Round of 32 GameDay: UConn vs. Florida | 12:10 p.m. on CBS
UConn men’s basketball has a feather in its cap after an NCAA Tournament victory on Friday night in a game where they led for 38 minutes. Though Oklahoma made a push in the second half and the Huskies were in foul trouble, Solo Ball and Alex Karaban made sure they pulled away for good in the closing minutes. They tied a modern-era record with their 13th straight tourney win in the process.
“The last couple years, the run has been amazing,” Hassan Diarra said. “We're still on the run, and we still want to continue it.”
This sets up a second-round matchup with Florida, a team picked by many to win the national championship after the Gators won the SEC Tournament and earned the top seed in the West Region. With a 31-4 record, proficiency on both sides of the court, and great size and depth, Todd Golden’s Gators are one of the most complete teams in the country.
“The film doesn't lie about Florida, the challenges that they present in terms of what they do offensively, what they do defensively, what they do on the backboard…it's eerily similar to the challenges that we've presented to people,” Dan Hurley said, comparing this Florida team to his UConn team last year.
Hurley acknowledged that his squad was going into Sunday’s game as underdogs. But he knows a path to victory exists.
“It's not a best-of-seven-game series. It's a one-game do-or-die situation. For us, there's a distinct way that we're going to want to play this game tomorrow that we believe is going to give us a chance to win the game,” he said.
UConn will need to turn in another impressive defensive performance, like the one that held Oklahoma to 32 percent shooting from the field on Friday, and get more from top scorers like Karaban and Liam McNeeley.
“Obviously our defense is going to be stressed out to the max. Our rebounding is going to be stressed out to the, max. But we've got to do things to give ourselves a chance tomorrow versus this team,” Hurley said.
McNeeley has gone four games without hitting multiple threes, going 1-8 from behind the arc against Oklahoma, 0-5 in the Big East Tournament semifinal loss to Creighton, and 8-33 overall from the field in his last two games.
Hurley expressed confidence in the freshman’s ability to power through this cold shooting stretch.
“He is the exact type of mental toughness, upbringing, work ethic and career success where he could put behind him the kind of a couple of tough games which he's experienced,” the head coach said. “I think it makes him really dangerous tomorrow. I think it makes him incredibly dangerous in a game where he has the ability…he's convinced that he's due.”
Karaban had six points in the BET loss to Creighton and just two at halftime of the Oklahoma game. He finished strong to make sure UConn won its first-round matchup but admitted he needs to be ready from the jump.
“I can't wait till the last five minutes to get myself going and show up,” Karaban said. “That's something I got to do better.”
His head coach said he wants him to take more shots, even if they aren’t falling. As the team leader, he has to stop worrying about efficiency and take decent looks when he gets them.
“Alex is such a perfectionist and a smart player that like he knows the quality of shots. With this team and this roster that he has around him, he's got to take more contested shots. He's got to let it fly more,” Hurley said, adding that he should have taken 14 shots in that Oklahoma game where he finished 5-11 from the field.
“He has so much trust and confidence in who I am as a player, he does want me to shoot the ball more, and I definitely do got to do that at times,” Karaban said. “I've just got to have that confidence in myself as well.”
Florida is ranked 2nd in KenPom, which projects an 11-point Gators win, similar to what the oddsmakers are predicting. The Huskies are clearly embracing their underdog role.
“It's definitely less pressure, but I felt like we've been the underdog the entire season ever since we came back from Maui,” Karaban said.
Hurley also shared that while he has a close relationship with Billy Donovan, the Florida coach who won back-to-back titles the last time it was accomplished before UConn, “he’s gone dark on me the last couple days here. He's not responding to texts or phone calls.”
Tarris Reed Jr. said “locking up defensively” is going to be the key to the game.
“Being an underdog going into tomorrow is nothing new to us,” Diarra said. “We've just got to be ready.”
Support your favorite team with a contribution!
