When 40 isn’t enough
Huskies fall in overtime despite 40 points from James Bouknight
STORRS — During a timeout with about eight minutes left in regulation on Sunday, Creighton coach Greg McDermott shared a quick exchange with Dan Hurley.
“This,” McDermott said to the UConn coach, “is a hell of a basketball game.”
Indeed, UConn’s return Big East Conference play for the first time in nearly eight years was worth the wait, highlighted by big plays and defensive stops on both sides, 13 lead changes after halftime and a sensational performance by UConn star James Bouknight.
Like UConn’s last Big East contest, this one went to overtime. Unlike that battle with Providence back in March, 2013, the Huskies came up short.
Despite 40 points from Bouknight, UConn squandered a four-point lead in the final 21 seconds of regulation and fell to ninthranked Creighton, 76-74 at Gampel Pavilion.
R.J. Cole missed a pair of free throws with 11 seconds left in regulation, and Creighton’s Damien Jefferson hit a tough jumper as the clock expired to send the game into overtime.
Neither team scorched the nets in the extra session, but Denzel Mahoney scored on a drive with 3:24 left to put the Bluejays ahead. Creighton (6-2, 2-1 Big East) held UConn without a field goal the rest of the way until a pair of meaningless Bouknight 3-pointers in the final 11.7 seconds.
“A great effort,” said Hurley. “Obviously, a lot of things led to a very, very tough loss to swallow. We should have been able to take care of that in regulation. There were a handful of winning-type plays that we didn’t make that led to a really, really tough loss to take, because we should have won that one in regulation.”
The Huskies fell to 3-1 overall.
“It’s definitely frustrat
ing,” said Bouknight. “At the end of regulation, we thought we had the game in the bag. To lose this game definitely hurts, but it shows how much progress we’ve made.”
Bouknight took over the game late in the first half and dominated much of the second. The 6-foot-5 guard scored 10 of UConn’s final 12 points in the opening half as the Huskies shaved a 12point deficit down to four (33-29) at the break.
The sophomore continued his hot hand to start the latter half, scoring 13 of UConn’s first 15 points (and assisting on the other basket). The Huskies went ahead on a Bouknight 3pointer a little over two minutes into the half, and it was a back-and-forth affair the rest of the way.
Bouknight (who else?) put UConn up on a driving layup and conventional 3-point play on which he was knocked to the ground with 5:05 left in regulation. But he didn’t score again until the final 11.7 seconds of OT.
“We flooded him a little more in his penetration,” McDermott noted.
“We just had to bring more guys to help, be in the gaps and make things difficult for him,” added Bluejays forward Christian Bishop. “He’s a good player, he’s gonna get his points.”
Bouknight, whose prior career-high had been 23 points, is the first UConn player to score 40 in a game since Amida Brimah put up the same total against Coppin State on Dec. 14, 2014. It’s the second-highest output by a UConn player in a Big East game since Donyell Marshall poured in 42 in 1994 (twice).
Cole was the only other Husky in double figures with 12 points (on 2-for-13 shooting). Cole did help harass Big East preseason player of the year Marcus Zegarowski to a poor showing (11 points on 4-for-14 shooting, 1-for-8 from 3).
The Huskies began the game a bit too happy: 14 of UConn’s first 22 shots were from beyond the arc. Worse, the Huskies made just two of them.
“We settled in possessions for some bad 3’s, early,” Hurley explained. Over the final 51⁄2 minutes of the half, however, UConn eschewed the 3pointer and made 5 of its last 7 shots — most of them by Bouknight, who knocked down jumpers and scored on putbacks and drives to the hole to get the Huskies to within two. Creighton’s Antwann Jones hit a pair of free throws with 0.4 seconds left in the half to give the Bluejays a four-point edge.
“We got our legs under us,” Hurley said. “That’s a top-10 team. Those guys and Villanova are the absolute class of the conference, and we had them in regulation after not playing in 17 days. We have a really, really good team and just need to get on a consistent game schedule and play a season without stopping and starting.”
A pair of Jalen Gaffney free throws with 21.3 seconds left in regulation put UConn ahead by four. Zegarowski countered with an unmolested drive to the hoop, and Cole was fouled. Cole, a redshirt junior who sat out last season after transferring from Howard, had made all 10 of his foul shots this season before missing those two with 11 seconds left.
Ironically, Creighton had struggled from the foul line in its two losses this season to Kansas and Marquette.
“Today,” said McDermott, “we get the benefit of them missing a couple of free throws late that allowed us to send it to overtime.”
“We’re gonna get behind him and support him,” Hurley said of Cole. “Minus missing the big free throws, him and Zegarowski were kind of a push today.”
Hurley added: “It’s obviously a devastating loss. But we showed a lot of toughness, the way we dragged ourselves back in the game.”
RIM RATTLINGS
1 Senior forward Tyler Polley was held out of the game since he hadn’t yet finished COVID-19 protocol. Polley did, however, watch the game from the bench.
1 Bouknight’s 40 points were the second-most ever by a player in his Big East debut, surpassed only by 41 scored by Marquette’s Steve Novak on Jan. 3, 2006 — ironically, against UConn.