Feeling right at home
UConn rides Sanogo-Clingan combo to first true road win
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The UConn men’s basketball team hit the floor on Wednesday to the sound of something it hasn’t really heard yet this season. Boos.
And the Huskies seemed to enjoy it.
“I kind of did,” Jordan Hawkins confessed. “Your coach being Dan Hurley, you’ve got to be the type of guys to enjoy stuff like that.”
Playing their first true road game of the season, fifth-ranked UConn checked off another benchmark, rolling to a 75-54 win over Florida before 9,046 at Exactech Arena. The Huskies improved to 10-0, their best start since beginning the 2010-11 national championship season with the same mark. Florida fell to 6-4.
“Just to see them booing us before the game, and after the game they’re silent walking out of the gym with three minutes left, it’s a good feeling,” Donovan Clingan said. “You’ve just got to ignore the fans and play your game.”
Clingan sure did. The 7-foot-2 freshman from Bristol scored a career-high 16 points on 8-for-9 shooting (five of them dunks), while grabbing eight rebounds and blocking three shots. Off the bench.
“I came off a slow game last game, so I came with a different mindset today and wanted to win,” Clingan said.
Starting center Adama Sanogo was no slouch either, finishing with a gamehigh 17 points and seven boards. The Huskies’ twoheaded center monster of Sanogo and Clingan combined for 33 points, 15 boards, four blocks and a steal. The duo also tagteamed Florida All-American candidate center Colin Castleton, holding him to 12 relatively harmless points on 4-for-14 shooting.
“Just trying not to let him get to his right hand,” Clingan said. “He’s a heck of a player, so our main goal was to get him to shoot over his left shoulder, with his left hand. Don’t let him use his right hand, because when he uses his right hand, he’s dominant.”
“When you get that type of production out of the center position,” coach Dan Hurley marveled, “and obviously Jordan during that stretch, when they were trying to get it to single digits and put some game-pressure on us, I thought Jordan’s run really made a huge difference.”
Indeed, Hawkins
brushed off a 1-for-6 first half and shot 4-for-6 in the second, finishing with 15 points.
Then there was Andre Jackson, who finished with eight points, eight boards, four assists, two steals, two blocks ...
“The stats do no justice to what that guy brings to a game,” Hurley said.
Sanogo was everywhere early, scoring six points to go with a block and a steal over the first 5 1/2 minutes before being replaced by Clingan. Once again, the Huskies didn’t skip a beat, as Clingan scored six straight points at one juncture on consecutive lob dunks and a tip-in of his own miss.
Sanogo returned and quickly picked up his second foul with just under six minutes left in the half and was replaced by Clingan. The freshman scored on a reverse layup and a dunk and continued his strong defense on Castleton.
In fact, both Sanogo and Clingan bothered Castleton into 1-for-9 shooting in the first half. The Huskies owned a 36-23 lead behind 18 points, seven rebounds and three blocks from the Sanogo-Clingan combo.
Then, Hawkins heated up in the second half. It all added up to the Huskies’ first true roadie.
“It feels good,” Jackson said. “This is the first time this group has played together, away, against the crowd. It was definitely a test of our character as a group and what we’re willing to do to come together through the adversity. Before the game, coach told us, it’s us against the world. We’ve got to stay in our bubble and not try to battle with the fans or the other team.”
“You just create a bubble around you and your travel party,” Hurley said. “You block everything else out.
When you step out into the arena, you block out the fans, you don’t talk to the opponents, you don’t talk to the refs, you create a bubble around what we’re trying to do as a team. As long as we were poised and played to our identity, executed and were together and tough, everything would take care of itself.”
Of course, not all of the 9,046 in attendance were against the Huskies. There was a smallish but vocal pro-UConn contingent that could be heard, shouting out “Go UConn!” during the national anthem and bookending it all with “U-Conn, Hus-kies!” chants as the game wound down.
“To see the support from everyone means a lot to all of us,” Clingan said.
“It felt like a neutral (site),” Hurley said, “at least when we left, and during the anthem, I heard some people out there. UConn’s one of the biggest brands in college basketball. It’s got one of the biggest fan bases in college basketball. Obviously, the (opposing) fan bases don’t like them a whole lot because of all the incredible history in basketball, men’s and women’s. When we’ve got the program where we’ve got it right now, the fans travel and it’s one of the best brands.”
The No. 5 brand in the country right now. And quite possibly moving on up soon.