No. 16 Syracuse ends No. 1 UConn's bid for undefeated year

The Associated Press HARTFORD, Conn. -- Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim couldn't stop smiling. Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun couldn't hide his disappointment. The 16th-ranked Orangemen ended top-ranked Connecticut's run at a perfect regular season with a 59-42 victory over the Huskies, who were without two injured starters. Connecticut then came up with its worst offensive performance in 27 years. The Huskies, who were without leading scorer Richard Hamilton and leading rebounder Jake Voskuhl, were the last unbeaten Division I team. They saw their 16-game Big East winning streak end, as well as their 31-game home winning streak. ''Obviously I feel bad for Richard and Jake, two very good kids and two very good players,'' Boeheim said. ''But we just needed to get a win. I didn't care who was playing.'' Hamilton, the reigning Big East player of the year, has a bruised right thigh and is listed as day-to-day. The 6'6" junior is averaging 22.1 points and 4.8 rebounds. He was injured during the second half of Saturday's 78-74 victory over No. 9 St. John's. Voskuhl, a 6'11" junior, has a stress fracture in his left foot and is out indefinitely. Voskuhl, averaging 6.5 points and 7.2 rebounds, had the same injury in high school and the latest fracture was revealed through a bone scan yesterday. He will go to his hometown of Houston today for further tests. Not having Hamilton and Voskuhl was not an excuse Calhoun was even thinking of using. ''We did dress five people who could play. Richard and Jake didn't make any mistakes so they were no factors in the game,'' Calhoun said. ''I thought the guys on the floor would do a better job. ''We just played St. John's without [injured leading rebounder Tyrone] Grant and we were lucky to win. We had other guys who could have stepped up and tried to stop penetration and hit shots. There's nothing wrong with our record, but there is something wrong with what happened tonight.'' Freshman Damone Brown scored all 14 of his points in the second half as Syracuse (16-6, 7-5 Big East) won for the fourth time in five games by shooting 43 percent (23-for-54) and outrebounding the Huskies 37-26. The Huskies (19-1, 11-1) struggled all game on the offensive end against Syracuse's zone, shooting just 36 percent (16-for-45), including 3-for-15 from three-point range. ''We would have played the zone whether Hamilton was there or not,'' Boeheim said. ''We wanted to be in the game late and have their guys looking for Hamilton and he wasn't there.'' The game was tied 25-25 at halftime but Connecticut was just 7-of-22 (32 percent) from the field in the second half as the Orangemen built a lead of as many as 19 points, 54-35, with 3:10 to play on a jumper by Jason Hart. Connecticut's starting backcourt of Khalid El-Amin and Ricky Moore combined for six points, all by El-Amin in the first half. ''We weren't shooting well, fine, but we still should have stepped up the defense,'' Moore said. ''The shots weren't there tonight because they had four guys on the perimeter. ''We didn't have enough guys stepping up to the foul line asking for the ball. But that's not what why we lost. We just let up on defense.'' Calhoun was also upset with his team's lack of hustle.