Achli blog

Walker leads No. 13 UConn over No. 9 Georgetown

HARTFORD, Conn. – Kemba Walker had 31 points, 10 assists and seven rebounds to lead No. 13 Connecticut to a 78-70 victory over No. 9 Georgetown on Wednesday night, snapping the Hoyas' eight-game winning streak.

Jamal Coombs-McDaniel had 23 points in his second straight big game for the Huskies (20-5, 8-5 Big East), who had lost three of their last five, including two at home.

Chris Wright had 19 points for the Hoyas (20-6, 9-5), who went on their winning streak after starting conference play 1-4.

Walker had a highlight reel full of incredible drives to the basket, with the 6-foot-1 junior going under, around and sometimes it seemed through bigger defenders.

Georgetown's last lead was at 70-69 on a basket by Austin Freeman with 4:01 left. But that was the Hoyas' last field goal of the game as the Huskies closed on a 9-0 run with Walker scoring the first three points of it.

The game was a matchup of two of the top candidates for conference player of the year in Walker, who is second in the league in scoring at 22.8, and Freeman, who is third with an 18.5 average. This one went to Walker in a walkaway.

It wasn't just the points Walker scored, it was how he scored them.

With 13 minutes to play, he was covered by 6-10 Henry Sims on a switch. Walker faked a move to get Sims to one side and threw the ball hard off the backboard, jumped into the lane ahead of everybody else, grabbed the rebound and tossed it in from about 4 feet to make it 53-46.

The sellout crowd of 16,294 at the XL Center was suddenly alive because of Walker and he didn't let them down.

A minute later he drove through two defenders and flipped the ball in to give the Huskies a 57-48 lead.

His third amazing move came with 8 minutes left, just after a technical foul was called against Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun.

Walker went past the basket, turned, and with his back to the rim, flipped the ball over and in for a 63-57 lead. Each of the moves had the crowd going crazier, but the Hoyas stayed within striking range and took the lead on Freeman's basket after a give-and-go for their last lead and field goal. Georgetown missed its last seven shots and saw its longest winning streak since an 11-game run in 2006-07 end.

Freeman finished with 12 points on 4-of-13 shooting, including missing all four of his 3-point attempts. Wright finished 5 of 9 from beyond the arc.

Coombs-McDaniel is on a two-game run nobody could have expected. On Sunday, he had 25 points in a win over Providence, 14 above his career high entering the game. Even with that he came in averaging 5.4 points, and had his 23 on 8-for-11 shooting and grabbed six rebounds.

Walker had a triple-double earlier this season against UMBC.