No. 12 UConn beats Maine 95-68 to improve to 9-0


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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - Ryan Boatright scored 17 points to lead a balanced UConn attack and the 12th-ranked Huskies routed Maine 95-68 on Friday night to stay undefeated.

DeAndre Daniels and Omar Calhoun both added 16 points for the Huskies (9-0), who have won 54 consecutive home games against non-conference opponents. Niels Giffey added 12 points.

Shabazz Napier scored seven points and had eight assists, becoming the fourth player in school history with at least 1,000 points and 500 assists.

Xavier Pollard had 20 points for Maine (1-7), which has lost six straight.

UConn shot 53 percent from the field including 56 percent from 3-point range.

The Huskies are off to their best start since going 10-0 to open 2010-11.

UConn led 54-31 at halftime and stretched the lead to 30 points early in the second half. Boatright missed a dunk on a lob from Napier, but gathered his own rebound, dribbled to the left corner and drained a 3-pointer that made it 70-40.

Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie began going deep into his bench after that.

None of the Husky starters played more than 26 minutes.

Maine stayed in the game early.

Connecticut hit the game's first two shots, but missed its next five and the Black Bears used an 8-0 run to take an 8-5 lead. UConn called two timeouts before the first media timeout, and didn't retake the lead until Giffey made a layup 6 minutes into the game.

But UConn was able to stretch things out from there. Giffey's steal, dunk and free throw gave the Huskies a 27-14 lead, part of 16-2 run.

Daniels hit all five of his shots in the first half, including two 3-pointers, and the Huskies were 7 of 15 from behind the arc in the opening 20 minutes.

They pushed reached 45-24 on a layup by Omar Calhoun. He, Daniels, Giffey and Boatright all were in double figures before halftime.

Calhoun was 4 of 9 from 3-point range to break out of a mini-slump that saw him score just 23 points over his last five games.

Pollard and Dimitry Akanda-Coronel had 24 of the Black Bear's 31 first-half points. Akanda-Coronel didn't score in the second half and finished with nine points.

The Huskies came in having hit just under 45 percent of their shots from behind the arc. They were 14 of 25 on Friday.

Napier, who came in averaging 16.4 points per game, never looked for his shot against the Black Bears. He was just 2 of 5 from the field. His eight assists give him 504 for his career. He joins Tate George, Taliek Brown, and Doron Sheffer as Huskies who have topped the 1,000-point and 500-assist plateaus.

The Huskies haven't lost to a non-conference opponent in Connecticut since a 77-73 setback to Indiana on Jan. 20, 2007.

Maine, which was coming of an 81-72 loss to NJIT, has lost 12 straight to Connecticut, and hasn't beaten UConn since 1978. UConn leads the overall series 83-12.

The Black Bears had been allowing 92 points per game on 48.9 percent shooting during their losing streak.

The Huskies have almost two weeks off for final exams before hosting Stanford on Dec. 18.

Maine coach Ted Woodward began his career as a graduate assistant on Hall of Famer Jim Calhoun's staff in 1986.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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