UConn has had issues putting teams away this season.

  It happened again on Thursday.

  The Huskies should have blown out Central Florida, one of the worst defensive teams in the American Athletic Conference, after grabbing an 18-point lead in the first half and a 13-point lead with about 12 minutes remaining.

  They didn’t, but managed to hold on for a 67-60 win.

  “You make the game harder than it has to be,” senior Ryan Boatright said. “Once you get a team down 18, you’ve got to step on their neck and put them away. That’s what teams do to us. … It’s a young team and a learning process. We’ve got to get better at that.”

  Here’s a post-game breakdown:

  -- The most impressive stat line belonged to freshman Daniel Hamilton, who had 10 points, nine rebounds, seven assists and three steals in 28 minutes. He went without a turnover for only the second time this season.

  “I thought Daniel had a great floor game,” coach Kevin Ollie said. “He was a stat stuffer.”

  Hamilton hit four of seven field goal attempts. He had shot just 33.3 percent (13-for-39) in the previous four games.

  -- For the second straight game, Ollie started Omar Calhoun in the backcourt and brought Rodney Purvis off the bench.

  Calhoun got off to a fast start, scoring all 11 of his points in the first half. Purvis had eight points, three rebounds, two assists, three turnovers and a career-best four steals.

  Purvis had just three steals in the first 14 games.

  The Huskies finished with 10 steals overall.

  “That just shows the aggressiveness and activity that we had out there,” Ollie said.

   -- Shaky free throw shooting has hurt the Huskies this season, especially in close games. They went just 6-for-13 from the foul line on Thursday. Purvis was just 1-for-5.

  “We’ve just got to understand that to win games in big time environments we’ve got to do a better job at the free throw line,” Ollie said. “That’s one of our Achilles Heels.”

  -- Ten of UConn’s season-high 11 three-pointers came in the first half. Yet the Huskies let by just six at the break.

  Boatright (4-for-6), Calhoun (3-for-5) and Hamilton (2-for-3) accounted for the majority of UConn’s bonus shots.

  The Huskies finished 11 for 20 from beyond the arc.

  “We don’t want to fall in love with the three-point line,” Ollie said. “It was good that they were going in, but we want to start getting penetration and getting high percentage basketball shots. I think we did that in the second half.”

   -- After getting burned from the outside in the first 20 minutes, the Knights had to respect UConn’s perimeter game in the second half. That opened up the middle for the Huskies, who kept feeding lobs to center Amida Brimah for dunks.

  Brimah had 12 of his 14 points after intermission.

  -- Boatright showed signs of emerging from his offensive funk. He scored a team-high 18 points on 6-for-13 from the field. He converted just 36.6 percent in the previous four games.

 -- The Huskies improved to 6-0 when leading at halftime.

 -- They scored 18 points off of 12 turnovers. They fell one assist short of tying their season high of 22 assists in a 21-point win over CoppinState on Dec. 14. They equaled a season-low for turnovers with eight.

  They assisted on all but four field goals.

 -- Ollie praised the play of his aggressive defense, which held the Knights well below their season scoring average of 70.2 points per game. UCF freshman B.J Taylor went just 4-for-13 from the field and finished with 13 points.

 -- Freshman Rakim Lubin earned his first technical foul of his career.

 -- Reserve Phil Nolan drew a charge for his team-leading 14

^th

time this season. He also blocked two shots. But he had more fouls (three) than points and rebounds combined (two) in 15 minutes.

 -- UConn (10-7, 3-2) remains in seventh place in the conference and UCF (9-9, 2-5) in eighth.

 -- Next up: UConn hosts South Florida at noon Sunday at the XL Center in Hartford. The Huskies won the first meeting, 58-44, in Tampa on Jan. 6.