New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Garden party
UConn ready to start Big East Tournament at MSG
NEW YORK — Dan Hurley famously has his student-managers carry around a cutout image of whatever trophy the UConn men’s basketball team is aiming for.
Formuch of the season, it was a picture of the Big East regular-season trophy. But a poor January bouncedUConn from regular-season title contention last month.
“We punted the regular season one as soon as we got eliminated,” Hurley said. “We trashed it, destroyed that thing.”
Now, they’re carrying a new one around: the Big East Tournament championship trophy.
Hurley has stated that theHuskies’ goal this season was to win four trophies: PK Invitational, Big East regular season, Big East tournament and NCAA Tournament.
The Huskies won the PK Invitational over Thanksgiving weekend with impressive ease. They came up short for the regular season trophy. Now, comes the Big East Tournament, where the fourth-seeded Huskies face fifth-seeded Providence on Thursday (2:30 p.m., FS1).
“It’s the ultimate goal,” Hurley said. “Obviously, I don’t think anyone’s safe in the quarterfinals of this one. Especially when you didn’t get a top-3 seed and you knew you’d be in the 4-5 game. You knew that you were playing a bigtime game, that in a lot of years would have been a semifinal game instead of a 4-5 game. Our goal is to win this thing. But we’ve got to be at our best on Thursday to even get a sniff of Friday.”
UConn (24-7) is playing about as well as it has since its 14-0 start in November/December. The Huskies have won five straight and eight of their last nine games after a January stretch that saw them lose six of eight.
Providence (21-10) is going in the opposite direction. After going unbeaten at home for nearly two years, the Friars dropped their last two games of the regular season, both at home, including an 82-59 beatdownby SetonHall in their regular-season finale on Saturday. PC has gone 4-5 since Feb. 1, and an NCAA Tournament bid that seemed certain
two weeks ago suddenly seems precarious.
“They went through a little bit of what we went through,” Hurley said. “When you’re not playing well, you’re going to lose in this league.”
But Hurley also knows that the postseason represents a “fresh start.”
“It’s a reset that you get going to the Big East Tournament, playing in New York City. That new life that you get when you end the regular season and you’ve got to get rejuvenated. We know we’re going to see the best version of them, hopefully they see the best version of us.”
The border rivals split their two regular-season battles: a 73-61 Friar win on Jan. 4 inProvidence, an 87-69, Senior Day rout by UConn on Feb. 22 at Gampel Pavilion. In the latter, the Huskies shot 53.3% from the floor and pounded the Friars on the boards, 40-20 — even if PCcoachEdCooley creditedGampel’s $2 beer night
In fact, PC’s defense has been the prime reason for its late-season swoon, allowing three of its final four foes to score 82 points or more.
“I’m sure Ed is all over them,” Hurley said. “With the rebounding, we’ve preached just how hard they’re going to go to the backboard. I’m sure he’s reminding them of the rebounding in our game. They’ve got very prideful players, very old players, especially (Ed) Croswell, ( Jared) Bynum. A lot of pride ... They’ve got older guys that are going to have a lot of pride, and they’ve played great most of the year. They’re in a bad stretch, but we know we’ve got to be at our best.”
TheHuskies and Friars haveamped up their rivalry in recent years, for a variety of reasons. On Thursday afternoon, in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals at the World’s Most Famous Arena, they meet again.
“I remember watching these games on TVand I’d be like, ‘Wow, this is so cool. Wish I could be there someday,’ ” freshman center Donovan Clingan said. “Now ... I’ll be there. I can’t wait. I’m looking forward to playing Providence, a very good team.”
Added Hurley: “It’s one of the best days of college basketball.”
RIM RATTLINGS
The saga of Clingan’s front tooth continues. The 7-foot-2 Bristol product had his tooth knocked out in a win over Georgetown just before Christmas. He had it replaced with a temporary cap, but that got knocked out during warm-ups prior to a recent game. Clingan had another replacement put in on Sunday evening, and he’ll be rocking that one until he can get an implant when the season is over.
“Hockey player,” Dan Hurley quipped. “HartfordWhaler.”
Clingan also turned his ankle in the waning minutes of Saturday night’s win at Villanova. He sat out of a couple of practices this week, but should be good to go on Thursday afternoon.
“It’sMarch, so you have no choice,” Clingan said, with a toothy smile. “I’ll be good.”