Huskies’ confidence shouldn’t be shaken
For five games and about 51⁄2 minutes — 2051⁄2 minutes of basketball — UConn looked like not only the best team in the Big East but, to hear some talk, one of the very best in the country.
Gonzaga? Baylor? Illinois? Whatever. Once the Huskies got through rolling to a Big East tournament title, the Final Four could very well be their next destination, according to at least one veteran college hoops pundit.
Five straight wins by double digits completed UConn’s regular season, seven wins in eight games overall. James Bouknight and the rest of the team was healthy. The band was back together again.
The momentum continued with a 34-point rout of DePaul in a quarterfinal Big East tourney game that wasn’t even that close.
You could see a team clicking at just the right time, and feel its confidence. Hear it, too.
“To beat us,” Tyrese Martin said after the DePaul game, “you’re gonna have to do a lot of things. I don’t think there’s a team right now that can do that.”
Bouknight’s severe cramping was the only concern, but coach Dan Hurley didn’t seem overly worried. And sure enough, Bouknight was back in the starting lineup on Friday against Creighton. Looked good on a conventional 3-point play that helped stake the Huskies a 13-2 lead 51⁄2 minutes into the game.
UConn’s beat continued on.
Then, Creighton reminded us all that there are other good teams in college basketball. Other good teams in the Big East. The Bluejays reminded us that they had already defeated UConn twice in the regular season. They went out and did “a lot of things” — namely rebound, tighten up their defense and hit a few big shots.
And just like that, the most highly-touted No. 3 seed in Big East tournament history had lost for the first time in nearly three weeks.
Clearly, the Huskies felt this was their tournament. Awaiting in the championship game was Georgetown, a team UConn had already defeated twice, including a convincing 16-point win a week earlier.
UConn oozed confidence. Not cockiness. There was nothing fake about the Huskies’ bravado. They had earned the right to be confident, and the national praise they were getting — everyone from Donny Marshall to Donny Osmond seemed to pick them to win the Big East — probably contributed.
“We used that as fuel,” Creighton’s Damien Jefferson noted.
UConn lost. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing for this team. Not that a teary-eyed R.J. Cole or Isaiah Whaley or anyone else in a “crushed” locker room wanted to hear that. Hurley either. No coach worth his salt ever believes in a “good loss.”
The loss shouldn’t ease the Huskies’ confidence, but it could serve to show them that if they don’t bring their ‘A’ game every night in Indiana, where this year’s NCAA tournament will be held, their season could be over in a New York minute.
“This one stings,” Hurley said late Friday night. “But this is what the opening game is gonna feel like next week. I think as a program, we needed to experience the tension and intensity of a high-level game in March. We hadn’t been in one of those in years.”
SELECT COMPANY
As recommended by the NCAA, UConn is remaining in New York through Sunday’s Selection Show and will fly to Indiana either Sunday night or, more likely, Monday morning.
So what awaits the Huskies on Sunday? An NCAA tourney invite for the first time in six years is certain, but what seed will the Huskies get? A six seed? That’s what CBSSports.com’s Jerry Palm says. An eight seed? That’s what ESPN’s Joe Lunardi says. Maybe a seven? Maybe a nine?
Hard to say. Let’s be honest, while the Huskies’ team sheet looks pretty good (No. 30 NET, No. 18 KenPom, No. 15 BPI), the Huskies went just 1-4 against teams in the NET Top 30 and 0-5 against the other three top finishers in the Big East (the three losses to Creighton marked the first time UConn’s lost to an opponent three times in a season since 2016-17 against
Cincinnati).
Husky fans will hope the Huskies can avoid an eight or nine seed, because that would mean, with a win, a likely bout with a No. 1 seed. Without question, the four likely No. 1 seeds — Gonzaga, Baylor, Illinois and, to a lesser degree, Michigan — have distanced themselves from the rest of the field.
But that’s all a bit overrated. If the Huskies truly want to be a Final Four team, there’s a good chance they’ll have to knock off one of those teams along the way at some point. Why not the second round?
UConn shouldn’t fear any team. No one is unbeatable (well, Gonzaga has been to this point, but still). Just look at all the higher seeds winning in New York this past week. Chaos has reigned throughout this COVID-19 season, and who doesn’t believe it will do so in Indiana?
So the Huskies will dry their eyes and feel good about themselves on Sunday when they learn their NCAA tournament fate. Who’ll be their first opponent? What will their seed be? Who cares. Bring ‘em on.
“We feel like we can play with anybody,” Hurley said on Friday, “and potentially beat anybody.”
R.J. Cole was left bloody and dazed. His face smacked the Madison Square Garden court, opening a gash above the eye, and he was stitched up backstage before making an emotional return to the sideline.
There was 4:30 remaining in Friday’s Big East Tournament semifinal, with UConn leading by three, when Cole departed. By the time he had embraced coach Dan Hurley with tears in his eyes, that famous horn had sounded and the Huskies’ pursuit of a conference championship had ended with a 59-56 loss.
