MEN’S BASKETBALL GAMEDAY
UCONN at No. 24 SETON HALL
When: Saturday, noon
Where: Prudential Center, Newark, New Jersey
Records: UConn 10-3 (1-1 Big East), Seton Hall 10-3 (1-2 Big East)
TV: FOX
Radio: UConn Sports Network, 97.9 FMESPN Hartford, Sirius-137, XM-206, SXM App-965, WAVZ-New Haven (1300 AM), WGCH- Greenwich (1490 AM), WATRWaterbury (1320 AM), WILI-Willimantic (WILI 1400 AM)
KEEP AN EYE ON
Sanogo hamstrung? Adama Sanogo missed four games before returning to play just 13 minutes in UConn’s most recent game, a 78-70 win at Marquette. In the second half of that game, Sanogo tweaked a hamstring, and that has limited him in practice over the past couple of weeks.
Sanogo didn’t practice Wednesday and was limited in practice Thursday. Hurley was hoping the 6-foot-9 sophomore center could practice fully Friday, but couldn’t offer a prediction on his status for Saturday’s game.
If Sanogo can go, he would likely still be on some sort of minutes restriction, as he was in the Marquette game.
Tough enough? UConn, which has had nine players test positive for COVID-19 since Christmas, only had six players available for practice Monday and a seventh who was “limited.” The team finally got up to double figures in available bodies Thursday, but it’s clear that players could be rusty and/or struggle with conditioning. Players who tested positive spent 10 days in quarantine. The six who tested negative were able to work out, but obviously couldn’t play 5-on-5 scrimmages, etc.
With that in mind, Hurley knows what has to lead the way Saturday.
“Our toughness and our defense and our rebounding have got to be really on point this weekend,” Hurley said, “because offensively, it’s going to be hard against such a great defensive team to have our rhythm and to play a beautiful game on Saturday. I think it’s a lot to ask of our team. But we’ve got to play really, really hard, and defend and rebound and do the toughness stuff, at the absolute highest level.”
“There’s always a path to victory, and the path to victory in this one’s going to have to be through toughness and togetherness, and what we do on the backboard and defensively. Because those are the easiest things to pick up where we left off.”
Kids in the Hall: Seton Hall has had its own COVID issues lately, canceling three games and losing two in a row without 7-foot-2 center Ike Obiagu and talented forward Tyrese Samuel available. Obiagu returned for the Hall’s impressive win at Butler on Tuesday, and all signs point to Samuel returning Saturday.
Senior wing Jared Rhoden is third in the Big East in scoring and one of the league’s top overall players. Point guard Bryce Aiken is healthy again and averaging 16.5 points and four assists over his last four games, and UConn fans are well familiar with grad forward Alexis Yetna, who’s averaging 9.4 rebounds (along with 11.8 points) over his past five games.
“They’re a really good team, they’re talented, a top 25 team in the country,” UConn point guard R.J. Cole said. “We know we have to stop Rhoden; Bryce Aiken’s been playing very well. We just have to lock in defensively, and I think it should work out in our favor.”