The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
UConn men ‘Enjoy the moment’ ahead of opener
ALBANY, N.Y. — Prior to this year’s Big East Tournament, Dan Hurley vowed he would have his team more relaxed than it was the past couple of postseasons, leading to consecutive first-round NCAA tourney ousters.
How was Hurley going to accomplish that, he was asked?
“I’m working on it,” the UConn men’s basketball coach said with a smile.
He’s had over a week to figure it out and have the fourth-seeded Huskies feeling loose entering their NCAA first-round bout with 13-seed Iona on Friday (4:30 p.m., TBS). Has it worked?
“I’d say so,” freshman Alex Karaban said. “We’re really trying to enjoy the moment we’re in right now. We’ve worked hard for this moment. Coach made it clear it’s hard to make it to March Madness, so we’ve got to enjoy it and take it all in. And
then when it’s game time, just show up and be ready to play.”
The past two seasons, UConn lost in the Big East Tournament semifinals, then couldn’t recover and got bumped from the Big Dance by Maryland (2021) and New Mexico State (2022). The 2021 was the bizarre COVID season, with the NCAA tourney played in a bubble, so throw that out for now. But last year’s upset loss to New Mexico State still stings.
For the third straight year, the Huskies were bounced from the Big East tourney semifinals, this time by eventual champion Marquette.
“We woke up and watched the film of that game, we were like, ‘We’re going to leave the City of New York, move on from it. This week we’ll focus on Iona and not the Marquette game,’ ” freshman Donovan Clingan reported. “I feel like everyone forgot about that game and moved on from that tournament.”
UConn simply has to bounce back this time to avoid a third consecutive early NCAA tourney ouster. Hurley is confident the Huskies will.
“I think, number one, we have the best team we’ve had,” the coach said of his 25-8 Huskies. “We’ve played to the quality of a top-10 team this year, overall body of work. Obviously, at the high end, we’ve probably played as well as anybody in the country.”
And so, Hurley “worked on” making this a looser bunch this time around.
“The message with the group is just play to your identity, be who we have been the whole year,” the fifth-year coach noted. “We don’t need an extraordinary performance. We don’t need a Kemba (Walker) moment from anyone. We’ve got a deep