The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn women’s team on hold
UConn women basketball to pause for 14 days after positive COVID-19 test.
Here’s a breakdown of what we know about UConn’s 2020-21 schedule, along with a look at the best teams and best players the Huskies will face this season:
Wednesday, Nov. 25 — Central Connecticut State (at Gampel Pavilion), 8 p.m. FS1: First time UConn will face Donyell Marshall as head coach at CCSU, which has never defeated Huskies in 14 tries.
Friday, Nov. 27 — Hartford (at Gampel Pavilion), 8 p.m., CBS Sports
Network: John Gallagher’s crew has five players born outside of the U.S., and another from Alaska.
* Tuesday, Dec. 1 — Vanderbilt (at Mohegan Sun Arena), 5:30 p.m., ESPN2: First game of the Legends Classic; Commodores feature sophomore guard Scotty Pippen, Jr. Yup, son of Scottie, despite different spelling of first name.
* Thursday, Dec. 3 — BYU or USC (at Mohegan Sun Arena), 7 or 9:30 p.m., ESPN or ESPN2: Huskies would play either Cougars or Trojans, depending on results from
Legends Classic’s first day.
* Saturday, Dec. 5 — NC State (at Mohegan Sun Arena), noon, ESPNU: Wolfpack lost their top two scorers, but return pretty much everyone else from last year’s team that went 20-12 overall and 10-10 in the ACC.
Friday, Dec. 11 — St. John’s (at Gampel), 7 p.m., FS1: Huskies are 28-35 all-time vs. Red Storm and have dropped three of last four. Also got smoked by 35 last time they faced coach Mike Anderson, when he was at Arkansas.
Sunday, Dec. 13 — at Georgetown, 7:30 p.m., FS1: Hoyas enjoy a 36-30 all-time series edge, but have struggled mightily under coach Patrick Ewing and were picked to finish last in the Big East preseason coaches’ poll.
Thursday, Dec. 17 — at Providence, 7 p.m., FS1: Ed Cooley went 6-1 vs. Dan Hurley when the latter coached at URI. There was even an on-court shouting match. Even with no fans inside tiny Alumni Hall, this should be fun.
Sunday, Dec. 20 — Creighton (at Gampel), noon, FS1: Led by All-America candidate guard Marcus Zegarowski, Bluejays picked to finish second in Big East preseason coaches’ poll.
Wednesday, Dec. 23 — at DePaul, 9 p.m., FS1: Former UConn assistant Dave Leitao’s Blue Demons are led by point guard Charlie Moore, who beat out James Bouknight as an all-Big East first team pick.
Big East opponents UConn will face after Dec. 30:
Seton Hall:
UConn has won 13 of the last 14 meetings against Dan Hurley’s alma mater.
Villanova: The third-ranked Wildcats capped a sweep of threegame series with Huskies last January, after which Hurley warned: “Get us now. Because it’s coming.”
Xavier: Musketeers, who lost
Bloomfield’s Tyrique Jones to graduation, edged Huskies in double-OT last November in a Charleston Classic battle.
Butler: Huskies and Bulldogs have met just once, on April 4, 2011 at Reliant Stadium in Houston. It wasn’t pretty, but we think you know how that one turned out.
Marquette: High-scoring guard Markus Howard is no longer with the Eagles, but ex-UConn assistant Dwayne Killings is on the staff.
FIVE OPPOSING TEAMS TO WATCH
Villanova: Jay Wright’s bunch is the cream of the Big East crop, picked to win the league by the Big East’s coaches and ranked No. 3 in the preseason AP Top 25. Senior guard Collin Gillespie is an AllAmerican candidate, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl is a likely 2021 firstround draft pick and the Huskies learned last season just how dangerous Jermaine Samuels can be. The Wildcats are a serious contender to win their third national championship in six seasons.
Creighton: How much better would they have been had Ty-Shon Alexander not gone pro? Doesn’t matter. With Marcus Zegarowski, the Bluejays have the preseason Big East Player of the Year and a longdistance shooting threat who’ll team with Mitch Ballock as one of the better backcourts in the nation. Creighton is dealing with a few injuries to its frontcourt players, but is ranked No. 11 in the preseason AP Top 25.
