The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies hope to keep the momentum going
NEW ORLEANS — The momentum is back, and so is the confidence.
The excitement around the program is evident. The buzz is ... well, palpable.
UConn is hot. The Huskies (18-12, 9-8 AAC) have won four straight, five of their last six and seven of their last nine games. A win over Tulane on Sunday at Devlin Fieldhouse (4 p.m., ESPNU) would give UConn its first five-game winning streak since 2016, when the Huskies won the AAC tournament and a first-round NCAA tourney game over
Colorado.
There isn’t a member of the program — or its fanbase — that doesn’t believe UConn can’t win this year’s AAC tournament. That appears to be the Huskies’ only way into this year’s Big Dance, though their strong play of late leaves some small (miniscule?) hope for an at-large bid if the winning continues.
Either way, UConn can’t afford a letdown on Sunday against Tulane in its final regular-season game as a member of the American Athletic Conference. A loss would eliminate any chance
of an at-large bid and render the Huskies’ hopes of winning four games in four days in the league tourney all the more difficult as a No. 7 seed.
“These guys have been good the whole year about just showing up, getting ready to practice and play a real determined style of basketball,” coach Dan Hurley said. “There’s a better feeling around the program than these guys are used to feeling in this year and years prior.
“But,” Hurley quickly added, “that feeling can change quickly if you’re not ready to play.”
Tulane is 12-17 overall, 4-13 in the AAC and guaranteed the 12th and bottom seed in the upcoming AAC tournament. But don’t call this a trap game.
“Maybe in a couple of years they’ll have a trap game,” Hurley scoffed. “We’re in no position to be talking about a trap game here. We’ve got a long way to go before we should even start thinking about a trap game.”
Figuring out the AAC tournament seeding situation heading into the final day of the regular season pretty much requires using the Pythagorean Theorem, but UConn can finish anywhere from the No. 5 seed to No. 7. If UConn beats Tulane, Wichita State beats Tulsa on Sunday and Houston beats Memphis, the Huskies will be the tourney’s fifth seed and open up against Tulane (again) on Thursday in Fort Worth. Wichita and Houston are both at home on Sunday.
There are multiple scenarios by which UConn can finish as the sixth or seventh seed, but one thing is certain — a loss to Tulane and the Huskies will be the seventh seed. UConn could still be the No. 7 seed even with a win over the Green Wave.
Not that it matters too much to Hurley.
“Once you lose the opportunity to get the bye (by finishing in the top four), I think it reallly doesn’t matter at all,” the coach said. “For us, any of the teams in the first round is gonna be a tough game. I think there’s not much for us to gain to finish fifth or seventh, because we’ve beaten all the best teams.”
There are multiple scenarios by which UConn can finish as the No. 6 or No. 7 seed, but one thing is certain — a loss to Tulane and the Huskies will be the seventh seed. UConn could still be the No. 7 seed even with a win over the Green Wave.
A loss to Tulane would also mean UConn’s only lane to the NCAA tournament would be via winning the AAC tournament. The Huskies aren’t prominent in any major bracketology predictions, but they could still play their way into that position.
“These guys are aware of metrics, the Quad 1 wins,” Hurley said. “For the most part, they understand the position we’re in with this team is the more we continue to win right now, the more realistic it is for those discussions to happen.”
And when it’s all said and done, that’s the most important thing. Winning.
“The guys know that the best thing that we can do right now to try to put ourselves in a position to play a lot more games together is keep winning,” Hurley continued. “If we continue to win and play well, then we’ll be allowed to keep playing somewhere.”