Huskies hope to leave PK80 on a high note

PORTLAND, Ore. — After playing late games on consecutive nights, on the heels of a 3,000-mile flight out west, Kevin Ollie decided not to practice on Saturday. The U Conn coach wanted to give his team a day off of their feet.

The Huskies will need the rest, considering their next opponent.

U Conn (4-1) will face Arkansas on Sunday (3:30 p.m., ESPN) in the thirdplace game of the PK80 Invitational’s Victory Bracket. While the Razorbacks might not employ the vaunted “40 Minutes of Hell” that Nolan Richardson mastered in their back-to-back trips to the national championship game in the mid-90’s, they are a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Head coach Mike Anderson loves to move the ball up the floor and cause havoc with fullcourt pressure.

“They’re gonna try to speed up the game with different pressure packages,” Ollie noted, shortly after U Conn’s 77-57 loss to No. 4 Michigan State in the wee hours of Saturday morning. “We’re gonna have to have point guards with

steady minds who make the right plays, get us in our offense, get our type of shots. We can’t just settle.”

Indeed, that’s something Ollie felt the Huskies did a little too much of against the Spartans, particularly in the second half, when Michigan State turned a close game into a blowout. At times, UConn appeared to be a little too content with oneon-one “street ball,” rather than kicking the ball out to open shooters on the wing.

“I thought we settled (Friday) too much, with their defense packed in, instead of us moving the ball and having a real chance,” Ollie said. “We have to make sure we learn from it, go in Sunday playing our type of basketball.”

Arkansas (4-1) beat Oklahoma 92-83 in its PK80 opener before falling to No. 9 North Carolina 87-68 on Friday.

Of course, Arkansas’s run-and-gun style might be just what the doctor ordered for a UConn team that wants to run but hasn’t been overly successful at it so far this season.

“They want to speed you up, so we’ve got to have great point guard play,” Ollie continued. “We’ve got to get our assist-to-turnover ratio up. We’re upsidedown, big-time.”

The Huskies had just four assists against 10 turn- overs in their tournamentopening win over Oregon on Thanksgiving Night. It was worse against Michigan State, where UConn had six assists and 13 turnovers.

It’s a surprisingly important, early-season game for the Huskies. A win and UConn leaves town 2-1 for the tourney, with wins over a pair of Power Five, potential NCAA tournament programs and a loss to a national championship contender.

A loss, however, and the Huskies head home without as much of a resume-building, RPI boost as they had hoped.

“I think we’ll learn from this, we’re gonna get better,” Ollie said after the loss to Michigan State. “Hopefully, Sunday, we come out with a victory and end this trip on a high note.”

david.borges@hearstmediact.com