The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
‘Desperate’ Huskies chasing first AAC win
STORRS — Maybe UConn isn’t going anywhere this season.
Maybe the Huskies are primed to get back on track and make a run toward relevance.
Either way, it would behoove UConn to beat SMU on Thursday when the teams clash at Gampel Pavilion (7 p.m., CBS Sports Network).
A loss would drop the Huskies to 0-3 in the American Athletic Conference. That’s not unprecedented — UConn lost its first three league games two seasons ago.
However, UConn plays at Cincinnati two nights later. The Bearcats have beaten the Huskies five straight times and haven’t lost to them at home since 2011. An 0-4 start in league play would be unprecedented — at least since UConn joined the Big East in 1979.
And four days after that,
the Huskies are at Tulsa, where they’ve never won. So ...
“Desperate, hungry, terms like that,” Jalen Adams said after practice on Wednesday, “that’s the attitude we have to have to pull out a win against a good SMU team. We need this win, just to build our confidence up. It’ll be great to start this road trip to Cincinnati, because everybody knows what type of game it’s gonna be when you go to play Cincinnati at their home gym.”
UConn (9-5 overall), squandered a 13-point lead at lowly South Florida in its AAC opener a week ago, then played better but lost by a dozen to preseason league-favorite UCF on Saturday. Adams is the team’s leading scorer, but he’s also been somewhat of a lightning-rod for criticism for not stepping up in crunch time, not playing hard enough, you name it.
Dan Hurley has seen an improvement in attitude from Adams — and the entire team — over the past few days.
“The way we’ve all handled the failure of last week, I think, has been a really positive step,” the UConn head coach said. “I’m hopeful you’re gonna see a really good performance from (Adams on Thursday), and a really hungry, desperate team.”
SMU (10-4, 2-0) has gotten off to a perfect start in league play — albeit against two of the AAC’s perennial also-rans, ECU and Tulane. The Mustangs have won eight of their last nine games, buoyed by the return of senior swingman Jarrey Foster, who returned to action in late November after ACL surgery ended his 2017-18 season two months early.
SMU is methodical with the ball, “the offensive version of Central Florida’s defense,” according to Hurley. The Mustangs are 8-3 against UConn since the AAC’s inception six seasons ago and have won four of the last five meetings, including last year’s AAC tournament first-round game.
That was a game Adams and the Huskies would like to forget. Adams and Terry Larrier nearly weren’t able to play until resolving an issue with the NCAA involving improper workouts the previous summer. Adams finally joined the pregame warm-ups just a few minutes prior to tip-off, then went out and shot 3-for-11 for six points in an 80-73 loss that ended UConn’s season and, ultimately, Kevin Ollie’s tenure as the Huskies’ head coach.