The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Huskies still have plenty of goals
Look to halt losing season streak at 4
HARTFORD — Four regular-season games remain on UConn’s schedule, and though the Huskies need a miracle to reach the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2016, there is still plenty to play for.
The Huskies (15-12, 6-8 AAC) are one win away from assuring they won’t have a fourth straight losing season. UConn can clinch that minor yet important milestone on Wednesday, when it hosts UCF at XL Center (7 p.m., ESPNU).
Wednesday night also likely marks the final time Christian Vital plays in the XL Center, and quite possibly fourth-year junior Alterique Gilbert, as well. It gives Dan Hurley a chance to beat one of the two teams in the AAC that he has yet to beat since he took over as UConn’s head coach last season (Houston is the other).
There’s more. A win over UCF (14-12, 5-9 AAC) will help the Huskies as they aim for a better seeding in next month’s AAC tournament. UConn is currently tied with Temple for seventh place in the league standings, two games behind Wichita State, Memphis and SMU. It will be hard to leapfrog those three teams, but a No. 7 seed in the league tourney would obviously be better than an eighth or ninth seed.
“At this time of year you’re trying to, obviously, win as many games as you can,” Hurley said after practice on Tuesday. “But also, if we hope to have an opportunity in the conference tournament, the more games you win, the better your bracket will be in terms of opponents. Last
year, we played Houston in Game 2, and that was rough.”
The Huskies suffered a season-ending 84-45 loss to the Cougars last March that wasn’t even that close.
And, of course, UConn is currently on the bubble for a possible NIT bid. While an NCAA tourney bid is what every team strives for, a trip to the NIT could be good for a young Husky team that’s had some tough breaks this season.
“Any of those types of opportunities are huge for where we’re at,” said Hurley. “Playing in Charleston was big for us, playing Indiana at the Garden, great crowd. But that type of postseason experience for what this group’s been through, during the course of the year, with the injuries and some of the brutal losses and everything that swirls around and has been going on? That would be an incredible accomplishment for these guys.”
Hurley took URI to the NIT in 2015, his third season at the helm. The injuryriddled Rams missed out on the postseason the following season, but then went to the NCAA tournament in consecutive seasons before Hurley left for UConn.
“(Playing in the NIT) would be an incredible experience,” Hurley added. “It was for us at Rhode Island.”
It would also mark the first and only trip to the postseason for Vital, who
became the AAC’s all-time 3-point king in Sunday’s win over USF and continues to climb numerous career lists, both for UConn and the league, as his career winds down.
One of his most impressive accomplishments is his streak of playing in 96 consecutive
games.
“He’s like Cal Ripken, at some level,” Hurley noted. “He hasn’t taken hardly any days off. He’s had some minor knee stuff in the offseason, but he hasn’t missed anything. He shows up and competes, he brings the passion to the game, the
passion to competition.”
On Wednesday night, Vital plays his final game at the XL Center. But he and his team still have some goals to accomplish before this season is over.