Last 13 minutes cost IU victory against No. 7 UConn

HARTFORD, Conn. -- After dropping its second game in a week to a top-10 team by single digits, the IU men's basketball team knows it can compete against the best. Beating the best, however, is another goal the Hoosiers still need to accomplish.\nAnd after UConn's 74-69 victory Saturday at the Hartford Civic Center, IU failed that quest with the inability to close out defending national champion UConn. With the Hoosiers leading by 13 points with a little more than 13 minutes remaining, UConn went on a 17-1 run to take a three-point lead, 58-55, and went on to the victory.\nJunior guard Bracey Wright, who led IU with 28 points, said the young Hoosier team has to learn how to finish off teams no matter who they play.\n"We kind of got out of our offense down the stretch," Wright said. "We've got to learn how to close games out, and once we do that, we're going to be something to deal with." \nWright was something to deal with for the Huskies through 27 minutes Saturday. The junior went off in the first half by scoring 16 points and 21 points before the Huskies game-clinching run. \nWright and IU had trouble in the remaining 13 minutes of the second half, however, because of UConn's increased defensive pressure, IU coach Mike Davis said. Wright was held to seven points during the final 13 minutes.\nWithout Wright's scoring in the last 13 minutes, IU had trouble executing their offense, Davis said. And subsequently, without that execution, the Hoosiers couldn't finish off the Huskies.\n"I thought at the 13 or 14 minute mark we had a chance right there to make a couple plays to get it stretched out to 20, and we didn't," Davis said. "You have to give them credit because we stopped executing. I think part of it is the way they picked it up defensively and another part is us being so young."\nPart of the lack of execution was settling for three-point shots. During the last 13 minutes, the Hoosiers shot 13 three-pointers and only made one -- that being Robert Vaden's with 25 seconds left. Wright was 0-5 from behind the arc during that stretch while IU shot 26.7 percent for the game from the three-point line.\nDavis said there were three specific instances where IU took bad shots from three-point range just when UConn started its 17-1 run. He doesn't mind, he said, if IU shoots three-pointers as long as the Hoosiers are open when they take them.\nFatigue also played a part toward the end, Davis said. The missed IU shots reigned and dunks by UConn's Josh Boone and Rudy Gay followed while the 16,294 fans at the Hartford Civic Center cheered on the Huskies. IU struggled to find another option while Wright was struggling to just find an open shot. \n"I mean UConn is pretty good, real good," Davis said. "You're going to be tired at the end, and when fatigue set in, what do you do -- you hope you get a shot. They wore us down. Coach (Jim) Calhoun kept putting them in and in and in. I was afraid to take Bracey or Marshall (Strickland) out. At the end of games, it's not like we're playing a mid-major school."\nUConn freshman Gay, who finished with 11 points including two thunderous one-handed dunks, said the 17-1 run that started at the 13-minute mark was aided by the crowd.\n"It was crazy to come back from that kind of deficit," Gay said. "The crowd helped us through it. They really cheered us on and helped us play defense like we're capable of playing."\nWith No. 20 Notre Dame coming Wednesday to Bloomington, IU hopes to realize its potential to stop a two-game losing streak. Wright said that while IU has lost these last two games, the confidence is still up because the Hoosiers know they can compete against the top teams. Last year at this time IU lost by 33 points to Wake Forest and 39 points to Kentucky.\nDavis said close games though don't matter unless you win them.\n"We've lost two games that if we would have made some shots and executed we would've had an opportunity to win," Davis said. "We just didn't finish the game."\n-- Contact sports editor John Rodgers at jprodger@indiana.edu.