Hurley, UConn one win from breakthrough
ALBANY — The March Madness Monkey is off their backs now.
And now that the Connecticut Huskies feel liberated, they can be the dangerous team they believe they are, possibly a team that can win a national championship. So said Rick Pitino, who knows a national championship team when he sees one. And the Huskies agree.
“We know we’ve got the tools to do it,” UConn guard Jordan Hawkins said after his team’s 87-63 West Region first-round victory Friday over Iona. “We’ve got the confidence as well. I mean, that’s flattering, but at the end of the day, we’ve got to take care of it ourselves and have that mindset for ourselves, and we do.”
Saint Mary’s, the Huskies’ second-round opponent, is no slouch — just ask Gonzaga, their conference rival. The 5-seed Gaels have been to the tournament eight times since 2000, and reached the Sweet 16 in 2010. Dan Hurley will be gunning Sunday for his first Sweet 16 in his third season at UConn.
“We didn’t come here just to win this one game,” Huskies forward Alex Karaban said. Of course, neither did Saint Mary’s. “We’ve got a bunch of doubters, and we love to prove people wrong,” Saint Mary’s guard Logan Johnson said.
The Gaels’ big challenge will be making sure Huskies big man Adama Sanogo doesn’t impose his will on the game the way he did in the first round against Iona, when he had 28 points and 13 rebounds.
“Sanogo, you don’t have to watch him too long to figure out he’s a force,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said. The Gaels, meanwhile, are methodical. “We definitely want to get them out of their pace,” Karaban said. “When we play our style, it’s very hard to beat us. We’re going to play defense and try to get out there and run, which we’ve been pretty successful at. If we do that, I think we’ll be just fine.”
The Huskies essentially will have a home-court advantage in Albany, which is a bit over 130 miles from their Storrs, Conn., campus.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a pressure,” UConn guard Andre Jackson Jr. said. “It’s awesome to have a crowd that’s supporting us. We definitely like that. We embrace it. So we’re looking forward to the game and looking forward to seeing the fans out there supporting us.”
Hurley is just another Jersey Guy looking to survive and advance on the heels of Saint Peter’s last March, and Princeton and Fairleigh Dickinson this March.
“It’s fun. Princeton, Saint Peter’s, Tobin [Anderson, FDU’s coach], unbelievable,” Hurley said. “Obviously your heart breaks for [Purdue’s] Matt Painter, who’s one of the best tacticians and player development coaches in the country, but on the flip side, I couldn’t believe that game last [Friday] night.”
Neither could anyone else.