"Connecticut, from what I've seen, is the best team in the country," Ford said of the third-ranked Huskies. "Their top six players are NBA players. They're big, they can rebound, they're really shooting the basketball right now. Rudy Gay and (Rashad) Anderson and (Denham) Brown, they can really get hot. I've seen Duke's play and these other teams, but I have not seen a team with UConn's firepower."
Not that Ford or his team is intimidated heading into Thursday night's game (9, ESPN2) in Hartford between the two teams, the 108th meeting in the series. After all, UMass is riding a one-game winning streak in the series.
UMass beat UConn 61-59 last season in Amherst, Mass., snapping a 13-game, 21-year losing streak in series. Center Rashaun Freeman hit the winning basket with 4.3 seconds left. The Minutemen beat then-No. 7 UConn, despite a premature celebration in the stands by Freeman.
"You look at the games that they've played, I think they've been exciting games," said Ford, a former head coach at Eastern Kentucky and a 1994 graduate of Kentucky. "I didn't know too much about the rivalry until I got here."
UMass is 2-2 this season under Ford, beating Hartford and Savannah State while losing to Davidson and UAB.
"We've played well in stretches and played bad at stretches," Ford said. "It's typical
Despite their big win last December, the Minutemen haven't won in Connecticut since 1977 and trail in the series 68-39. Ford said his players certainly aren't nervous about playing the Huskies (6-0) this time around.
"Our basketball team, right now, they know it's UConn, but we're still trying to figure out ourselves," Ford said. "We played UAB on national TV and the guys responded fairly well in that game. We don't want to approach this game too differently.
"If you're playing a team like UConn, you'd better be ready. They know the challenge at hand. They know how good UConn is. We're trying to make our team better. We need to stick to what we're trying to accomplish here. We can't get caught up with what UConn's doing."
Freeman leads the team in scoring (16.3 ppg) and rebounding (9.3 rpg). Much as he was last year when he scored 18 points against UConn, the 6-foot-8 junior should be a focus of the Huskies' defense.
After junior guard Art Bowers announced two weeks ago that he was transferring, Ford was left with only eight scholarship players at his disposal. But the future does look a bit brighter. Transfers Gary Forbes (Virginia), Etienne Brower (Boston University) and Luke Bonner (West Virginia) will all be eligible next year.
"It's been done here before," Ford said. "Nowadays, any job is tough. Our league is very competitive. We've got great facilities. We've got great fans. It's just a process where we've got to start developing some consistency year-in and year-out."
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