The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘Tough sledding’ for Huskies
Until Bouknight returns, UConn in a tough predicament
UConn, you’re not in Kansas (as in Wichita) anymore. You’re no longer living on Tulsa time.
You have a problem, and Houston has nothing to do with it.
The Big East, not the American Athletic Conference, is where UConn wanted to be. Needed to be. Should be. Not a soul in the world would argue otherwise — except perhaps Ed Cooley and Kevin
Willard, and both of those coaches have probably softened their stances a bit after beating the Huskies over the past week.
Now, the Huskies are free of the AAC and back in the Big East. With the new terrain, however, comes tougher challenges — a point coach Dan Hurley has repeated, mantralike, in recent weeks.
“The level that this league is at compared to the last league we were in, it’s a big jump up,” Hurley said after Wednesday’s 70-59 loss at Providence.
And that jump up is made even steeper without sophomore guard James Bouknight, who hasn’t played since Jan. 5 and whose return is still a mystery.
Bouknight is a good kid, a bit of a goofball, who is extremely loyal to Hurley and his teammates. He wants to play this season, and there is belief within the program that he will. It’s just a complex situation with a lot of different voices — and an outside doctor always makes things trickier. Hurley said on Wednesday that Bouknight’s return will basically be dictated by the doctor who performed surgery on his left elbow back on Jan. 12.
Until Bouknight returns (assuming he does), UConn will have to continue to navigate the dangerous Big East without him. And that’s a lot tougher sledding than the American, where the Huskies resided the previous seven seasons.
The Big East may be a bit down this season — it is currently ranked fifth in conference NET ranking, behind the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC. But it is still several steps ahead of the AAC, which is ranked seventh in conference NET and is dangerously close to being a one-bid league for the NCAA tournament. But it goes beyond that.
Look no further than senior forward Isaiah
Whaley.
In league games last season, Whaley averaged 8.2 points and 6.6 rebounds per game. More to the point: in the last six games, after he took over for injured Akok Akok in the starting lineup, Whaley averaged 13.8 points and 8.6 boards and looked like one of the best players in the league.
This year in the Big East, Whaley is averaging 7.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per contest. He’s scored just 12 points over the last three games, going up against the likes of Seton Hall’s Sandro Mamukelahvili and Providence’s Nate Watson.
Look at the bottom of each league. If UConn was still in the AAC, it would have relatively cushy games mixed into the schedule against the likes of Tulane, Temple, UCF and ECU (although the Pirates did recently knock off No. 8 Houston).
Last-place DePaul (whom the Huskies have beaten twice) has really struggled through multiple COVID-19 shutdowns. Otherwise, there are no gimmies on this schedule.
Georgetown is 3-7 in the league, but has wins at Creighton and over St. John’s and Providence and has played just about everyone tough. Marquette (5-9) has been a disappointment, but owns wins at Creighton and over No. 21 Wisconsin. Butler (6-8) has also beaten Creighton and just beat the hottest team in the league, St. John’s. And UConn got a firsthand look on Wednesday at how tough Providence and its 1-2 punch of Watson and David Duke can be.
Fact is, without Bouknight, the Huskies often take the floor without two or three of the top players each game. Watson and Duke were the best two players on the court on Wednesday. You could argue that Seton Hall had the three best players on the floor — Mamukelashvili, Jared Rhoden and Myles Cale — in its win over the Huskies on Feb. 6.
And it gets no easier. On Saturday, UConn plays at Xavier, which has been snakebitten perhaps even worse by COVID-related stoppages but is 11-2 overall, 4-2 in league and, assuming Bouknight doesn’t play, will have at least the two best players on the floor in Zach Freemantle and Paul Scruggs. Then it’s Providence again, followed by games at No. 5 Villanova and Georgetown. A road game at Seton Hall looms on March 6, and home games against Marquette and Georgetown won’t be easy.
“With what we can do offensively, our margin of error to win any game in this league moving forward, is very, very narrow if we’re not tough and defensive-minded,” said Hurley. “It’s gonna be tough sledding.”
There appears to be a good chance Bouknight is back for at least some of those games. Either way, the sledding will be a lot tougher in the Big East than in it was in the AAC.