Sanogo, Kalkbrenner centers of attention, but others have a say

OMAHA, Neb. — Entering Saturday’s men’s basketball game between No. 21 UConn and No. 23 Creighton, two teams whose rankings don’t reflect their ability to perform at a championship level on any given night, all of the excitement surrounded the center position.

After all, UConn’s Adama Sanogo and Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner are two of the best centers in college basketball and they’ve been on a collision course in the Big East for the last three years. The budding Big East rivals have played seven times — all but two games decided by four points or fewer — and the matchup at the five has been right in the mix on every occasion.

There were the comments from Kalkbrenner in the summer and the response from Sanogo when they played for the sixth time in January. But on Saturday the two competitors kept the show on the court.

Sanogo finished with a gamehigh 17 points and 10 rebounds. Kalkbrenner had 12 and six, adding three steals and a block.

“There’s a little extra spice going into this game that gets generated through the media,” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said, “but there were great matchups all over the court today.

“Trey Alexander, Jordan Hawkins — those two guys are NBA draft picks on the wing. [Baylor] Scheierman being guarded by Andre Jackson — there’s just great matchups all over the court out there.”

Most of the direct, head-to-head combat between Sanogo and Kalkbrenner happened in the post, where neither was able to move the other, and they each usually ended up missing the shot.

Unlike in January, Sanogo had no comments about the Creighton 7-footer. Kalkbrenner wasn’t one of the two Bluejays who spoke with the media — instead it was Alexander, who matched Sanogo’s game-high scoring, and Scheierman, who finished with 11 points and a team-high nine rebounds.

Alexander held Hawkins scoreless in the first half but got into foul trouble as the UConn sharpshooter scored 11 points in the second.

“It’s one of those things where you know somebody has kind of the hype around his name that [Hawkins] does,” Alexander said. “Tonight was kinda personal considering the fact they beat us at their house.

“Coming into our building we were trying to impose our will early and I knew that for us to do that we’d have to stop him.”

Among the other matchups, Tristen Newton struggled with two points at point guard and Ryan Nembhard scored seven. Scheierman left Jackson wide open to shoot 3-for-11.

At the four Alex Karaban improved defensively to hold Arthur Kaluma to a pair of free throws, as Kaluma went 0-for-6 from the field. Karaban (five points, five rebounds) didn’t have his best game offensively.

“I think [Creighton] is a top 10, top 15 team in the country, for sure,” Sanogo said, feelings left inside the CHI Health Center in Omaha. “We lose to them by three points away? Yeah, I think we did a good job.

“We’re gonna go back, watch the film and see what we can do from this loss.”