CHICAGO -- Sharing a stage opposite a pair of precocious freshmen, Khalid El-Amin handled the role of elder statesman just fine.

The 5-foot-10 junior guard scored 23 points to lead No. 6 Connecticut to a 78-69 victory over No. 2 Arizona and its freshmen backcourt on Tuesday night in the Great Eight.

"El-Amin knows how to run his team very well," Arizona guard Gilbert Arenas said. "When things would get a little out of control, he would take his time just like he did last year when they won the national championship."

	Gilbert Arenas flies to the hoop for two of his team-high 18 points.

El-Amin was only 9-of-24 from the field, but he was 4-for-8 from 3-point range -- mostly against Arizona's 2-3 zone -- and seemed to come up with a big hoop every time Arizona got within striking distance.

"I like the way he ran his club," Jason Gardner, Arizona's other freshman guard said of El-Amin. "He hit the shots down the stretch. We'd get close and he'd come up with a big basket. That's why he's an all-America. He's a great point guard."

The win was the sixth straight for the Huskies since they lost the season opener to Iowa.

"I like my team. They're tough down the stretch," Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said. "I thought we were very good down the stretch. Today's the seventh of December. We've got a long way to go."

Junior Albert Mouring, who has struggled this season as he tries to replace Big East player of the year Richard Hamilton, finished with nine points, but five came at the start of an 11-0 run that gave the Huskies a 73-61 lead with 1:11 to play.

"Every time we needed a big time basket tonight we came through and that's what championship teams do," El-Amin said. "We have tremendous chemistry about our team. Six veterans stepped up when we needed to step up. We got the big buckets when we had to. That's what good teams do."

Arenas had 18 points, while Loren Woods added 16 and Michael Wright had 14. Wright had 10 rebounds and Woods had nine.

Gardner finished with nine points on 2-of-9 shooting and had seven assists.

"He has heart. You can see that when he plays," El-Amin said of Gardner. "He competes like a son of a gun. But I knew this was going to be a five-on-five game not a Jason-El-Amin battle."

The loss was the first of the season for Arizona (6-1), which is in the middle of a three-game stretch against top 10 teams as it beat then-No. 9 Texas last Saturday and plays host to Michigan State (No. 5 ESPN/USA Today, No. 4 AP) on Saturday. The Spartans defeated Kansas (No. 4 ESPN/USA Today, No. 5 AP) 66-54 in Tuesday's opening game of the Great Eight.

"We needed a loss to show where we're really at," Arenas said.

Arizona coach Lute Olson said Gardner may have taken the matchup with El-Amin too personally.

"I think a couple of times Jason took it as a personal challenge after Khalid hit a shot, and you can't do that. You can't lose sight of the team objective," Olson said. "He looked forward to playing Khalid and it helped him."

Connecticut led 37-30 at halftime and Arizona made several runs, getting as close as 56-54 on a dunk by Richard Jefferson with 8:00 left. But the Huskies had enough each time and then secured the win with the 11-0 run that Mouring, who had been 2-for-6 from the field until then, started with a jumper and a 3-pointer, his only long-range bomb of the game.

Reserve guard Tony Robertson added 15 points for the Huskies, while Kevin Freeman had 10.

"Tony came off the bench and gave us a spark and we need that from Tony, for him to play well," Freeman said.