Tarris Reed Jr. hasn’t always been incredible. There have been times this season where he’s looked uninspired and it’s been easy to forget that he’s even on the floor at all. Coach Dan Hurley has urged his center all year to ditch being a gentle panda and instead unleash his inner Kodiak bear.
Finally, as Connecticut gears up for a postseason run, Reed Jr. is becoming the center, and Kodiak Bear, Hurley knew he had the potential to be all along.
At the Amica Mutual Pavilion in Providence, RI Saturday, everything the Huskies excelled in flowed through Reed Jr.. And it showed on the final score, with the Huskies winning 75-63.
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The junior transfer was by far the Huskies’ best player, scoring 24 points on just 13 tries, grabbing 18 boards and blocking 6 shots. All of those stats are career-highs. He couldn’t do any wrong and if this is the version of Reed Jr. UConn will be getting, they can win any game they play.
“I just had to decide what type of bear I want to be,” Reed emphasized. “That’s the story of my life: ‘what type of bear do I want to be?’ I have all the talent and the skill, it just comes down to playing hard.”
As for his earlier struggles, his solution is playing with intensity, something he excelled at Saturday.
“It’s been tough at times, mentally I’ve been trying to push through,” Reed Jr. noted. “I get my confidence from lord, so I’m going to go out there and play as hard as I can. I try to play freely and hard for my team.”
Hurley would argue that Reed Jr. needs to ditch being a nice guy as soon as he puts the jersey on.
“For him the light bulb is coming on right now,” Hurley said. “He’s the nicest guy walking around on the planet. When the game starts you need to become a killer, a very serious man and a relentless warrior out there. He’s starting to become that, but he’s got to do that every time he steps on the floor.”
And doing so makes taking Reed Jr. off the floor tougher too.
“He’s playing with an urgency level,” Hurley added. “A switch is coming on with the guy. It’s something about him where the energy level has risen. You’re not having to take him out a minute or two into the game because he allowed his man to get an offensive rebound or he screwed up ball screen defense that he didn’t finish on the other end. He’s turned into getting a rebound, blocking a shot, dunking and that’s why he played 32 minutes. He’s playing in a manner that won’t allow me to take him off the court.”
Also solid was Liam McNeeley, who played another patient, yet effective game. The freshman scored 14 points with 3 assists, but the highlight of his performance was a play that will be he’ll keep in his personal collection. He made former Husky Corey Floyd Jr. touch earth and drained a triple, a rough play for the defector. Not so rough for McNeeley.
Solo Ball had an efficient day too, scoring 14 points on 4/7 from beyond the arc. It wasn’t his most prolific effort, but he hit big shots when the team needed him to and got the job done. He’s been modest and consistent since erupting for 25 points against Marquette, but a steady hand on offense was just what the Huskies have needed.
Less of a scorer, Hassan Diarra contributed in the passing game about as well as he has this year. The point guard looked great physically, even continuing play with one shoe at one point, on his way to dishing out 10 assists. That’s his best mark in that department since December 18, but he can’t stop here. He’s UConn’s only viable point guard, needing to put every ounce of energy left into the rest of the season.
Alex Karaban continued to move in the right direction, scoring 17 points while hitting 2 of his 4 attempts from deep. He’s the key cog for the Huskies this year and needs to build on this performance. The Huskies live and die by Karaban–their leader–and if he’s not playing at least this well, they won’t have very much success in March.
“I wasn’t playing or being like Alex Karaban during my month of struggle,” the junior noted. “I wasn’t leading as well as I should have been, I wasn’t playing as well as I needed to. This team’s going to go as far as myself and the rest of these guys. I need to lead the charge and be the boost for us offensively. Today was a step in the right direction.”
The Huskies kept things pretty close early, but their hosts had a slight upper hand. Floyd Jr. had five quick points to give the Friars the lead, but in came Reed Jr.
The center scored six straight points for the Huskies, the start to his prolific afternoon. The contest remained tight for the next few minutes, with neither side able to gain much separation.
UConn finally managed to create a 9-point cushion after Karaban drilled a three and they went into the break up 8. The Huskies weren’t able to consistently get the advantage out too much further, up 12 after McNeeley had an ankle-breaking three. In no time, the lead was back to 8.
Samson Johnson subbed into the game for Reed Jr., part of the reason why the lead was cut in half to 7. Characterizing the way the centers played, Johnson had a poor plus/minus of -7, compared to Reed Jr.’s stellar 22. The former was hard to keep on the court, the latter hard to take off.
Reed Jr. returned, Ball drilled a triple, Karaban got an and-one and suddenly the Huskies had their 13-point advantage back. They held it for the rest of the game.
The matinee was an overall great performance for a team that really needed it. Their key contributors made impacts and got the job done. If they play like this from here on out, they have a high ceiling in the Big East Tournament and March. Winning the rest of their regular season means that they’ll get the 3-seed in the BET and if they took care of business in NYC, they could be looking at an NCAA seed between 5-7.
“We talked the entire week about stacking wins,” Karaban said. “We kept doing the win one, lose one and if we want to be the team we want to be, we need to stack wins…We’re trying to build as much momentum as possible.”
Their next chance to continue stacking wins comes Wednesday at home against No. 21 Marquette. They’ll look to sweep the Golden Eagles, their main competition for the 3-seed.
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