Hartford - Only during elimination season does a head coach call a timeout in the first half after giving up four straight points and still holding a 16-point lead.

UConn's Kevin Ollie wanted to make sure his Huskies stayed on track. He's seen too many derailments this season.

They were never in jeopardy of losing their American Athletic Conference tournament opener against undermanned South Florida at the XL Center on Thursday. The 11th-seeded Bulls came in without their two best players, rendering them about as dangerous as a toothless beagle.

Never trailing and leading by as many as 26, sixth-seeded UConn cruised to a 69-43 victory, setting up a quarterfinal matchup tonight with third-seeded Cincinnati (approximately 9:30, ESPNU).

"Our guys came out with intensity and stayed connected," Ollie said. "We played hard on the defensive end, and we wanted to establish that the first five minutes and I thought they did a great job.

"We just want to continue that now. It's a short turnaround, and we know that. It's tournament play. … We're going to get ready for Cincinnati. Everybody knows when we play Cincinnati, it's a dogfight. We've got to come out with intensity and play hard."

Ollie helped keep the Huskies focused in their tournament opener, delivering a few reminders during timeouts, including one with 4:19 left before intermission with UConn holding a 25-9 lead.

"You know how coach is," junior Phil Nolan said. "He just wants to get the best out of us. He just didn't want us to (lapse) on defense."

There were some encouraging signs for the Huskies (18-13), who had swept the regular season series against the Bulls (9-23).

For one, it wasn't all the Ryan Boatright show. His teammates responded to Boatright's encouragement to be more aggressive on the offensive end.

Daniel Hamilton, who collected his AAC rookie of the year honor earlier in the day, shook out of his shooting funk. After sinking just 6-for-28 from the field in the last two regular season games, he converted 6-of-8 from the field, including 4 of 5 from 3-point range. He finished with a game-high 20 points, the most by a rookie in the two years of the AAC tournament.

He buried his first shot - a 3-pointer just 25 seconds into the game.

"I've been struggling from the field," Hamilton said. "It gave me a whole lot of confidence seeing that one go in. That helped me out the rest of the night."

Sophomore Rodney Purvis scored 13 points and Boatright added 12 while reserve Omar Calhoun showed some spark, scoring nine.

"They answered everything that I asked them to do," Boatright said of Purvis and Hamilton. "The stepped up and played with confidence."

The Huskies got it done on both ends of the floor.

They shot 54.5 percent from the field and sinking a season-high tying 11 3-pointers out of 17 attempts.

"They played with confidence today on the offensive end," Ollie said.

Defensively, they kept forced the Bulls into missing their first nine shots. USF had a season-low for points and shot an icy 31.3 percent (15-for-48).

After a choppy offensive start, the Huskies finally found some rhythm, jumping out to a 25-5 lead on a well-executed fast break with 5:23 left.

Boatright's steal sparked the transition game. He found Purvis who passed to Hamilton who hit a trailing Brimah.

Brimah finished off the nifty play in fitting fashion, dunking it home. The Huskies led 29-14 at the break.

The Huskies also responded in the rebounding department. Ollie challenged his big men to do a better job after Brimah and Nolan combined for just three rebounds in Saturday's regular season finale loss at Temple.

Nolan grabbed a career-high tying seven rebounds and Brimah added five to go with nine points and five blocks. The Huskies played without forward Kentan Facey, who suffered a concussion in practice on Tuesday.

UConn still needs three more wins to reach their championship goal.

g.keefe@theday.com

Twitter: @GavinKeefe