Villanova unable to subdue Walker and UConn

STORRS, Conn. - Corey Fisher and Kemba Walker have been friends since their preteen years in the Bronx, so they must have known that each was going to try to carry his team Monday against a tough opponent.

Neither player disappointed. Fisher, the Villanova senior, scored a career-high 28 points and single-handedly kept the seventh-ranked Wildcats in the game.

But it was Walker, a national player-of-the-year candidate, who provided the game-winner - a 10-foot floater in the lane with 2.5 seconds remaining - that gave No. 8 Connecticut a 61-59 victory over the Wildcats in an entertaining Martin Luther King Jr. Day matinee at Gampel Pavilion.

The 6-foot-1 Walker, who wound up with 24 points despite a 6-of-18 shooting day, was guarded tightly by Corey Stokes on the Huskies' last possession. But he got around Stokes, entered the lane, and released his shot over Antonio Pena for the basket.

With no time-outs left, Villanova (16-2, 4-1 Big East) left it up to Fisher to dribble up court and fire, but his shot from just inside the midcourt line nicked the left rim as UConn (15-2, 4-2) ended the Wildcats' 11-game winning streak.

"Kemba was great," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "He makes people around him better. He's so difficult to guard and he made big plays. But I was proud of our guys. Fish made just as many great plays as Kemba. It was a great game to be a part of."

Two of the Wildcats' key offensive players spent most of the game in a funk. Stokes, their top scorer, didn't make a field goal in six attempts. Point guard Maalik Wayns finished with four turnovers and just two assists.

So it was left up to Fisher to do the heavy lifting in front of a frenetic capacity crowd, especially after the Huskies mounted a 13-2 run that helped them overcome a seven-point deficit and take a 52-48 lead with 3 minutes, 57 seconds to play.

Fisher scored Villanova's last 11 points, including a three-pointer, a floater, and a reverse layup. His two free throws with 22 seconds to play tied the score at 59, and the Huskies took a time-out at the 15.4-second mark to set up a play for Walker.

"Of course the ball was going to be in my hands," Walker said. "Being the leader of this team, I wanted it to be in my hands. I was able to get a nice little shot off. I knew the [double-team] was going to come. I just tried to go before he came."

Wright said the Wildcats were unable to double Walker in time. "Corey Fisher was there to try to blitz him and he ran away from him," the coach said.

Fisher didn't seem surprised at Walker's performance. The two players were a year apart at Intermediate School 174 in the Bronx. When Walker, then in the sixth grade, was cut from the team, Fisher, a seventh grader, went to the coach and convinced him to reinstate Walker, telling him, "This kid is going to be good."

"I always knew he was going to be a great player," Fisher said.

"I was trying to make plays for my team. He was trying to make plays for his team. We came up short at the end. We knew the ball was going to go to him and we tried to make a defensive stop and he made a tough shot. That's what you've got to do, being the best player."

In that case, Fisher clearly was the best player on the court for Villanova. He scored 28 of his team's 59 points and accounted for 10 of its 22 field goals and all three of its baskets from distance. He also had six of the Cats' eight assists - with no turnovers.

"They're a very good defensive team," Wright said. "We just couldn't run offense so we had to just try to spread them out and get Corey Fisher to make some plays. He did a great job. Thank God for him."

No other Villanova player was in double figures. Walker received help, especially late in the game from freshman Jeremy Lamb, who had 14 points and eight rebounds and accounted for a pair of baskets during UConn's big second-half run.