‘Enjoy the moment’
Why UConn is relaxed ahead of opener vs. Iona
ALBANY, N.Y. — Prior to this year’s Big East Tournament, Dan Hurley vowed he would have his team more relaxed than it was the past couple of postseasons, leading to consecutive first-round NCAA tourney ousters.
How was Hurley going to accomplish that, he was asked?
“I’m working on it,” the UConn men’s basketball coach said with a smile.
He’s had over a week to figure it out and have the fourth-seeded Huskies feeling loose entering their NCAA first-round bout with 13-seed Iona on Friday (4:30 p.m., TBS). Has it worked?
“I’d say so,” freshman Alex Karaban said. “We’re really trying to enjoy the moment we’re in right now. We’ve worked hard for this moment. Coach made it clear it’s hard to make it to March Madness, so we’ve got to enjoy it and take it all in. And then when it’s game time, just show up and be ready to play.”
The past two seasons, UConn lost in the Big East Tournament semifinals, then couldn’t recover and got bumped from the Big Dance by Maryland (2021) and New Mexico State (2022). The 2021 was the bizarre COVID season, with the NCAA tourney played in a bubble, so throw that out for now. But last year’s upset loss to New Mexico State still stings.
For the third straight year, the Huskies were bounced from the Big East tourney semifinals, this time by eventual champion Marquette.
“We woke up and watched the film of that game, we were like, ‘We’re going to leave the City of New York, move on from it. This week we’ll focus on Iona and not the Marquette game,’ ” freshman Donovan Clingan reported. “I feel like everyone forgot about that game and moved on from that tournament.”
UConn simply has to bounce back this time to avoid a third consecutive early NCAA tourney ouster. Hurley is confident the Huskies will.
“I think, No. 1 one, we have the best team we’ve had,” the coach said of his 25-8 Huskies. “We’ve played to the quality of a top-10 team this year, over
all body of work. Obviously, at the high end, we’ve probably played as well as anybody in the country.”
And so, Hurley “worked on” making this a looser bunch this time around.
“The message with the group is just play to your identity, be who we have been the whole year,” the fifth-year coach said. “We don’t need an extraordinary performance. We don’t need a Kemba (Walker) moment from anyone. We’ve got a deep team, we’ve got a strong team. Enjoy the practice, enjoy the media, enjoy everything that comes along with this, being invited to this exclusive tournament.”
Of course, the likely impeccably-dressed man in the opposing coaches’ box won’t make anyone coaching, playing or rooting for UConn too comfortable. Rick Pitino, the Hall of Famer who’s won national titles with Kentucky and Louisville, took over the Gaels three years ago and has them in the Big Dance for the second time. Iona (27-7) has won 14 straight games.
“It’s anybody’s ballgame,” Pitino said. “We’ve got great respect for Connecticut. They’re not a four-seed, I think we all know who have watched them, they could go to a Final Four and win a national championship. They’re so deep, they’re so talented. And we’re a pretty good team, as well.”
Hurley said he doesn’t believe the Pitino factor will make his team more edgy.
“I would say probably the opposite,” he said. “Just because Coach Pitino is involved, it’s taken some attention from maybe our performance last year versus New Mexico State. I just think our mentality right now: Enjoy the leadup to the Selection Show, enjoy the opportunity to be in this incredible sporting event. It’s one of the biggest sporting events our country has to offer, along with the Olympics and the Super Bowl, right? And just stick to our identity.”
“I think everyone in the room realizes they could go to a Final Four,” Pitino said of the Huskies. “They’re good enough to do that because they’re deep, they’re fundamentally very good at what they do. They shoot the ball really well. Their bench is outstanding, they’re very good defensively. Even the games they’ve lost, they’ve been flat-out great games. I think they’ve only had one game where they really played poorly. But outside of that, their losses are close, hard-fought, Big East games. So, they’re physically very talented. The team was put together very well.”
Hurley won first-round games at Rhode Island in 2017 and 2018, the first time that school had accomplished that in 20 years. But he admits he feels pressure to win a firstround game at UConn for the first time.
“You feel pressure, but you feel pressure the whole year,” he said. “You feel pressure when you lose at Providence and you’ve got Providence coming to your campus and you have to win that game. You feel pressure when you go play at Xavier, at Providence, you lose two games in a row and now you play Creighton, who’s beaten you five straight times since you’ve been in the league
“This is a pressure business. I’m fortunate that the way I was raised, my upbringing in the game, I’ve been around this my whole life. I’ve existed in this world. I’ve been engineered to experience this since I was a little kid. You know what’s on the line. you want to honor the season we’ve had. I think probably the most pressure comes from knowing that you have a team that potentially can do some special things this month.”
Rim rattlings
• Clingan, who has had his front tooth knocked out twice this season, is sporting a shiner under his right eye after getting hit during the Huskies’ Big East tourney quarterfinal win over Providence.
“I’m a mess,” the Bristol 7-footer quipped.
• UConn took a bus from campus to Albany, about a three-hour ride. They broke it up with a stop for dinner at Capital Grille in Hartford.