Shabazz Napier Notches 10th Triple-Double in UConn History

Notes and quotes from UConn's 80-62 win over Yale on Monday afternoon:

*** Shabazz Napier's triple-double (14 points, 11 boards, 10 assists) was the 10th in UConn history. He's the first player to do so twice, and he was very well aware of how close he was to notching it in the latter minutes of play.



*** Napier on Niels Giffey: “How I was as a freshman, I came in to be that spark. He can be that ‘spark’ guy. We need that from him. He brought it in the Maryland game, and he brought it today. We just need him to score in the second half. How I was last year, I didn’t score in the first half and scored in the second, I think he’s got that sickness.”

*** UConn was outrebounded 43-31. Yale had 21 second-chance points, UConn just 1.

“Second half, they took it to us on the rebounds," said Kevin Ollie. "That’s the one thing I’m coming in here dejected about. Our rebounding effort is pride, and we didn’t have pride to put that jersey on tonight. I’ve got to go back to the drawing board and find out the guys who are going to rebound, to go get the ball and put bodies on box-outs.”

*** DeAndre Daniels had no points and one rebound in 18 minutes of action.

Ollie: “You want to keep his head up, but at the end of the day, you can’t baby him. With DeAndre, if you’re not scoring, you can do other things. The stat sheet if filled with other different columns where you can have a positive impact on the game. You get one rebound in 18 minutes … he’s just gotta play. You can’t worry about scoring, you’ve got to use your length, use your energy.”

“He’s got to change to a different person when he’s out on the court. Hopefully, he does that. If not, we can’t wait for anybody on this team, and the minutes are going to be where the minutes are at.”

Napier: “It’s too early, I’m not too worried about that. I think DeAndre’s gonna be OK. I did talk to him after the game. He just didn’t settle in right today, because he didn’t get a lot of rebounds, Coach took him out, and he wasn’t really mentally in it, as you could tell. He’s gonna be OK.”

*** Giffey, on how his experience on the German National Team this summer helped his confidence: “It helped me a lot, just being able to go against all these great guys. On the other hand, it was a lot of time with good coaches, too. I wasn’t restricted to the NCAA rules and all the hours you can only put in during the week. I was working out twice a day for pretty much two or three months. I think it helped me a lot physically, too. I came into the season really fit and with solid strength. I’ve just got to look to keep that up and stay healthy.”