Since Dan Hurley and the UConn men’s basketball team came back to the Big East in 2020, so much has gone right. Their recruiting is back, they have a championship buzz again and most importantly, it feels like Connecticut has been restored to the good old days.
As incredible as they’ve been overall, a surprisingly elusive obstacle has been the semifinal round of the Big East Tournament. The Huskies have two national championships since returning to the Big East, but just one victory in the conference semifinals.
That win came last year during one of the most dominant seasons in recent basketball memory, but they’ve whiffed otherwise. Losses in the round have piled up, coming up empty against Marquette, Villanova and Creighton. Friday night in Madison Square Garden, they revived the trend, suffering a rough 71-62 loss to the Bluejays.
There wasn’t one factor that led to the loss, it was just a mediocre effort all around. They played especially poor 3-point defense, allowing the Jays to hit six of their first 11 tries from beyond the arc. When combined with the way they were rebounding and playing on the interior, there was hardly a path to victory.
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“I think the two teams that are deserving to play for the championship are going to play,” UConn coach Dan Hurley said. “We were the third-best team in the regular season. Third-best team doesn't deserve to play for a championship. Obviously that first half defensive performance was not worthy of having a chance to play on Saturday night at MSG against a team like St. John's this year. We got exactly what we deserved.”
Familiar faces continued to plague the Huskies, with Jamiya Neal and Jasen Green having stellar nights. Both players seemingly always give UConn their A-game, even since before either emerged as stars. Neal and Green (career-hgh tonight) each scored 19, pouring on absolutely backbreaking performances.
The exclamation mark on the night was Neal’s fastbreak dunk with seconds left and the shot clock off, not the classiest move. Hassan Diarra and Jayden Ross took offense to this, as the former got a technical and the latter got ejected.
“I got caught up in the emotions of the game,” Neal said of the dunk. “Just a lot of emotions going on. So I would like to apologize for that. I respect Coach Hurley and those guys over there. They have a great, great program. Obviously a two-time national champs. I apologize. Just got caught up in the moment, and I shouldn't have done it.”
Diarra was none too pleased postgame.
“They were already up with seven seconds left,” Diarra said. “He didn't want to dribble the ball out. Went in for a fancy dunk. I just felt it was disrespectful to the game of basketball.”
A bright spot for UConn again was the play of Aidan Mahaney, who finished with six points. Connecticut played their best basketball when he was in the game, helping the Huskies come back into things. His two threes–one to close the first half and another to cap off a 12-0 run–were absolutely important. He’s not scoring a ton or in bunches, but he’s made some very timely plays to help his team.
“[Jaylin Stewart] had a good offensive rebound and found me for a shot, so credit to him for getting the rebound,” Mahaney said of his second triple. “The shot felt good tonight.”
Diarra ended up as one of the team’s highest scorers with 11, but did almost nothing after the very beginning of the game. His assist total was low (one), but the energy he brought at the start arguably prevented an early blowout. He was on fire, single-handedly keeping pace with the entire opposition for a moment.
Shooting very inefficiently but still having one of the better games of the Huskies was Liam McNeeley. He had 13 points on brutal 6/20 shooting, but like Mahaney was an integral part of the times when the team was succeeding.
Solo Ball had a decent outing and was one of the more effective Huskies, recording 13 points and five boards. His defensive lapses forced him to the bench at times and it’s tough to know if his scoring prowess outweighed what he didn’t do on the other end.
Another Husky who frequently ended up in Hurley’s dog house was Alex Karaban. In the biggest game of the season, Karaban was not very effective, with six points and a -18 plus/minus. He was in foul trouble early and often, picking up his fourth soon after the second half started. The team had their best moments with the senior off the floor and failed to make a final push for victory with him back out there.
The contest started off neck-and-neck, with especially explosive scoring from two players. Creighton’s Neal was responsible for the Bluejays’ first nine points, while Diarra scored 11 of the Huskies’ first 13.
Even after both cooled off, the game stayed tight. Neither side gave much up as Creighton found themselves ahead at times, but the Huskies consistently got back into it.
Things broke loose when the Bluejays used an 11-0 run–six coming from Green–to lead by 11 heading into the locker room.
McNeeley’s intentional foul on the fastbreak didn’t help the cause and by the time the possession was over, Creighton was ahead by 15. However, five points from McNeeley during a 12-0 Husky run made it a single-digit game, even after Karaban recorded his fourth foul.
With Connecticut down by just five, the teams spent the next few minutes in a tug of war. There wasn’t much scoring, but the anticipation was mounting. Reed Jr. cut it to single-digits with a layup, but Neal hit another tremendous three to increase the cushion. Green pushed it to eight with a layup, effectively putting the game out of reach.
This isn’t a terribly encouraging night for UConn, who did not play well for the majority of the night. They had their electric run to reduce the lead to just three points late, but they came up short. It was atypical that Karaban wasn’t there when the Huskies were thriving, but perhaps it’s a positive that they were able to come so close even without their star performing.
Still, there are few positives to take from the night. They didn’t show up to play against a team that they’re more than capable of beating. However, the same thing happened two years ago, when they lost this game and went on to win the national title. Hurley doesn’t know if this team will do that though.
“Listen, we have obviously not performed like that team,” Hurley said of the comparison. “That team had just a tough couple of weeks in January. Then we played a Marquette team with Ighodaro and Prosper and Kam Jones and Kolek. We're not a very physical team. I think that the way that Big East games get officiated both regular season and in the Big East tournament are officiated way differently than games will be officiated in the NCAA Tournament. It’s less physical, especially in the early rounds of the tournament.”
Either way, they have a lot to clean up before their next game. They’re projected to be an 8-seed in the NCAA tournament, not a great recipe to get out of the first weekend. The matchups will be announced on Selection Sunday, this Sunday at 6 p.m. ET.
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