Things about to get real for UConn

HARTFORD — There was an ease and certainty to this Sunday afternoon, an ease and certainty that ended as soon as the UConn basketball team’s bus pulled out of the XL Center following its 6947 victory over NJIT.

An ease and certainty that ended with one glance at the upcoming AAC schedule: At Cincinnati, Wednesday night, New Year’s Night.

We play for real now.

Not to diminish the Highlanders, but it was no real surprise that the Hartford crowd, a stout 10,507 for this final nonconference “buy” game, had called for walkon Matt Garry to enter the game. Yes, it was surprising the fans started chanting his name with a full 10 minutes left, and it grew throughout the entire building, but, hey, Garry is the pride of Southington and St. Paul High School in Bristol. The fans were happy there was no scent of an upset and went nuts when he did enter with 2:34 left.

“I thought maybe Ray Allen or Kemba (Walker) was at the game and they stood up and got an ovation,” Hurley said after his team improved to 93.

“Matt got some love today,” said Christian Vital after he had led the Huskies with 23 points. “I don’t know what he was thinking at the free throw line.”

He missed all four of his foul shots.

“They (the cheering fans) didn’t help his cause with that,” Hurley said. “He had no shot. He was hyperventilating.”

Hurley said his resolutions for New Year’s is to drink less coffee, get to bed earlier and curse less. That may or may not make for a less nervous coach, but he swears one emotion is gone from last year when the Huskies entered conference play.

“I’m less scared,” Hurley said. “I’m nervous, I’m not scared though. Last year, I was scared.”

“We can be better offensively,”

said Alterique Gilbert. “But I like where we’re at going into conference play this year. It’s definitely important (to have a good start). I remember last year we dropped the first one in South Florida and it put us in a bad place mentally.”

UConn finished 612 in the AAC, tied for ninth last season, and 612, tied for ninth, isn’t going to cut it this season.

Hurley knows it. Everyone knows it.

Akok Akok, James Bouknight and Jalen Gaffney have brought an infusion of talent. Everyone else, Hurley said, is a better version of themselves.

Memphis, Wichita State and Houston are seen as ahead of UConn heading into conference play. Beyond that UConn, Temple, Cincinnati and SMU are in the next batch. There’s nothing to stop the Huskies from finishing at least fourth. There’s nothing from stopping them from jumping right on the NCAA Tournament bubble.

“I think we have a chance,” Vital said. “I believe we had a chance last year. We lost Jalen Adams for like a month and Alterique as well. This team is the deepest one I’ve been on since the summer I got here my freshman year.” Hurley puts it bluntly. “We are just much more a team,” he said. “The program, the culture, it’s a real thing. The character of our team is a lot stronger. We’re a lot tougher. You take away that St. Joe’s game (the 9687 Gampel stinkbomb Nov. 13), we’re obviously in a very different place.

“We’ve been very, very toughminded, competitive, determined. We haven’t always played great basketball, especially at the offensive end, but we’ve come a long way as a program in terms of how we show up and how we compete. The defensive end is like night and day compared to last year.”

The Huskies have allowed an average of 54.1 points over the past seven games. While they entered Sunday 64th over in the nation at 63.4 points, that 54.1 pace would be sixth in the country.

“Our defense is really good,” Vital said. “We have each other’s back.”

Clearly Akok, a shotblocking machine capable of erasing mistakes, has much to do with this. He may be thin, but with spring in his legs and Inspector Gadget arms, Akok intimidates. He alters. He dissuades. He changes the other guy’s plan. He even listens to everything the coaches tell him. So much so Hurley has to be careful with his words.

“He plays with an energy and joyfulness,” Hurley said. “He doesn’t care about touches. He plays so hard. He allows his talent to take over, because he doesn’t get in his own way. He’s not wrapped up in his numbers or in his performance and how it’s going for him. He just plays and plays and play.”

It’s no wonder he compared Akok to the joy and energy of Fatts Russell at Rhode Island and to Tristan Thompson, who Hurley coached at St. Benedict’s Prep in New Jersey. Thompson proved all the way to the NBA that you don’t need the ball to impact a game.

“(Akok) is close to, if not our best player, averaging seven points a game,” Hurley said.

And then Hurley sees the other end of the court, sees the other end of his story.

“Offensively, we’ve still got some real work to do,” Hurley said. “We got the turnover thing under control, but we couldn’t finish at the rim.”

After a whopping 48 turnovers over two games and 64 in three, UConn had just 10 Sunday. They took care of the ball. They passed well. They shot 11for25 from three. They shot lousy inside the arc.

“At this point in Year 2,” Hurley said, “you feel like you’re plugging holes and a lot of the holes are on the offensive end.”

“To be honest, I think I’ve sucked to this point,” Vital, UConn’s leading scorer at 14.3 points, said of his shooting.

Vital isn’t Hurley’s largest problem right now.

“Obviously, I’ve got to get Josh going,” he said.

“Josh is a critical piece here. Got to get Josh going. If we’re going to have success this year, we got to get Josh going.”

You think he wants to get Josh Carlton going?

Carlton had six points against St. Peter’s, none against New Hampshire and eight against NJIT. He has shot 6of16 during that time and that includes a number of missed layups. You look at the way he finished last season after that 10point, ninerebound breakout game at Cincinnati last Jan. 12. He had 18 against Tulane, 20 points twice against East Carolina, 18 and 21 against Temple, 16 against USF. He was named the AAC’s most improved player. He had 19 and 18 points as late as the Iona and Indiana games this month and poof, it disappears.

While the Vital, Gilbert, Bouknight, Gaffney, Brendan Adams rotation sorts itself out at guard, the one thing UConn cannot afford is lack of production from Carlton inside.

“He’s in a funk,” Hurley said. “If I go with the ‘It’s hard to play in these types of low to midmajor games,’ you guys will probably take a run at me. He’s a junior. He has had a ton of starts. He has played at a very high level against some really good teams. He’s above that. He’s better than that.

“We’re going to do a really good job with him in the next two days to get him ready. Do some real work around the basket. We need a much better version of Josh if we’re going to have a good conference season. When it starts going sideways on you, you’ve got to be mentally strong, believe in yourself, trust yourself. We’ll rally around him.”

A lot of times, Hurley said, players walk into places they’ve had success and remember it. It helps.

Carlton had a good run at Cincinnati last AAC year.

This is a new AAC year. “We’ve got a chance to play for something now,” Hurley said. “A chance to move this thing forward.”