Providence: PC fans consider UConn a rival. UConn fans consider Syracuse, Georgetown, even Duke as their rival. PC? Little more than a pesky annoyance, even when the Friars were a thorn in the Huskies’ side (remember the Ryan Gomes game?). Dan Hurley and Ed Cooley have sniped at each other on the floor, and Cooley has been vocal about not welcoming UConn back to the Big East with open arms. This is a natural border rivalry that could get fun. Oh, and the Friars, led by the backcourt tandem of David Duke and A. J. Reeves, were picked to finish third in the preseason Big East coaches’ poll, one spot ahead of UConn.
Seton Hall: Dan Hurley’s alma mater, where he endured tough times early on, chafing under his older brother Bob’s shadow, partying too much and eventually needing to take a year off. He returned and bounced back to become a 1,000-point scorer, meet his future (and current) wife and grow infinitely as a person. Meanwhile, despite the graduations of All-Everything Myles Powell and Bridgeport’s own Quincy McKnight, the Pirates were picked to finish fifth by the league’s coaches. And coach Kevin Willard has also expressed displeasure with UConn’s return to the Big East.
NC State: Either USC or BYU will likely be the Huskies’ toughest non-conference opponent, but we don’t know which of those two teams UConn will play in its second game of the Legends Classic. We do know the Huskies will face the Wolfpack on Dec. 5 at Mohegan Sun. NC State is led by D. J. Funderburk (no relation to the former Indiana/Ohio State forward) and Braxton Beverly, the guard who sparked an outcry when the NCAA initially denied his waiver to transfer from Ohio State to NC State after Thad Matta’s departure.
A DOZEN OPPOSING PLAYERS TO WATCH
Collin Gillespie, Villanova: A 6-3 guard looking to pull a Shabazz Napier and win national titles in his freshman and senior seasons, Gillespie (a product of Archbishop Wood High, where current UConn commit Rahsool Diggins attends) is an All-America and Big East Player of the Year hopeful.
Marcus Zegarowski, Creighton: Big East’s top returning scorer (16.1 ppg) shot 42.4 percent from 3-point land and league’s preseason Player of the Year.
Jermaine Robinson-Earl, Villanova: A matchup nightmare, the 6-9 forward’s decision to bypass the 2020 NBA Draft instantly helped make the Wildcats a title contender.
David Duke, Providence: A Providence native who grew up a jump shot from the Dunkin’ Donuts Center, the 6-foot-5 junior guard is one of the better defensive players UConn will face.
Sandro Mamukelashvili, Seton Hall: The 6-11 native of Georgia missed 10 games last season with a wrist injury, but “Mamu” be the top big man in the Big East this season.
Mitch Ballock, Creighton: Shot 43.5-percent from 3-point range last season and combines with Zegarowski to form one of the top backcourts in the nation.
Dawson Garcia, Marquette: The 6-11 lefty and McDonald’s AllAmerican is the Big East’s preseason Rookie of the Year.
D. J. Funderburk, NC State: A 6-10 redshirt senior who averaged 12.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per game last season for the Wolfpack.
Paul Scruggs, Xavier: The 6-4 guard who was once heavily-recruited by UConn (under Kevin Ollie) is the Musketeers’ top returning scorer.
Scotty Pippen Jr., Vanderbilt: Point guard earned All-SEC Freshman Team honors after averaging 12 points per game last season. And yes, his dad had some game, as well.
Evan Mobley, USC: If UConn faces the Trojans in their second game of the Legends Classic, watch out for this 7-foot freshman. The Class of 2020’s No. 1 big man recruit in all the nation is a potential 2021 NBA lottery pick.
Matt Haarms, BYU: 7-foot-3 grad transfer from Purdue ranks fourth in Boilermaker history in career blocks and helped Purdue reach NCAA tourney regional finals in 2019.
* — subject to change; games have been announced by Mohegan Sun, but not yet confirmed by UConn