Making a statement
No. 21 Huskies get their ‘mojo back’ with win over No. 10 Marquette
HARTFORD — There was 4:25 remaining in Tuesday night’s game, which felt like a reintroduction, when the XL Center crowd rose to its feet, giving the UConn men’s basketball team a standing ovation.
Everyone was still in the building, no one was in their seats and college basketball had reemerged with great velocity as something a downtown crowd could pound its chest about.
If the Huskies had started clawing at a wall of hibernation during recent road victories over DePaul and Georgetown, they burst through that wall with a foaming-atthe-mouth approach that led to an 87-72 victory over No. 10 Marquette.
This might have been UConn’s best performance of the season.
It was likely UConn’s most important victory of the season.
It was emphatic, all over from the get-go. The Huskies were never more ready to play a game and jumped the Golden Eagles and dunked them like a little kid in the pool. The team’s wayward streak, six losses in eight games that left fans to fret, is enough in the rearview to be less than anything defining and just another part of the 2022-23 fabric.
There is nothing wrong with UConn’s body of work. But well into February, with just six regular season games remaining, momentum is nearly as important as a resume. The Huskies on Tuesday showed the pluck and bravado of their 14-0 start, the confidence and commitment that was just out of reach long enough for one to wonder about the true nature of this team’s identity and potential.
“We should have just spread out our losses more,” coach Dan Hurley said. “What college team doesn’t go through a difficult stretch during the season? I don’t think the schedule lined up great for us. We played a series of road games in places that are incredibly hard.
“I just think, in general, teams go through tough stretches through the course of the season. The bottom line is we’re 19-6, we’ve beaten some of the best teams in the country.” Of course.
But tanks of emotion and expectation are filled and emptied with the ebb and flow of these long seasons and, four weeks from a Big East Tournament game at Madison Square
Garden, five weeks from an NCAA Tournament opener, there isn’t an absurd amount of time to start feeling really good again.
And now UConn feels really good again.
So the fans rose with 4:25 left, as Nahiem Alleyne pushed the lead back to 20, where it hovered most of the game, on a 3-point play. With just over 1:30 remaining, Hurley walked the sideline and egged on the crowd again, waving his arms, slapping the scorer’s table. The first half might have been the best UConn had played all season and there wasn’t a concern in the second, either. It was beautiful basketball, tough and smooth. Marquette was rendered helpless.
“Not a lot of teams come in here and win tonight, the way that UConn was,” Marquette coach Shaka Smart said. “In my opinion, they played just like they were playing when they were 14-0 and No. 2 in the country.
“There are spiritual and cultural elements of who you are as a team that go into being your best and they clearly had that going for them, maybe more so than when they lost a few games during that stretch. I’ve always felt all year watching them, they have as talented a team as there is in our league, as well-coached a team, as good of a system, as many guys that create problems and issues for you.”
Problems: Tristen Newton joined Shabazz Napier as the second UConn player to have two career triple-doubles, and the first to have two in one season, finishing with 12 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds. Jordan Hawkins stroked in 20 points, making five of eight 3-pointers.
Issues: Adama Sanogo was dominant with 18 points and seven rebounds on 8-for-14 shooting. Alleyne had 13 points off the bench, matching Alex Karaban’s scoring total.
The first-half defense set up everything. It was suffocating. Marquette was reduced to a lot of 1on-1 play. UConn owned the glass, with a 48-24 rebounding edge, overall. The Golden Eagles (19-6, 11-3) had won five in a row and 10 of 11, including an 82-76 victory over UConn Jan. 11 in Milwaukee. This time, the Huskies put them in early holes of 3212 and 42-22.
“We’re working our way back,” Hawkins said. “Today was a really big step. … I mean, we won two or three games in January (a 3-5 record). It was definitely a tough stretch. It’s definitely going to shift your confidence, but you’ve got to just stay the course, trust the process. That’s what we did and that’s what we’re going to continue to do during this last stretch, and get ready for the playoffs.”
UConn is in a fine place.
If the Huskies didn’t put up a bizarre stinker against St. John’s, or drop the ball late in a loss at Seton Hall, they would be 21-4 and really sitting pretty, on the cusp of the national rankings’ top 10 and not the top 20. That’s how those games shook out, though, and no matter the team’s capability or belief, some questions have surrounded it since the New Year, some doubt had percolated.
UConn went 11-0 in non-conference play. The Huskies won at Florida, beat Alabama in Oregon. The victory over Creighton in Big East play was solid, too. There are major bullet points on that resume.
Still, a week into February, it was healthy for the Huskies to find something it appeared to have left behind, back in 2022. They clobbered a good team. They have emerged from their hibernation and reintroduced themselves to fans who could pound their chest for a full two hours Tuesday night.
“I’ve reminded our team that we’ve gone through our bad stretch that every team in the country goes through,” Hurley said. “Because of the incredible start, ours was maybe a little bit more extended, that bad stretch, but we have a chance here in the last six games ... to get that mojo back, get that confidence back, start feeling really good about ourselves heading into tournament play. I just think we’re built for tournament play. We proved it earlier in the year and, we just want to get that mojo back.”