For the peaking Huskies, anything seems possible in March
After all the ups and downs and myriad complexities of a strange season that funneled the UConn men’s basketball team this point, what took place Saturday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion could be appreciated for a few simple facts and feelings.
It was a heck of a lot of fun for starving fans. It was UConn demolishing Georgetown, 98-82. It was the Huskies of March 6, 2021, looking like the Hoyas of 1983-84 — tough and quick, overwhelming, and efficient, playing like a team that had gelled in ability and mindset. UConn, from the tip, was not screwing around.
All this talk about NCAA Tournament possibilities of late and suddenly the conversation surrounding the Huskies is more about bubbly, in a sense, than any bubble. Not that Dan Hurley or any of-age players accomplished something to warrant a Saturday night champagne toast, but from noon-2 p.m. the team did resemble something that had been bottled up and shaking only to pop and loudly reintroduce itself to the most meaningful March basketball in a way no one can overlook.
“Finish, finish, finish, finish, finish,” Hurley kept saying in advance of this
game, the regular season finale. “Finish, finish, finish.”
Then the Huskies finished a job so emphatically that Saturday actually took on the feel of a start to something.
It’s off to New York now, Madison Square Garden, the Big East Tournament. No matter how UConn performs, the team is expected to remain in New York throughout Selection Sunday and then head to directly to Indiana for the NCAA Tournament.
What can be accomplished in Manhattan? On the national stage?
Anything, the team’s play of late, and Saturday in particular, would suggest.
That’s the feeling now. That’s the sentiment among those so emotionally invested across the state. These are high times with a team peaking when it must. UConn fans, once used to this but recently deprived, can feel the madness of March. There’s no suffocation. Just opportunity. A team with a certain bravado. A coach who will push for more in the big city and beyond.
“We’ve got to have good preparation and not drink the Kool-Aid, because we’ve gone from, ‘Is this a bubble team?’ to now all of the sudden, I think, a Final Four sleeper,” Hurley said.
“So, just don’t drink the Kool-Aid. We have a chip on our shoulder. People haven’t praised a lot of our season. We’ve had a lot of detractors. And I love that. We’ve got a chip on our shoulder, and a real edge to us over the next couple of weeks, and that’s our mentality.”
UConn fans don’t have to drink Kool-Aid. They’re chugging hot sauce. That Hurley won’t join in much of a celebration with so much opportunity and work remaining should only make everyone else feel even better about what could take place from here.
The Huskies are relishing the chance to show what they’re made of. They will be particularly motivated for the way Hurley plans to approach the coming days and weeks.
“We’re a sexy pick to
make a big run here in March when no one thought we were any good not too long ago,” Hurley said. “I’m going to keep these guys on edge. I’m going to remind them. Maybe I need to show them some old social media posts, people destroying us when we were at our lowest point. I’m going to have these guys revved up for Thursday, I can guarantee you that.”
He had them revved up Saturday. UConn led by as many as 29. James Bouknight, who led six players in double figures with 21 points, scored 11 early with three 3-pointers and a dunk. The fight was over right after it started. The Huskies were relentless on defense and on the glass. The fastbreak was dynamic. The post players were tough.
“I just think everybody
has one common goal and everybody is on the same page right now,” Jalen Gaffney said. “We’re clicking on all cylinders.”
The score was 51-29 at halftime after one of the best stretches of UConn basketball in years. The Hoyas, a decent team that had won four of five, were blasted. Had the building been stuffed with fans, the energy would have shaken the CBS cameras.
It’s been a year since that sort of scene, of course. It was 366 days prior, on March 5, 2020, when UConn closed Gampel before a sold-out crowd of 10,167 with a 77-71 victory over Houston. It was the team’s third victory in a row, and another came three days later at Tulane to close the regular season.
UConn was ready to flex its muscle at the AAC Tournament
in Fort Worth, Texas. That was canceled, of course, and so was the NCAA Tournament, among the first plugs pulled in the sports world as the nation wrapped its mind around a pandemic.
The Huskies weren’t able to show what they had become and/or could become.
Now, they can. They are in a better conference, for sure. And they are a better team, for sure. UConn, in fact, is better than it has been in quite a long time, probably as good as needed to make more of March a heck of a lot of fun.
“Next week is going to be completely different,” Hurley said. “These games, you don’t start [leading] 10-0 in the quarters because we’ve come in playing well. [And] to win a game or games in the NCAA Tournament you have got to maintain a very high level of play.”
There’s no guarantee that UConn will.
But the Huskies have shown they’re at least capable of reaching the level required to make anything possible. It’s been a while. True NCAA Tournament hopes were as empty in 2017-20 as Gampel Pavilion was in 2020-21.
“This year, we know it’s the year,” Bouknight said. “We’re just so confident. In practice we just talk about it. We know we have a special team and we can actually make something happen this year. We can actually make some noise and be back at that big brand-name school.”