Questions still abound
After 2 wins, what do we know about UConn?
STORRS — After having studied UConn on video and been given the live empirical evidence of a 69-57 loss Friday night at Gampel Pavilion, Hartford coach John Gallagher came right out and proclaimed the Huskies the most athletic team in the Big East.
“It’s not even close,” Gallagher said.
This certainly doesn’t mean UConn is the best team in the Big East Conference. Dan Hurley would peel the paint off walls and knock down doors to reinforce that point. In fact, he made a stern point in the postgame locker room to his best player, James Bouknight, that he needs to play 40 sustained minutes if the Huskies are going to get anywhere near where they want to go.
“It’s really humbling how far we have to go, watching Villanova last night and Seton Hall today,” Hurley said. “The better teams in our conference, they don’t put 40 minutes of this type of undisciplined play on the court. I’ve got a lot to get fixed before (the Big East opener) Dec. 11.”
Virtually no fans, two in-state opponents, a college basketball world enduring the daily schedule hiccups of COVID-19 — the 27point win over Central Connecticut and the 12-point victory over Hartford felt much more like October scrimmages. We’re stuck somewhere between Hopeville and Muchworktodoville on the way to Bubbleville without much of a road map.
We’ve got Jim Boeheim moaning after a one-point Syracuse victory that he should never have played Bryant coming off a COVID pause. Yet we’ve got Seton Hall, coming off the same shutdown, traveling to Louisville and coming within one free throw with .7 seconds left of forcing overtime. These are baffling times. We don’t even know how many of the three games at Mohegan this coming week UConn will play — that news should come Saturday or Sunday.
Hurley came out of the opener Wednesday following a 14-day COVID pause calling his defense brutal and for a mandated full week of practice after COVID stoppages. Then he gave his team a mulligan. There were matters such as three-point closeouts where the Huskies were notably improved on defense, but there was sloppy defending, too, that led to a minus 13point discrepancy at the free-throw line.
Hurley came out of Game 2 bemoaning his team’s immaturity. He must have used the term a half-dozen times … “Incredibly immature” the final 23 minutes in not building on a 19-point lead. “Immaturity at its highest level.” He admitted to complaining a lot to the refs about the number of UConn fouls because, in truth, he was “frustrated by his team’s immaturity.”
Gallagher, who sat 6-foot-10 Miroslav Stafl for disciplinary reasons, managed to keep it close by switching a 1-3-1 zone and man-to man and getting 24 points from Moses Flowers. The Hawks, down 24-7 early, were only down three with under 14 minutes remaining.
Gallagher is a man of interesting observations. In studying Huskies games from last year, he said, if you can get them to take 20-25 tough 2-point shots in a game, they’re going to have a hard night.
He also said, “(The Big East) is not an athletic league. That’s a below-the-rim league. If you watch a lot of basketball, UConn is the most athletic team, one of the best defensive teams in the league. I think they’re going to contend right now. That’s what I told Danny after the game.
“If you’re circling two guys to win the Big East, it comes down to R.J. Cole and Tyrese Martin in my opinion. They’re the X-factors. Because in that league, you’re going to have to go small in a lot of the games. Martin is going to have to slide to the 4.”
After serving a one-game suspension for playing in an unsanctioned summer league game, Martin looked all of his 6-6, 215 pounds in his debut. He had 10 rebounds in addition to six points in 25 minutes. After scoring 17 points in the opener and with Hurley looking for him to find more ways to distribute the ball, Cole had 10 points — some keys ones in the second half — but played only 22 minutes because of foul trouble. His fourth foul with 10:34 left did not please Hurley.
“Sixty feet from the basket,” Hurley said. “R.J.’s foul trouble obviously affected the offensive end. He’s going to be the engine for us. We need him to be a quarterback.
“Tyrese isn’t a very vocal guy, but he plays with force. He has a physical presence on the glass. All he talked about in the pregame was 10 rebounds. His role is going to expand. He played 25 minutes tonight. R.J. and Tyrese are guys that need to play closer to the 30-minute-plus range, and we’ll get them there.”
Tyler Polley was scoreless and in foul trouble from the start. Brendan Adams shot 1 for 7. Andre Jackson immediately got into foul trouble off the bench and was scoreless in only 5:35. Freshman Adama Sanogo again had eight points in 11 minutes and continued to show inside power. Josh Carlton never got off the bench.
You see the help Martin can give inside and outside and, along with Cole, what the two experienced transfers can bring.
“If Tyrese got a two game-suspension from the NCAA instead of one, it might have been a bang-bang game at the end,” Hurley said. “He was a difference maker.
“Bouknight and ( Jalen) Gaffney need those kind of guys out there, because they’re still young guys. They’ve got a little bit more muscle; Bouknight in that first half looked dynamic. To end that game with 18 points and have the defensive issue he has, we’re not going to get to where we want to get to with that. He wants the burden. He can handle the burden. He has got to improve his focus and his intensity.”
Bouknight had 16 points in the first half, and at one point it was all his show. He can score from all three levels and he was doing it. He was on his way to score 30 in a 30-point win.
Then he didn’t. And UConn didn’t. “He had a brilliant start,” Hurley said. “He lost concentration. He lost focus. That’s a game that if you want to be that guy as a sophomore at UConn, that’s probably a 34-point game tonight. I just think he relaxed and lost focus and concentration.
“We’re going to coach the hell out of him. He wants to be that guy. We all want him to be that guy this year. We were very hard on him in the postgame. We’re going to be very hard on him the next couple of days about playing a full 40-minute game. Realistically, he played in spurts again. If you want to be the guy that can carry a team competing toward the top of the Big East, you’ve got to play a full 40.”
Especially, Hurley said, after getting a glimpse of Villanova and Seton Hall. And, of course, there’s Creighton. And Providence.
“There are some monsters waiting for us in this league,” Hurley said. “And if (Bouknight) shows up like this, it’s not going to go the way we planned this thing to go.”