Hawkins struggles in semifinal loss

NEW YORK — Jordan Hawkins bent over and put his hands to his knees, remaining still as a statue on the court at Madison Square Garden until UConn men’s basketball coach Dan Hurley approached to console him.

Stunned and feeling responsible, Hawkins interlocked his hands atop his head and made his way down a tunnel, leaving the scene of the Huskies’ 7068 loss to Marquette in a Big East Tournament semifinal on Friday. He pulled his T-shirt up under his jersey to cover his face and walked slowly around a turn before entering the UConn locker room.

A half-hour later, Hawkins sat at his locker, still in uniform. He spoke softly.

“Just tried to get a shot up,” he said of doing what he could against an outstretched Kam Jones, just beyond the 3-point line, with time set to expire. Hawkins managed only an off-balance prayer, the ball coming down nowhere near the basket as the horn sounded and the backboard went red.

This was a brutally frustrating performance for Hawkins, who was 2for-11 from the field. He made one of his eight 3point attempts — his first one, essentially by accident, off the backboard. He scored just five points. And so he sat there at his locker afterward for a long time, dejected, barely breaking the silence of the room.

“I just wasn’t making shots,” Hawkins said. “They did nothing defensively to disrupt me. I just wasn’t myself. Wasn’t making shots.”

UConn’s final offensive set was a frantic mess. The Huskies took possession with 10 seconds remaining, a rebound by Adama Sanogo, and Hurley elected to let UConn try to score in transition instead of call timeout.

Tristen Newton controlled the ball on the perimeter. With time dwindling, his first options were to drive or look for Sanogo down low, if a screen could create a mismatch and if he could get a pass there. Plan B was to look for a shooter — such as Hawkins near the top of the key or Alex Karaban to the right. Newton passed to Hawkins. He had virtually no time. He had even less space. He had no look at a shot that he could expect to make.

There were others, though, so many others — from Hawkins and from Newton and from Joey Calcaterra, who had first walked down the tunnel. He used his jersey to cover his face.

Calcaterra had missed an open 3-pointer from the left with 5:12 to go, UConn trailing by three. Sanogo pulled UConn to 70-68 with 2:38 remaining and that was it, no more points by either team, time running out on UConn in a third consecutive semifinal loss. Calcaterra missed an open 3 from the left with 1:23 remaining, and another from the right with 41 seconds left.

“Good looks for me, they just didn’t go down,” Calcaterra said, sitting across from Hawkins in the locker room, hood over his head. “I’ve just got to hit one of those last three shots I took. That’s about it. The game was obviously going in our favor at that point. We had the momentum. Just a lack of shot-making at the end ultimately lost us the game. I just feel like I let the team down.”

Hawkins, Newton and Calcaterra combined to shoot 7-for-29 from the field, 3-for-17 on 3-pointers. Andre Jackson was basically non-factor, fouling out and finishing with two points. Karaban was 4-for-5 from the field, making both of his 3pointers, and Nahiem Alleyne was 4-for-8 of the bench, 2-for-4 on 3’s. The Huskies erased a 10-point deficit and a Calcaterra 3 tied it at 60, a fresh start with 9:26 left, but the lack of efficiency from so many guards over the long haul was too much to overcome.

This was a game Hawkins desperately wanted to own. It was the type of game a first-team All-Big East guard should make a heavy impact on. Hawkins tried. He was chased all over by Olivier-Maxence Prosper and never got going.

“That was the defensive key,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “I thought both teams missed some really good looks from 3 that could have swung the game either way. But I thought on Hawkins, O-Max Prosper, and whoever on our team, did a phenomenal job. We can beat UConn with their bigs scoring some 2s around the basket. We can win the game like we did tonight. I don’t know if we can beat them if Hawkins goes and makes five, six 3s, and Calcaterra and guys are making.”

These teams had met Feb. 7 in Hartford and UConn jumped all over the Golden Eagles, winning 87-72. Hawkins had a game-high 20 points that night and the Huskies had found themselves, escaping their January swoon.

Hawkins scored 20 points in four of five games, becoming the elite perimeter scorer in the

Big East, and UConn went on a February run into March and toward becoming the trendy pick to win this tournament. But the gunslingers, as Hurley calls the perimeter players who make UConn such a deep and dangerous and fun team, fired a lot of blanks Friday. Hawkins was 1-for-5 in the first half, 1-for-6 in the second.

“I mean, I liked the shots,” Hawkins said. “I liked the shots.”

Hawkins sat out the 2022 postseason with a head injury and made his Big East Tournament debut in Thursday’s quarterfinal victory over Providence, scoring 19 points.

He felt the thrill of the moment, the environment.

A night later, he felt the tight grip of it. He was hurting afterward.

“I’ve just got to keep my confidence,” said Hawkins, averaging 16.1 points. “I can’t let this break me. We can’t let this break us.”

It was still very quiet in the UConn locker room. Soon, though, it was filled with more chatter. Conversations started to address what’s next, the NCAA Tournament, and what could be more so than what had just taken place.

Jackson was to Hawkins’ left.

“He is somebody who has unshakable confidence,” Jackson said. “This moment is not going to define him and he’s going to push through it. We’re all going to follow suit. We’re going to lead each other, follow each other. We’re not going to let this be the end of this team. We love each other too much and we put in too much work to just let this be the end.”