocked by UConn freshman Andre Drummond to force overtime.
With 1:04 left in OT, Lamb's three-pointer from the right wing broke the final of 11 ties (at 67), and West Virginia was pressured into missing its final three field-goal attempts.
"Your job is to shoot the basketball," coach Jim Calhoun said he told Lamb, who had 22 points.
"I thought Shabazz was close to magnificent," Calhoun said, "and Jeremy stepped up like the big-time player he is."
Though beaten on the boards 47-31, UConn blocked 10 shots -- four by Alex Oriakhi -- a desperately needed function given West Virginia's ability to score 25 points on second-chance shots.
That statistic partly was because West Virginia (19-13) shot poorly (34.7 percent) and partly because it dominated the offensive boards, where it grabbed 26 rebounds.
Until Napier's late heroics, West Virginia seriously threatened to end UConn's season. Instead, the Mountaineers played their last Big East game before heading to the Big 12, and the Huskies will get at least one more last chance, against top seed Syracuse on Thursday. The win also gave a huge boost to UConn's hopes of getting a chance to defend its NCAA title.
"We just feel like we're trying to prove a point to ourselves at the end of the day," Napier said.
