The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Huskies final chance to win at Tulsa
TULSA — UConn’s Farewell Tour of the American Athletic Conference isn’t comparable to such tours by the Who, Kiss or the Eagles.
When the Huskies say goodbye to the AAC, they mean it. They are never coming back.
One place UConn likely won’t miss at all when it returns to the Big East next season is the Reynolds Center, which the Huskies visit for the final time on
Thursday (7 p.m., ESPN2) against Tulsa. The Reynolds Center is one of four buildings in which the Huskies have never won during their time in the AAC, joining Cincinnati’s Fifth Third Arena and Wichita State’s Koch Arena (both of which UConn will ever again visit, at least as an AAC rival) and SMU’s Moody Coliseum (where the Huskies pay their final visit next week).
While UConn (11-10, 2-6 AAC) has struggled on the road just about wherever its played in recent seasons, its 0-5 record at the Reynolds Center is perhaps the most perplexing. The Huskies have lost in the building in years they were an NCAA tournament team (2016), an NIT team (2015) and a sub-.500 team (2018, 2019). They’ve lost in overtime and double overtime. Last year, they lost after both head coaches — Dan Hurley and Frak Haith — were ejected from the game in the first half.
The building is usually only half-filled, so it’s not exactly a hostile environment. It may be a different story on Thursday, however. Tulsa (15-6, 7-1 AAC) is in the midst of its best season in years, sitting atop the league standings and receiving votes in the AP Top 25 poll.
The Golden Hurricane has defeated arguably the three most talented teams in the league — Memphis (by 40 points), Wichita State and No. 25 Houston — over the last few weeks at the Reynolds Center, where
it is 11-1 overall. Tulsa also has already defeated UConn, a 79-75 overtime win in Hartford 10 days ago, in which the Golden Hurricane went 5-for-5 from the floor and 8-for-10 from the foul line in the extra period.
“We definitely should have won that game,” said freshman point gaurd Jalen Gaffney.
In fact, Tulsa has won its last five meetings — home
or away — against the Huskies, by a combined 16 points.
Gaffney took over for fourth-year veteran point gaurd Alterique Gilbert for much of the second half and all of overtime in that Jan. 26 game at the XL Center and helped steer the Huskies’ near-comeback. Gilbert missed the next game — a win over Temple — for personal reasons, and returned for Saturday’s 70-63 loss to Memphis coming off the bench for the first time this season.
Gilbert played well (10 points on 4-for-8 shooting), but committed a pair of key turnovers late in the game — a bugaboo of his all season. Hurley wouldn’t commit to how he plans to use Gilbert moving forward, saying only that “we’re going day-to-day here.”
Meanwhile, Gaffney struggled against Memphis in his second collegiate start, failing to score a point or dole out a single assist. That performance, coupled with Gilbert’s strong game, highlighted a common theme for the Huskies — an inability to get four or five players playing well at the same time.
“We just have a hard time being consistent,” said Gaffney. “Especially me. I’ll have a good game, and the next game, I play bad. If we had more consistency with our players, we’d definitely beat a bunch of these teams in our conference.”
UConn gets one final chance at Tulsa in the Reynolds Center on Thursday night.