ON to OREGON
UConn rolls over Delaware State in final game before heading to Phil Knight Invitational
HARTFORD — On to Portland. There’s not much more the UConn men’s basketball could have done over its first five games of the season. The Huskies won each game by at least 20 and an average margin of 30.2 points, capped by Sunday’s 95-60 drubbing of Delaware State at XL Center.
Sure, Dan Hurley had a few gripes along the way. Poor rebounding over the first 15 minutes against UNC-Wilmington. Occasional defensive lapses here and there, including the second half on Sunday. Jordan Hawkins missed a wide-open dunk once.
But it’s impossible to argue that, for the most part, the 25th-ranked Huskies haven’t looked good so far. Really good.
“I think this team has a lot of guys that can play,” junior center Adama Sanogo noted. “That’s one thing I like about this team so far.”
Of course, it hasn’t exactly come against a Murderer’s Row of opponents. Even poor Delaware State was without its leading scorer, 6-foot-11 senior Brandon Stone, on Sunday.
Beating up on a slew of lowmajors may not be enough to inspire fans to book tickets to the Final Four quite yet, but UConn did what it had to do — beat the teams on its schedule, and do so convincingly.
Now, things get significantly more difficult.
UConn will fly out to Portland, Oregon on Tuesday to compete in the Phil Knight Invitational. The Huskies begin play on Thanksgiving against a good (if banged-up) Oregon team, then will play either Michigan State or Alabama (both of whom will be in the AP Top 25 come Monday afternoon) on Friday.
The Huskies’ third opponent on Sunday, depending on how things break, could be No. 1-ranked North Carolina. Or possibly even Big East
rival Villanova.
Either way, UConn is about to experience a serious uptick in competition this week. And that won’t be the end of it.
On Dec. 1, the Huskies will host Oklahoma State in a Big East-Big 12 Battle at Gampel Pavilion. Six days later, they’ll play at Florida. That’ll wrap up a stretch of potentially five straight games against Power Six teams. A one-game respite against Long Island on Dec. 10 is followed by UConn’s foray into the Big East season.
“The next 25 of 26 games,” Hurley noted, “are going to be very, very highlevel games.”
The challenge is right in front of them. The Huskies appear ready.
“These first five games prepared us pretty well for what’s coming this week against Oregon and whoever we play after that,” 7-2 freshman center Donovan Clingan said. “We’ve just got to play a full 40 minutes, can’t give up on the defensive end and keep pushing the ball on offense.”
On Sunday, the Huskies put five players in double figures. Sanogo led the way with 26 points, Clingan added a career-high 16, Hawkins (nine rebounds) and Joey Calcaterra had 11 apiece and Alex Karaban 10. UConn went on a 13-0 run early in the game, shot 59 percent from the floor with eight 3-pointers in the first half and went into halftime with a 57-24 lead.
UConn only outscored the Hornets (1-4) 38-36 in the latter half, but Hurley excused some of that to “human nature.”
“I thought you saw a team that was tired of these type of games in the second half, and is ready to go attack the rest of the season,” the coach explained. “These games suck worse than high-major games. You want to play these next three games. No one likes these, because you can blow your season in these. These games are primarily about trying to build up a great season, as opposed to blowing up your season before you can even build a season.”
Hurley isn’t about to apologize for UConn’s uninspiring opening portion of the schedule.
“Perfect world, maybe one of these games is a high-major. But we don’t always have control over that part of the schedule. You’re in an MTE that’s playing when it’s playing. Your Florida game is something that we had to accept
that date. And then, we waited for months for a Big 12/Big East date, that took us forever to get from the league.”
Now, things get a lot more dificult, beginning on Thanksgiving in Portland.
“This is what we’ve been waiting for through these first five games,” Clingan said. “We’ve just got to execute and play for a full 40 minutes, because Oregon’s not going to let up in the second half at all.”
“We know how those teams are going to be,” Adama Sanogo added. “These first five games were to get us ready for that tournament. We’re ready to go.”
RIM RATTLINGS
In his second game back after missing the start of the season with a broken right pinkie finger, Andre Jackson Jr. came off the bench again. He fouled out in 13 minutes, scoring three points and doling out four assists.
After Jackson played 19 minutes in his season debut on Friday night, Hurley wanted to get him to over 20 minutes on Sunday.
“That didn’t go our way today,” the coach said. “The other day he was like the eighth man, probably the third guy in, just because we didn’t know what he could do. Today he was our sixth man, we wanted 22-24 minutes so we can start him on Thursday ... He was a little hyped up today and found himself in some bad spots.”
Hurley picked up his first technical foul of the season with about three minutes left in the game from veteran referee Pat Driscoll.
Asked about what happened, Hurley paused for 10 seconds before replying: “I had a point that I wanted to make. I respect Pat, Pat’s a great ref. He’s been an unbelievable ref for a really long period of time. He reffed me. I have a ton of respect for Pat. But if there’s a point I want to make, I’m going to make my point. Obviously, I don’t want to get a lot of technical fouls. But, I watch other games on TV, too. So ...”
Tristen Newton appeared banged-up late in the game, but it doesn’t sound serious.
“I think he got hit in a bad spot,” Hurley said. “I think he was OK.”
Stephon Castle, UConn’s prized 2023 recruit from Georgia, was at the game and introduced to the crowd, to a loud ovation, during a timeout. Castle, a 6-6 guard, sat behind the Huskies’ bench.