Squad cruises past Hoyas to close out the regular season
STORRS — After clinching the third seed in the Big East Tournament with a key, NCAA tournament resume-boosting win at Seton Hall earlier in the week, the UConn men’s basketball team wanted to avoid complacency Saturday at home against Georgetown.
Mission accomplished. The Huskies (14-6, 11-6 Big East) rolled to a no-doubt, 98-82 win over the Hoyas on Saturday at Gampel Pavilion.
Here’s how they did it:
Key to victory
The Huskies never trailed in the game.
They didn’t come close to trailing, either.
UConn scored 51 points in the first half alone, and led by 27 points at halftime. They shot 57.6 percent from the field and 43.9 percent from 3-point territory in the first half. James Bouknight
scored 11 points in the first seven minutes of the game and classmate Jalen Gaffney scored 10 points in the final 10 minutes of the half to provide balanced scoring from the guard position throughout the period.
“I thought we were decisive with the shots we did take,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “I thought we had a good mixture of inside and out. Basketball is a simple game. Your job as an offensive player is to try and draw two defenders and spray the ball somewhere. If the second defender doesn’t come, go put something good on the rim.”
The Hoyas (9-12, 7-9) turned the offense up a bit in the second (they shot 55.3% from the field in the second as opposed to 30% in the first), but the Huskies had built such a large lead that they were able to survive any Georgetown run as the lead never slipped below 16 in the second half.
UConn shot a season-high 59.3 percent from the field, and six players (Bouknght, 21 points, Gaffney, 15, Isaiah Whaley, 11, Tyrese Martin, 11, Tyler Polley, 11, and Adama Sanogo, 10) finished with double-digit points.
“James is a star player,” Hurley said. “And the depth is impressive. We’ve got a lot of really good players.”
Turning point
As part of its first-half scoring onslaught, the Huskies jumped out to a 15-2 lead and made six of their first seven shots.
Bouknight scored eight of the Huskies’ first 15 points (two 3-pointers and a dunk) and Whaley and Sanogo — who combined for nearly half of UConn’s points in Wednesday’s win at Seton Hall — scored the other seven.
Georgetown was held scoreless for the first 3:30 of the game.
“That was definitely a point, to come out strong, come out aggressive,” Polley said. “Make the first punch.”
Player of the game
Bouknight’s strong play since returning from an elbow injury continued Saturday as he led the Huskies with 21 points.
Since returning from injury, he’s averaged 20 points per game, and the Huskies are 10-2 when he plays.
“Going into every game, the approach is just going out there and playing my game,” Bouknight said. “I feel like when I start to force things to make stuff happen, I start to get a little out of control and sloppy.”
Stats of the game
The Huskies made a seasonhigh
12 3-pointers against Georgetown, and four in a row to open the game. By halftime, they had made seven. The previous high was 11 (against Xavier on Feb. 13).
Hurley said strong outside shooting helps open up the entire offense.
“It creates space,” Hurley said. “It creates space for James, it creates space for R.J. [Cole]. For Tyrese to try and get downhill. It creates post plays for Adama where he’s got room ... when you can’t shoot, it’s hard. Now you’re in rock fights, and I’ve done those. Those are hard.”
Conversely, Georgetown went 0-for-5 from deep in the first half. The Hoyas entered the game as the second-best 3-point shooting team in the Big East, and had made the third most. With its shooting immobilized, Georgetown’s offense struggled to score. The Hoyas did rediscover their shooting stroke in the second half, and went 7-for-11 from three, but it was too late.
The Hoyas also lead the conference in rebounding margins, and were +5.1 on the boards per game entering Saturday’s contest. The Huskies, second in the conference in rebounding margin, won the board battle 35-26.
Big-picture implications
UConn had already locked up the third seed for the upcoming Big East tournament prior to Saturday,
so the win doesn’t affect its tournament standing. From an NCAA tournament standpoint, the win doesn’t move the needle too much, though a loss would have looked rough on the resume.
The Huskies improved to 24th in the kenpom.com rankings.
Up next
The Huskies now have four days off until they play in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday at Madison Square Garden in New York City. UConn has a first-round bye and will play the winner of Wednesday’s firstround game between the No. 6 and No. 11 seeds.
“Everybody has one common goal,” Gaffney said. “We’re all very confident going into the Big East Tournament.”
Notes
UConn held its senior day ceremonypriortothegameandhonored managers Chris Mastrangelo and Eric Bonnabeau, and players Whaley, Josh Carlton, Polley and Brendan Adams . ... Two hundred frontline workers from UConn Health and from the Storrs campus were in attendance for the game. A video tribute was played at halftime thanking them with messages from UConn coaches across all sports.