Huskies can’t afford to have Bouknight’s style cramped
James Bouknight lay down in pain last week following a Big East tournament game, but it wasn’t from the full-body cramps that burdened him against DePaul on Thursday night.
Rather, it was the mental pain Bouknight felt the following night, after turning in what he termed his “worst game in a UConn uniform when the lights came on” during a crushing, semifinal loss to Creighton.
“I was down on myself,” the sophomore guard said. “I didn’t want to talk to anyone, I turned my phone off, I just stayed in my room in the dark, just looking at the ceiling, thinking. That’s not me. If you talk to anyone on this team, I’m always laughing, trying to have fun.”
Bouknight scored a team-high 14 points but on just 4-for-14 shooting, missing all three 3-pointers. He grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, but turned the ball over four times. Most glaringly, in a chance to turn in a vintage Big East tournament performance a la Kemba, Shabazz, Ray or Rip, Bouknight fell short.
“James was in a tough spot, in just a super-intense game,” coach Dan Hurley said. “Physically, he didn’t have all his powers.”
Indeed, just 24 hours earlier, Bouknight had to leave UConn’s romp over DePaul early in the second half after suffering fullbody cramping. The image of the 6-foot-5 star being carried back to the locker room by trainer James Doran and strength coach Mike Rehfeldt, his body rigid, his face etched in pain, was a striking one.
Hurley made light of it on TV after the game, but after talking to assistant coach and former UConn standout Kevin Freeman, realized that full-body cramps were “a hell of a thing.’
“(Freeman) played himself to near-death in an NCAA tournament game and had to take IV bags,” Hurley said. “He said he played three days later and didn’t feel like himself.”
The Huskies don’t play again until Saturday, in an NCAA tournament firstround game against Maryland (7:10 p.m., CBS) at Purdue’s Mackey Arena. They certainly need Bouknight to feel like himself again, and a lot of that is on Bouknight.
“He’s got to have that personal discipline to hydrate during the game,” Hurley said. “The staff is all over it. We can’t lose a game this time of year and not advance because James didn’t take in enough fluids or have enough potassium or whatever. It can’t happen. He’s got to be more diligent. It’s part of his growth as a player.”
It wasn’t the first time Bouknight had experienced this problem. Late in his first game back from a six-week absence, on Feb. 16 against Providence, Bouknight cramped up.
Could this be a chronic problem?
“Some people are crampers,” said Dr. Jon Driscoll, an orthopedic surgeon specializing in sports medicine who’s based in Wallingford, “and when they are, it’s very difficult. You see it on the football field way more than on the basketball court. But it’s hard for these guys to hydrate well enough during the games, because he doesn’t come out (often). So, you’ve got to use your timeouts, your breaks at the end of each half to make sure you hydrate as best you can.”
But even then, a player can run into problems.
“If you try to drink too much, too quickly, it sits in their stomach and they don’t feel good that way, either,” Driscoll explained. “It’s a hydration thing. And I think it’s important to keep yourself hydrated from the night before, all the way in through the game.”
He added that Pedialyte, repletes with electrolytes, is often used (in addition to water or Gatorade) as a way of keeping fluids inside the blood vessels better.
“Because sometimes, if you just drink a ton of water, you dilute out the bloodstream and the fluids actually want to leak into the tissue. Whereas if you take in electrolytes, it keeps the hydration in the bloodstream.”
Whatever the method, UConn needs James Bouknight not only to remain in the game, but to step up big this week in Indiana. Hurley said his message to Bouknight was fairly simple: “You don’t have to put on your cape for us. Great players in UConn’s history that had these great performances in big spots, they don’t force it. It happens organically. I think James has got to let the game come to him a little more and not put that type of pressure on himself.”
Similar to what he did in a previous game against Creighton, back on Dec. 20 at Gampel Pavilion. Bouknight dropped 40 points in an overtime loss, his piece de resistance thus far as a Husky.
“He didn’t go into that game, ‘I’m gonna get 40,’ ” Hurley said. “That’s the way the game broke for him, in terms of opportunities.”
Bouknight seems to understand.
“We don’t need anyone to save this team,” he said. “We’re a great team, we have a lot of pieces that can go out and play. I just want to do whatever it takes to win, whether that’s going out and scoring 30, or getting 10 assists or grabbing 10 rebounds. Whatever I need to do to help this team win, that’s what I’m gonna do.”
He understands the legacy of UConn basketball and its great players, and he wants to etch his own name in that history.
“I probably was harder on myself than anybody else was (on Friday night),” Bouknight noted. “It took me a couple of days to calm down and gather myself. I know I let a lot of people down that night, and I’m just ready to go. I’m ready to go out there and perform and play like everyone knows I can play.
“I’m happy now,” he added. “I’m back to making jokes.”
And, hopefully for UConn, drinking plenty of water and Pedialyte.