Reverting to bad habits leads to an excruciating loss
NEW YORK — Dan Hurley said there must have been 25 ways his team could have won this meat grinder of a basketball game.
We’ll take his word for it. What we can document is that UConn found 22 ways to lose to Indiana on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.
Those were the 22 turnovers the Huskies committed, 14 in the first half, some most untimely ones in the second half and, yes, the most predictable turnover of all: Christian Vital rushing down the court in the closing seconds and losing the ball.
“Bad play by me,” Vital said. “Bad decision by me.”
When this 5754 loss was over, when we could still agree that Hurley is building a program in the right direction, building it strong for the long term, we can also agree on this much:
We’ve seen this one before.
Hurley knows this. Hurley wants to change it. Yet on a night when the young guards like James Bouknight, Brendan Adams and Jalen Gaffney were not up to the task, what can a coach do when two 22yearold guys revert to bad habits?
Indiana coach Archie Miller called it a grinder of a game. He called it a fierce game around the rim. Hurley called it a physical game and a defensive struggle. All of it was true and the UConn coach hit on the larger truth of this frustrating New York night.
“The 22 turnovers against a team that’s not really pressuring, it’s shocking we only lost by three with that many turnovers,” Hurley said. “We reverted back to playing a way that isn’t going to allow you to beat good teams. It’ll be a season filled with excruciating losses if we can’t fix that. It’ll be a season of onepossession losses. You can’t flush out all the bad losing. It happens in that second year. Year 2, Game 9, it’s obviously still there. It’ll be a year of excruciating losses if we can’t take care of the ball.”
The first loss was a StinkORama against St.
Joe’s. Forget that one. The second loss was a terrific overtime effort and the inability of Alterique Gilbert to close out against Xavier. He wanted to be a hero and he wasn’t.
Although it ultimately was a onepossession game, this third loss wasn’t as dramatic as the Xavier game. It was too sloppy. Except for Akok Akok’s five blocks, acrobatic dunks and overall inspiring performance, this one was too much of a mistakefilled muscleshow to be thrilling. It was telling.
There are a couple of ways to tilt the stat sheet and neither was especially pretty.
Vital’s and Gilbert’s combined 10 turnovers matched their combined 10 points. Gilbert shot 1for9. Vital shot 2for8 and seven of those turnovers were his.
Gilbert, Adams and Bouknight entered this game averaging a combined 30.8 points. Until Alterique hit a long, semidesperation 3 with 14 seconds left, they had combined on this night for zero points.
The turnovers started early and ended late. In the City That Never Sleeps, the Huskies were fully prepared to go all night with their mistakes.
“We’d go to places with the ball that we shouldn’t go into,” Hurley said. “We tried to drive gaps. We tried to split ball screen defense when there was no space to split it. Overpenetrating. Players who aren’t good off the dribble trying to play off the dribble. And then sometimes credit Indiana, which is a tough, physical Big Ten team. If you drive the ball flimsy or weak, they’re really physical.
“I just thought it was some carelessness from a couple of individuals. Mostly, it was guards trying to do things with the ball they shouldn’t be trying to do.”
Remember a few weeks ago when we were all droning on about the burgeoning depth of the Huskies. Nine guys! Ten guys! Here come all the young guys! Well, UConn got outscored 175 off the bench. Sid Wilson’s five points were the only ones.
You see Bouknight with 0for3, three turnovers in 15 minutes. You see Adams 0for2 with three turnovers in 17 minutes. Bouknight is going to be a terrific player and it’s fair to
wonder how many big games the Huskies can win without him making a real impact. He’s a threelevel scorer. Still, let’s be on the level. He just played his sixth game. He’s a kid.
“James has got a lot to work on,” Hurley said. “This was beyond James. We need more from Brendan. Bouknight is going to be a bigtime player, but he’s a freshman. There were two freshmen who looked like they belonged on the court today. (Trayce) JacksonDavis and Akok Akok. Otherwise it was not a game for young players. It was a very physical game.”
Beyond Josh Carlton (18 points), Tyler Polley making three 3s, Akok’s dynamism and some life from Wilson, Hurley said the Huskies didn’t have anyone else play well.
You notice who’s not on that list?
Christian Vital. Alterique Gilbert. The experience, the heart of this team came up small this time on the big stage.
“Al and I have to be better,” Vital said. “Those turnovers are on us. As older guys on the team, we’ve got to take better care of the ball. That’s on us. I’ll take that one. That one’s on me.”
Asked how frustrating it was, Vital looked up glumly and said, “I think you can see it on my face right now.”
He said they’ll go watch film. He said they’ll reflect on it and then move on. Maybe the two will do a better job of cleaning matters up. They must. Alterique looked to be on the right path prior to this game. The kid guards will mature, but there will be bumps. They won’t wake up tomorrow and magically be juniors.
When asked if there was something Gilbert and Vital weren’t doing in lategame situations, because they’re struggling in the final minutes, Hurley gave a smile and dose of sarcasm.
“Did you get here for the last minute?” he asked. “It’s habits. Those guys play hard. Christian battled on the glass (a teamhigh eight rebounds). The issue today, too, was when Brendan doesn’t have it, Gaffney isn’t ready and James looks out of it, there aren’t a lot of alternatives for us to get those guys off the court when they’re struggling. They struggled from the beginning. I don’t think it was just the end of the game. Christian tried to do too much. The shot selection wasn’t good early. Al got away from playing point guard today. He tried to do too much.”
Hurley took a deep breath.
“If our older players play like allconferencelevel players, we can have a great season, a surprising season,” he said. “If they don’t, it will be a season of excruciating losses.”
Like Xavier.
Like Indiana. “We’ve blown two opportunities to get highlevel wins in Year 2 of our program,” Hurley said. “When you get over the gutwrenching nature of the loss, I’m taking the long view and the short view. It sucks. But I know where it’s heading and I won’t waver from where it’s heading.”