Thomas, Houston guide UConn to 48-point drubbing

STORRS, Conn. (AP) -- The Connecticut Huskies put their latest loss to their archrival behind them in a hurry.

Mel Thomas scored 23 points, freshman Tina Charles added a career-high 20 and the Huskies (No. 5 ESPN/USA Today; No. 7 AP) rebounded from a loss to Tennessee by routing Seton Hall 106-58 Tuesday night.

Connecticut (13-1, 3-0 Big East), which had only one player score more than 10 points in Saturday's 70-64 loss to the Lady Vols, had four players in double figures by halftime against the Pirates. The Huskies have gone 479 games without losing back-to-back contests.

"You get punched in the face, that's not a bad thing," coach Geno Auriemma said. "What's important is, are you just going to go hide in a corner, or are you going to come out and fight. Generally speaking, at Connecticut, when we get whacked, we come out pretty solid, pretty strong, and we go on from there."

Charde Houston, who scored 23 Saturday, finished with 19 points and Renee Montgomery had 17. Montgomery bounced back from a 2-for-11 shooting performance against Tennessee by hitting her first three 3-point shots. She also had eight assists.

Charles hit nine of her 10 shots, pulled down 12 rebounds and blocked two shots.

"It was about doing everything that had to be done, everything that Coach was telling me I had to do, what I should be doing," Charles said.

Seton Hall (9-6, 1-3) led just once, when Noteisha Womak hit a layup to open the scoring. But the Huskies scored 12 of the next 14 points. Houston had six points in the surge.

The Huskies had another 12-0 run midway through the half, putting them up 34-13.

They led 58-29 at intermission, scoring more points than they had in any half this season and shooting almost 66 percent from the floor.

UConn had its transition game clicking with 41 fastbreak points, compared with just eight for the Pirates.

Meghan Gardler put UConn over the 100-point mark by hitting a 3-pointer with just over a minute to play. It was the first time the Huskies had scored over 100 since November 2004, when they beat Buffalo 107-40.

Amber Harris led Seton Hall with 11 points. Monique Blake added nine and needs four more to become the 18th player in team history to reach 1,000.

Seton Hall was held to 36 percent shooting.

"It would be difficult to play Connecticut any time," Seton Hall coach Phyllis Mangina said. "Obviously coming off the loss to Tennessee, they probably have more of a purpose to make sure they have things pretty tight."

The Huskies played without junior center Brittany Hunter, who rested her surgically repaired knee after playing a season-high 19 minutes against the Lady Vols.

Connecticut has won 23 consecutive games against Seton Hall by an average of more than 32 points. The Pirates have not beaten the Huskies since 1984 in Connecticut, where UConn has now won 193 consecutive games against unranked teams.

The Huskies play one more of those, hosting Syracuse on Saturday, before visiting No. 2 North Carolina on Jan. 15. UConn also has games remaining against No. 24 DePaul, No. 16 Marquette, No. 5 LSU, and No. 13 Louisville.

"I think we needed a game like this, and I think we need another good game against Syracuse to build up to the game against North Carolina," said Thomas, who hit eight of her 12 shots from the floor, and was 4-of-8 from behind the arc. "We can't just decide we want to play good when we play a really good team."