The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies hoping to excel at XL Center
HARTFORD — Dan Hurley isn’t used to this. Not as a coach, anyway.
He isn’t used to having two home arenas, one on campus, the other about 30 miles away.
At Rhode Island the past six years, he played his home games in the oncampus Ryan Center. At Wagner before that, it was the Spiro Sports Center.
Now at UConn, Hurley splits his 18 home games at Gampel Pavilion and the XL Center. The Huskies have played three games at Gampel so far and will play their fourth at XL Center on Wednesday against Lafayette (6 p.m., ESPNU).
While Hurley hasn’t come out and said it, he has at times hinted a little bit of frustration over the dualhome arena situation — noting UConn doesn’t enjoy an overwhelming homecourt advantage when playing at XL, where it has only practiced sparingly.
He pointed specifically to the Huskies’ relatively poor shooting performance on Sunday in a 76-72 loss to Arizona (8-for-24 from 3-point range).
“We’re a better shooting team than we’ve shown,” Hurley insisted. “It’s a function of just playing in here more, and trying to get some practice time in here, as we’re leading up to playing games in this building. It would be great for us if they could block out some time for us to get in here, get some shots up, leading up to games here.”
A few seconds later, under his breath, Hurley added, “Whoever ‘they’ are.”
“They” essentially are the folks who run XL Center, and they try to accommodate UConn as much as possible. However, it’s not always possible. When the Hartford Wolf Pack have consecutive home games, for example, the XL Center crew isn’t going to put the floor down over the ice just so UConn can practice. Likewise, concerts and other events can pop up and make practicing at XL Center tricky.
Then there’s the players’ course schedules, and the fact that they have to get on a bus and make the 40minute trek to Hartford, then bus back (unless it’s on a weekend) to take classes the following morning.
The Huskies practiced at XL for the second time this season on Tuesday. They practiced there prior to their XL-opener on Nov. 20 against Cornell, as well. While that doesn’t seem like much — certainly not as much as Hurley would probably like — it’s more than UConn has practiced in Hartford, at this point in the season, in recent memory.
Jalen Adams noted prior to the Arizona game that he prefers playing in Storrs over Hartford. Gampel is smaller and cozier, providing a more shooter-friendly backdrop. The proof is in the numbers thus far: UConn is shooting 50.9 percent from the floor at Gampel and 50.5 at XL, a negligible difference. But from 3-point land, the Huskies are hitting at a 38percent rate (27-for-71) at Gampel, but just 30.5 percent (18-for-59) at XL.
“I think we’ll be better shooting in here,” Hurley promised.
Hurley has also (sometimes jokingly) complained about other aspects of the XL Center — from how cold it is to the podium in the press conference room (he’s now seated at a table, as he prefers). But then, as his father, Bob Sr., recently pointed out, “He likes to complain.”
One thing you won’t hear Hurley complaining about was the crowd at XL on Sunday. About 1,000 short of a sellout, it was still loud and boisterous — particularly during one first-half stretch where the Huskies hit seven of eight shots, highlighted by a pretty transition layup for an and-1 by Christian Vital, to briefly take a lead.
“I remember playing here in the early, mid-90s,” Hurley noted. “People talked to me a little about what it’s like in the XL when you’ve got a great crowd, close to a sellout, locked-in. The crowd was awesome. They carried us emotionally through some choppy play.”
Don’t expect as big or loud a crowd on Wednesday evening. Hurley only hopes his team, with a little extra practice at the XL Center, shoots the ball a little better.
RIM RATTLINGS
A somewhat cryptic tweet by senior forward Kwintin Williams after Sunday’s game led some to believe he might be leaving the program.
“I love basketball so much,” the tweet read. “These past two years have been a real reality check for me. I appreciate everyone in my life who has been 100percent honest with me about my talent level and where I’ll end up career-wise.”
With Akok Akok planning to enroll at UConn for the second semester as a walk-on, the obvious inference is that Williams’s departure would open up a scholarship for Akok. While scholarships are one-year agreements between the player and school, if a player willingly leaves a program on his own, there are loopholes that could allow another player to assume his scholarship.
However, Williams has not left UConn’s program, and there are no indications that he plans to. Plus, Hurley and his staff have no intention of running a player off the team. They could have done so back in April after Hurley was hired, but kept every player from last year’s squad, even if (like Williams) they weren’t likely to see a whole lot of playing time this season.