WORCESTER, Mass. -- Joyless. Complacent. OK at best.
And that was from the winners.
Defending champion Connecticut withstood a furious charge by Central Florida in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday, getting 22 points from Charlie Villanueva to win 77-71 and keep its hopes of a repeat alive.
Central Florida (24-9) cut a 19-point lead to four thanks to Gary Johnson's career-high 29 points -- including seven 3-pointers. But UConn (23-7) held on for its 13th consecutive first-round victory.
"Some of them have been awful. Some of them have been great. This one was OK at best," coach Jim Calhoun said. "We played some brilliant basketball, took our foot off the pedal and couldn't find it again. ... From that point on, we didn't play with the kind of enthusiasm this event deserves.
"But we'll be one of the 32, and that's the whole idea."
UConn will play North Carolina State, a No. 10 seed that advanced to the second round of the Syracuse Regional with a 75-63 victory over Charlotte earlier Friday. But that could be it for the second-seeded Huskies if they don't snap out of the slump that has stymied them for the last three games.
"We don't worry about style points," center Josh Boone said. "At times, we just tried to do way too much, make a pass that wasn't there, make a shot that wasn't there. If we continue to play like this, only 10 or 11 minutes a game, it could be a very quick tournament for us."
Central Florida had won eight games in a row, but the Atlantic Sun champions fell behind by 16 points at the half and by as many as 19, 62-43, with 13:06 left. UConn still led by 15 when the Golden Knights scored nine in a row to make it 68-62.
UConn led 74-65 with 62 seconds left when Justin Rose made a layup to cut it to seven points. The Huskies called a timeout, and Calhoun seemed to struggle to get off the bench, sitting there alone while his players gathered around to await his instructions.
"We weren't having fun," Calhoun said. "We've had fun since January, and this is a fun event. And we were up by 20, which really makes it fun. I was concerned that we just looked joyless."
Central Florida forced consecutive jump balls after the timeout, getting possession on the second with 54 seconds left. But the UConn defense wouldn't let the Golden Knights get a shot off, and when Kingsley Edwards' layup cut the deficit to five points there were only 23.2 seconds remaining.
"We still gave ourselves a chance, but it was critical," Johnson said, noting that the team mixed up its play call.
The Golden Knights were forced to start fouling, and Marcus Williams made three of four free throws down the stretch.
"I don't think there is a weakness, unless it's depth and youth," Central Florida coach Kirk Speraw said. "You can't 'X' and 'O' against depth and youth."
UConn won nine of 10 to finish the regular season and tie Boston College for the Big East's regular-season title. But since then, the Huskies haven't played well.
They struggled to get past Georgetown in the conference quarterfinals. Against Syracuse the next game, they fell behind by 21 points and rallied within four but couldn't come any closer.
Coming into the first round as a heavy favorite, UConn had just one big vulnerability, and it nearly became a problem.
Williams crumpled to the court with 6:56 left in the first half when he appeared to stretch out his right knee as he took a step. As the teams cleared the floor for the timeout, Calhoun walked out to midcourt and held out his arms as if to say, "Well, what do I do now?"
The Huskies already have lost two backup point guards this season: A.J. Price has been out since October with a brain hemorrhage, and Antonio Kellogg was suspended this week for violating team policy. That left them with forward Ryan Thompson to back up Williams, along with Frenchman Sami Ameziane, who has one assist in 15 minutes in his entire college career.
Make it 16 minutes.
Calhoun sent Thompson in to replace Williams, but on the Huskies' second trip downcourt he was called for carrying on his dribble. Ameziane went into the game, but almost as soon as he did Williams was back off the bench and headed for the scorer's table.
He showed no ill effects of the injury, though he didn't really need his knees for the nice alley-oop he threw to Hilton Armstrong to make it 36-21 with 3:14 left in the first half. Or to thread a pass downcourt through two defenders to Rudy Gay with 1:29 left in the half.
Williams shot just 1-for-7 but finished with nine points, five assists and six rebounds in 36 minutes.
