By David Borges, Register Staff

HARTFORD — Just when you think they’re out, they pull you back in.

With apologies to Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone, the UConn men’s basketball team has managed to pull itself from the abyss and land right back in the NCAA tournament conversation.

The Huskies won their third straight on Monday night, a 73-62 victory over No. 8 West Virginia before 15,082 at the XL Center that was very much a battle of wills — and whistles.

The game featured 46 fouls and 45 foul shots, and was bookended by technical fouls against both fiery head coaches.

“I thought this was going to turn into a fist fight,” said UConn head man Jim Calhoun, “and the last man standing was going to have a chance to win the game.”

The Huskies improved to 17-11 overall, 7-8 in the Big East. With wins on consecutive Mondays against top-10 teams (then No. 3 Villanova a week ago, and now the Mountaineers), UConn is likely on the right side of the NCAA tournament bubble for the first time in weeks.

“We’ve got a couple of pretty good, significant wins right now,” Calhoun said, “and none of it means anything except that we have Louisville on Sunday ... I have no misgivings about what we didn’t do. All I care about is what we’re doing right now.”

Calhoun was assessed a technical foul by referee Michael Stephens 47 seconds into the game, after the Mountaineers had jumped out to a 5-0 start. Da’Sean Butler missed both free throws, however, and the Huskies launched a 14-1 run and never again trailed.

“It definitely sparked us,” senior Gavin Edwards said of Calhoun’s technical, “because we knew it was going to be a real physical game after that, and we had to come out and be physical, too.”

Calhoun insisted his “T” wasn’t by design. Continued...

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“Suffice to say, I was ready for the game,” he said. “I certainly didn’t try to do anything of that nature. But I wanted them to know I was ready for the game.”

“Them” being his players, not the refs.

“I have no control over officials,” said Calhoun. “I don’t assign them, I don’t blow the whistle for them, certainly. I’m not sure, after a while, what’s a foul anymore in the Big East. I complain about it, but I don’t know which way they’re going. I just think the whole league is so darn physical.”

With 42.4 seconds left to play, WVU’s Bob Huggins was hit up for a double-technical by Mike Stuart, bouncing him from the game. A pair of Kemba Walker free throws sealed it, though it was Stanley Robinson’s putback dunk of a Jerome Dyson miss with 1:03 left, followed by Walker’s steal of a Devan Ebanks pass and emphatic dunk with 45 seconds remaining that essentially put the finishing touches on the Husky win.

“Stanley’s putback basically sealed the game for us,” said Walker. “Then, he played good defense on Ebanks, pressured him so much and got me the steal.”

Huggins, who had to be physically restrained by his assistants after getting ejected, didn’t want to get into details about the technical.

“I don’t know, you watched it,” he told a reporter. “You saw it. You’re allowed to report on it, I’m not. You have a tremendous advantage.”

When asked why the Mountaineers (21-6, 10-5 Big East) weren’t quite able to get over the hump after slicing as much as a 15-point deficit down to one (53-52) with 8:47 to play, Huggins responded: “I don’t know if I can answer that without getting in trouble. We played triangle-and-two and zone the whole game, right from the beginning. Usually you don’t foul as much when you’re in that stuff. Usually.”

West Virginia was whistled for 26 fouls and UConn went to the charity stripe 42 times, hitting 30. The Huskies did have two players foul out — Edwards and fellow big man Ater Majok.

Said Calhoun: “It’s unfortunate that Bobby got thrown (out), and I mean that very sincerely. But the most important thing for me is my kids. Always has been, always will be.” Continued...

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Aside from the dunks by Robinson and Walker in the final minute, the Huskies’ only two field goals over the final 12 minutes of action were by Robinson — a putback with 8:25 to play, and a big 3-pointer with 6:14 left that gave UConn a 61-56 lead.

Robinson finished with a double-double (15 points, 13 rebounds) and extended his double-figure scoring streak to 34 games, dating back to last season.

“I was just trying to crash the boards the whole game,” Robinson said. “It showed a lot. I was just happy to get that offensive putback, so I could get the crowd get back in there and we could get that momentum and keep going.”

Walker had a game-high 21 points (14 of 17 from the foul line), Jerome Dyson added 17 and Edwards had 11.

RIM RATTLINGS

ÇDyson turned his left ankle on a drive to the hoop with about 6 1/2 minutes left and left the game. He returned a little over a minute later, however, to a Willis Reed-like reception from the home crowd.

The 6-foot-4 guard held 6-7 WVU scoring leader Butler on to nine points on 2-for-10 shooting.

ÇWalker was named Big East player of the week on Monday after averaging 22.5 points in a pair of wins over Villanova and Rutgers.

David Borges can be reached at dborges@newhavenregister.com.

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