These couple of midtown hours added up to a painful experience for UConn. The game was all one could want from a return to this Big East platform, all one could demand from a March night in Manhattan, two hours of gritty-notpretty basketball that is part of this league’s allure.
It was one of those rock fights, the term coaches often land on.
It hurts to play them, and it hurts when you don’t win them.
“I think inexperience with the program and inexperience with the team in a postseason game like that showed up in some critical spots,” Hurley said. “I just think as a program we needed to experience the tension and intensity of a high-leverage game in March. We haven't been in one of those in years.”
Hurley added, “They're a hair better than us.” Correct.
A habit after games like this is for players, coaches and impartial viewers to talk about one team wanting it more than the other. That’s almost always nonsense, of course, and nothing like that was uttered Friday.
No one wanted this more than UConn, which lost because of rebounding problems throughout and an inability to convert the tying basket as the final seconds ticked away.
No one wanted this more than Creighton, which won because of rebounding success throughout and an ability to piece together a final surge.
One team leaves crushed, one moves on elated. This is how March goes and this is how March feels. This is what being back in the Big East means and it’s something to embrace no matter the possibility for such acute disappointment.
UConn’s chances came apart after Cole went down and went away, gathering himself as his teammates tried to. Creighton finished on a 9-3 run, with UConn failing not once, not twice, but three times with three good looks on the game’s final possession.
James Bouknight missed a 3-pointer with 14 seconds left. Tyler Polley managed to knock the ball back to Bouknight, who this time missed a scoop in the lane. Isaiah Whaley came up with the offensive rebound and fed Polley for a 3 that was off the mark.
The horn sounded.
A hug was needed. Cole put his head on Hurley’s right shoulder.
Hurley held him and patted him on the head.
“He took a hell of a fall there,” Hurley said of Cole. “He’s a leader, the leader, our point guard. We were a little unsettled without him.”
Injured while attempting to score on a fastbreak, Cole will await word of UConn’s NCAA Tournament seeding while in concussion protocol. The Selection Show is Sunday. UConn, expected to remain in New York and travel straight to Indiana, will hear its name called for the first time since 2016.
Teams don’t come out of games like Friday’s unscathed, emotionally or physically. Come up short and you’re bounced from the Garden and something you’ve focused much of a season on — or in UConn’s case, seven years on — is over in heartbeat. Represent yourself the way the Huskies did in the league throughout the season, however, and you are rewarded.
Emotions emotions that were impossible to suppress Friday night in the locker room will fade with an embrace of the next opportunity as the Huskies spend the weekend resting and reflecting. UConn has now been in one more fight, a tough one, a valuable one. The Huskies remain every bit as capable as they were thought to be prior to facing Creighton, a hurdle the Huskies have yet to clear.
They lost to the Bluejays by two in overtime at home in December, a game in which Bouknight scored 40 points, a game prolonged because Cole missed two free throws with 11 seconds remaining in regulation. They lost by eight on the road in January, a game Bouknight missed while recovering from elbow surgery. And they lost again Friday, a late lead evaporating with Cole being treated.
Damien Jefferson quickly tied it at 53 with a 3-pointer. Christian Bishop scored inside to give Creighton the lead. Marcus Zegarowski, the player Cole had been guarding, scored to make it 57-53. UConn had no answer, or not enough — though not just in this final segment.
Adama Sanogo is a force when he’s not seated, as he was for the final 8:47 of the first half with foul trouble. Giving up 17 offensive rebounds, and getting outrebounded overall by 17, usually won’t cut it. Nor will a 4-for-14 shooting performance by your best player. Bouknight was hounded for much of the game by Denzel Mahoney, then Jefferson, and he finished with 14 points and eight rebounds in 33 minutes a night after being carried to the locker room with severe cramps. He’ll need to be better in Indiana.
Still, these teams went face to face in a game of swings in style and momentum. For stretches, the basketball moved like a pinball and it looked as much like Hockey East as the Big East. It was beautiful even when it was ugly, and it was there for the taking.
Creighton is just a hair better, as Hurley said.
“I think we wanted it so bad that we might have gotten in our own way,” he said. “And then again you lose your point guard. [If] they lose Zegarowski for the last four, five minutes, I'm not sure how it looks for them.”
The Big East Tournament was an experience.
Thursday was the perfect reintroduction, a 34-point blowout over DePaul that partnered well with the we’re-back fun of being good again and being in New York again.
Friday was a reminder of how little margin for error there is. It was possessionby-possession intensity, the kind of game that can leave players bloody or in tears, or both.
For UConn, it hurt. That’s OK. It should. It always will.
The Huskies were a little unfortunate, and a little off the mark.
“The pride feels like it's back,” Hurley said. “We have to clean up a couple of things up. And we're excited about next week. We feel like we can play with anybody and, potentially beat anybody.”