Butler served up twice
Huskies will face off with Bulldogs on Tuesday, Thursday
It was a fairly relaxing weekend for Dan Hurley.
The UConn men’s basketball coach got to watch his prized 2022 recruit, Bristol Central 7-footer Donovan Clingan, play in the Hoop Hall Classic at Springfield College on Friday night. On Sunday, Hurley celebrated his 49th birthday.
In between, with UConn taking a day off from practice Saturday, Hurley got to watch his beloved Cincinnati Bengals win their first playoff game in 31 years.
“That was an incredible victory,” Hurley noted. “I know how it feels to be a fan.”
Still, being a fan isn’t Hurley’s strong suit. He’s an ultra-competitive coach who’d rather be fueling his fires on the sidelines than watching TV on his couch. UConn was supposed to be playing No. 21 Providence on Saturday at a soldout Dunkin’ Donuts Center, but the Friars had to cancel the game (and two others) due to COVID issues within their program.
Hurley confessed he didn’t know what to do with himself for most of the day Saturday, save for those 31⁄2 hours watching the Bengals.
“You wake up with a nervous stomach, like it’s game day,” Hurley reported. “At 2 p.m., you’re like, ‘I’m supposed to be at The Dunk today, battling Ed (Cooley, PC’s head coach) and having people scream at me.’ And I’m in the sauna, getting ready to watch film. It sucks.”
The competitive juices will be flowing again this week for Hurley, whose Huskies returned to the AP Top 25 this week, checking in at No. 25. But it won’t exactly be a return to normalcy.
UConn (11-4, 2-2 Big East) hosts Butler on Tuesday at the XL Center
(7 p.m., FS1) in a game originally scheduled for New Year’s Day but postponed due to the Huskies’ own COVID issues. On Wednesday, UConn will fly to Indianapolis to face Butler once again, this time at famed Hinkle Fieldhouse.
It’s the first time UConn has played a team in backto-back games since it faced Seton Hall (featuring a senior point guard named Dan Hurley) on the road on March 2, 1996, then in the quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament five days later at Madison Square Garden.
It’s also the first time the Huskies have played consecutive home-and-home regular-season games since facing Georgetown on Feb. 12 and 19, 1992. But it’s hardly the first time Hurley has coached against the same team in consecutive days.
In his two seasons at Wagner (2010-11, 2011-12), Hurley coached against Mount St. Mary’s in a pair of Wednesday-Saturday, home-and-home contests. Hurley isn’t sure how Maryland-based Mount St. Mary’s became “rivals” with Wagner, located on Staten Island. Still, he split the games in his first season (when Wagner went 13-17) then swept the two games the following year, when the Seahawks were 25-6.
“It was odd,” Hurley recalled. Still, he’s more focused on building off the Huskies’ too-close-for-comfort overtime home win over St. John’s last week than the quirkiness of this week’s schedule.
“I just try not to think about it. I’m just trying to think about (Tuesday’s) game, improve the things we did poorly against St. John’s, like the turnovers, in particular. Not a good effort on the defensive glass in the second half. Be prepared for a team of older players and a proud program that had a really, really tough game (Sunday) and is gonna be very, very intent on playing much better than it did against Villanova.”
Butler (9-7, 2-3) is coming off a brutal 40-point loss Sunday to 11th-ranked Villanova.
UConn is healthy and well-rested. Though they would have rather been playing Providence, the Huskies were well-served by a few extra practices. They even got to get Alex Karaban, a 2022 recruit who enrolled early with the program a little over a week ago, a bit more acclimated to practice.
Down to just six players at practice about 10 days ago, the Huskies had 14 available Sunday.
“They were competitive practices,” Hurley reported. “It looked like a hungry team that’s finally kind of healthy again and excited to attack the schedule here.”
Quirky as that schedule might be.
RIM RATTLINGS
Adama Sanogo was named Big East player of the week Monday, thanks to his 26 points, 18 rebounds and six blocked shots in a Jan. 12 overtime win over St. John’s. It’s the second time he’s won the award this season.
Sanogo’s 18 rebounds were the most posted by any Big East player this season. He is averaging 15.9 points, 7.8 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game — and none of it is a surprise to Hurley.
“He dropped 30 on Auburn, and those guys might be No. 1 in the country,” the coach said, an hour or so before Auburn was ranked No. 2 in this week’s AP poll. “We’re a different team when he’s out there, on both ends of the court.”