STORRS, Conn. – It was Senior Night at Gampel Pavilion, but the future of the UConn Huskies almost stole the show.
With a depleted roster – especially after losing point guard Alterique Gilbert to a bloody facial injury in the second half – the Huskies almost pulled off an upset Thursday in front of 7,790 fans.
Christian Vital scored a season-high 26 points and Josh Carlton added a career-high 21, but Temple escaped with a 78-71 victory to lock up a top-four finish in next week’s American Athletic Conference Tournament.
“I thought we played, as hard as you can play,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said.
The difference maker for the Owls (22-8, 1205 AAC) was senior guard Shizz Alston Jr., who scored a career-high 34 points on an efficient 12-for-14 shooting from the field and of 6 from the foul line.
The Huskies (14-16, 5-12) fell to 8-1 at Gampel this season while losing their leader Gilbert, who went to the emergency room after a second-half collision with Ernest Aflakpui while going for a rebound.
Gilbert lay motionless on the floor for about five minutes after the incident while UConn trainer James Doran, Hurley and assistant coach Tom Moore attended to him.
“I don’t want to speculate on what exactly it was there – it was some type of facial injury,” Hurley said.
When Gilbert left, the Huskies were leading 58-56 with 7:36 remaining, but things quickly turned in Temple’s favor without the UConn floor general around.
The teams tied twice before the Owls broke the deadlock for good with Nate Pierre-Louis’ free-throw at 5:18 to give Temple the lead for good at 61-60.
WHAT WENT WELL
Play On: The Huskies dug themselves an early 9-0 in the opening minutes and missed their first seven shots but managed to climb out of the mess and make a game of hit. Vital was red-hot from the field early, making 5 of 6 shots in the first half, including 4-for-5 on 3-pointers to finish with 15 points at the break. Carlton added eight and the Huskies trailed only 35-30 at the half. UConn took its first lead, 42-41, on a Polley 3-pointer at 15:28 of the second and tried to hang around despite being undermanned.
Vital’s take: “Clearly, we would have lost this game by a lot last year – let’s just be honest about it. But the fact, whoever is on the court, we are able to stick with it, play harder for each other, just shows the growth individually and us as a team.”
WHAT NEEDS WORK
Gilbert's Bad Luck: Gilbert did not return after his accident in the second half. The collusion took place not far from Gilbert’s run-in with a Wichita State player during a game in late January that forced him to miss five games with a shoulder injury.
Hurley’s take: “When you have a guy with a heart that big and stands for all the right things and isn’t about himself, that’s why he can basically be the heartbeat of your team. He’s such a likeable guy and he’s such funny guy to deal with every day because all he gives you is his best. … It’s hard to see him have to deal with the stuff that he has to deal with all the time and that was a gut punch because his teammates, man, have just seen him deal with thing after thing – it sucks.”
Vital’s take: “Him going down kind of caught us off guard. He was playing so well and pretty controlling the flow of the game .. it was just for him to go down and hopefully we can get him back as soon as possible.”
WATCH MORE POST-GAME VIDEO FROM DAN HURLEY AND OTHER PLAYERS HERE!!!
Learning Curve: There’s no magic pill for the Huskies to swallow to get passed the growing pains this season. The missed free throws, the close loses, etc. are all what Hurley expected to endure during the first season and the program should benefit from it down the road.
Hurley’s take: “I don’t it has anything to do with luck. I think it has everything to do with Sid Wilson, Josh Carlton, Tyler, Brendan Adams, just young guys – even Alterique to a degree – just the lack of experience on the court. Here’s how it goes, you go from playing non-competitively at times to the next step is then to play close games and have some brutal losses …You don’t go from not being very competitive to winning close games. You go from not being very competitive to losing close games and those experiences from learning from those mistakes, your foundation of young players, will learn how to win close games in the future.”
Freebies: In addition to Alson, Quinton Rose (20 points) and Pierre-Louis (13),the Owls thrived at the foul line. They were 13-for-14 in the second half and 17 of 20 for the game. UConn was just 5 of 14 in the second half and 13-for-24 overall.
Hurley’s take: “Obviously, the foul shooting. It’s something that as you get more comfortable on the court, a lot of those free throws were missed by younger players out there that are still trying to find their confidence, trying to find their way on the court. Free-throw shooting obviously played a huge factor in us not being able to win a close game there. Excluding Al going down, if we made free throws, we certainly played hard enough to win that game.”
MISC.
Senior guard Jalen Adams (knee) and Eric Cobb were honored before the game along with fifth-year players Kassoum Yakwe (foot) and Tarin Smith. … Redemption Christian 6-7 wing Anthony Kabala took an unofficial visit to UConn. … Kwintin Williams remains suspended from the team and did not take part in Senior Night. … Cobb made his second start of the season. … Temple coach Fran Dunphy was honored before the game with a gift from Hurley. Dunphy is retiring at the end of the season.
UP NEXT
Sunday, at East Carolina, 2 p.m. (ESPNU)
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