GameDay Preview: UConn Counting on Resilience This March
UConn’s season hasn’t gone as expected, but the upside is still there. Despite the disappointment of a 10-loss season that saw the record hit 4-3 after the Maui Invitational, Dan Hurley’s squad has picked up the pieces and that team believes it can be a threat this March.
“We've been through a lot, but we stayed resilient,” Hassan Diarra said in Thursday’s pre-game press conference. “I think that's the main thing. When adversity hits, how do you respond? Your resilience is gonna get you through it, and ultimately make you successful.”
Hurley said his team has “a sense of excitement.”
“I think we're a dangerous team right now. We've got three guys on the perimeter that could go get us 20-plus. We've got two centers, if they could get them playing together well, the same night, and get some bench production, we're a very dangerous team in this tournament.”
In late November, after coming back from Maui, looking ahead at a Baylor game without Alex Karaban, a road game at Texas, and a meeting with ranked Gonzaga on the horizon, Hurley shared that the mood at that point was, “Will we be .500?”
The Huskies recovered from that, winning all three of those non-conference matchups, and maintained hope for a slightly better fate than the 8-seed they landed despite a rocky ride through Big East play. A mid-season injury to star freshman Liam McNeeley didn’t help the cause, but the Huskies devastated their resume with the brutal loss at Seton Hall.
They ended the regular season with a four-game winning streak that included impressive wins over Providence and Marquette. But then they reminded us of their limitations in a Big East Tournament semifinal loss to Creighton.
After going into the season with high expectations – even if a third-straight championship was a lofty goal to begin with – and missing the mark, they have a chance to write a happier ending at least.
“We have not had a very good regular season, obviously, for our standards and what we're trying to accomplish,” Hurley said. “But we could change that whole narrative and change the way that we view this season by playing our best this this month, right here, and trying to get on a run. We could salvage the whole year, and we have the capability.”
Hurley has also repeatedly suggested that his team will benefit from the style of play and freedom of movement that they experience outside of the Big East.
“The Big East is very physical,” Diarra said. “Teams like to blow up a lot of our actions, make us play a slowed-down game. When you get outside of the Big East it’s more up and down, more freedom, a lot of transition. I think that's beneficial for us.”
If a four-seeded UConn can become the eventual odd-on favorite to win it all in 2023, perhaps an 8-seeded UConn can make an unexpected run.
“Anything could happen when you play at UConn,” Karaban said.
Oklahoma Matchup
No. 8 UConn vs. No. 9 Oklahoma | 9:25 p.m. on TNT
Location: Lenovo Center, Raleigh, North Carolina
Broadcast crew: Ian Eagle, Bill Raftery, Grant Hill and Tracy Wolfson
Series Record: Oklahoma 3-1 (played one game every year from 2002-2005, UConn won at Gampel Pavilion in 2004)
Hurley and the Huskies have paid their proper respects to the SEC and its widely reported success this season.
“That league, this year, it’s just a total monster.... It's everything that people have said it was when you get a chance to watch it,” Hurley said. Though Oklahoma went 6-12 in league play, he mentioned that their non-conference performances showed them what OU is capable of, including wins over Arizona, Michigan, and Louisville as part of a 13-0 start to the season.
“They're battle-tested, so we got to be ready from the jump,” Karaban said.
Hurley added that Sooners’ leading scorer Jeremiah Fears will likely be a high NBA Draft pick this year and there’s “a ton of firepower around him.”
The reining Naismith Coach of the Year also mentioned that he’s feeling a lot less pressure than he did going into 2024, as a huge favorite with a big target, and 2023, when he had yet to win an NCAA Tournament game as UConn’s head coach.
“Nothing could be as heavy for us as Iona in ‘23. I mean, just coming into Albany with the New Mexico State game the year before…that was heavy. There was a lot of pressure on that game.”
Oklahoma head coach Porter Moser said UConn reminded him of an SEC team in some ways, and in other ways will offer a different style of opponent.
“Their movement is as good as anybody that I've seen,” he said. “They'll do multiple sets. So you get caught up in talking about staggereds, flares, flares, re-Po, but the thing is you have to rebound the ball. They absolutely are like an SEC team with the offensive rebounds. Reed in there, Karaban gets in there and gets his hands on, McNeeley goes. They have great positional size too.”
He also offered a deeper scouting report on Liam McNeeley.
“The thing that I've always seen is a combination of a tremendous toughness to compete. He's a competitor deluxe, combined with his IQ, feel for the game, and his skill level,” Moser said. “He can pass. He's got really good positional size at 6'7". His range on his shot and going to pass. I think his intangibles of feel for the game and toughness are just two really huge attributes that you can see that he doesn't look like a freshman with those attributes.”
In terms of their game plan, Moser said it’s going to be about defensive effort and rebounding for his team, adding that “you can't waste possessions. It always comes down to turnovers with that. When we're playing our best, we're high assist, low turnovers, so that's been a mantra.”
On the rebounding front, Oklahoma has been without its top big man, Sam Godwin, for a three games. He has a sprained MCL that is expected to take some time to heal. Moser did not seem optimistic about the possibility of him playing but didn’t rule it out.
“[Godwin] did some stuff this morning,” Moser said. “It's going to be hard for him to go tomorrow night, but I know we're going to wait and see how he does shooting around and also tomorrow in our walk-through.”