Waiting for their bid
Huskies look to be a No. 5 seed in NCAA tournament
After his team had left everything out on the floor, as usual, but still wound up falling to Villanova in the Big East tournament semifinals on Friday night, Dan Hurley had a measured, reasonable explanation.
“You know what?,” the UConn men’s basketball head coach noted, “Villanova is really good.” How good? “Villanova,” Hurley continued, “is the type of team that you’d be facing in a Sweet 16 game, potentially, to go to an Elite Eight game.”
The Huskies would love to win their first two games of what HurSanogo ley termed “the best tournament in sports” this week and advance to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet Sixteen. They’ll find out where and against whom they begin play on Sunday, when the NCAA men’s bracket is unveiled beginning at 6 p.m. on CBS.
The Huskies figure to be a No. 5 seed. That’s where two of the sport’s most renowned “bracketologists” — ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm — had them as of Saturday morning.
“I would assume that’s where we are,” Hurley said Friday night. “If we kept going (in the Big East tournament), we could have gone higher. I don’t know how much they’ll take into consideration some of the injuries.”
UConn (23-9) was missing firstteam all-Big East center Adama Sanogo and third-leading scorer Tyrese Martin in a loss at West Virginia, and also was missing
in a loss to Providence and Isaiah Whaley in a loss to Michigan State. Of course, most teams in the country have had key players out due to injury over the course of this season.
“I think they try to be as fair as possible in seeding,” Hurley said. “Obviously, we’ll be in a better position than we were last year.”
The Huskies were a No. 7 seed last year and fell to 10th-seeded Maryland of the Big Ten in the
opening round. As a fiveseed, UConn would most likely face either an automatic qualifier from a midmajor conference, or one of the final couple of at-large teams in the field, likely from a higher-level league.
Lunardi’s bracket, for instance, has the Huskies playing the winner of a Wyoming-SMU First Four play-in game. Palm has UConn facing the winner of BYU-Notre Dame.
Both have the Huskies playing in the South Region and beginning their trek in Buffalo, New York.
“You hope your draw provides you with good matchups,” Hurley noted.
Indeed, with so much parity in college hoops this season, matchups could mean the difference in a nice run through March or another first-round ouster. Villanova coach Jay Wright certainly believes the former is more likely.
“They’re an outstanding team, extremely wellcoached,” Wright said of the Huskies. “They can beat anybody in the country. They’re going to make a run in the NCAA tournament.”
Certainly, the Huskies hope to take another step forward and win at least one game. Win two and they’d be Sweet Sixteenbound, where they’d likely face a team with the credentials of a Villanova.
For UConn’s sake, it just hopes it’s not against … well … Villanova.
The Huskies are now 1-3 against the Wildcats since rejoining the Big East last season and 1-5 overall against Jay Wright’s crew since Hurley took over the reins four years ago. UConn finally broke through with a dramatic, emotional 71-69 win in Hartford on Feb. 22 – a game from which Hurley was ejected. But Friday night at Madison Square Garden was further proof that ‘Nova nearly always finds a way to have the Huskies’ number.
It’s not as bad as UConn’s struggles against Creighton, which has defeated the Huskies in all five meetings these past two seasons. It’s also not as stark as the Huskies’ struggles against Louisville in 2014.
That season, the Cardinals popped UConn in Storrs by 12 (a game from which Kevin Ollie was ejected), absolutely embarrassed the Huskies by 33 at the KFC Yum! Center, then beat them by 10 in the AAC tournament finals a week later in a game that really wasn’t that close.
Of course, UConn went on to win the national championship a few weeks after that.