UConn men’s basketball is in New York City for one last test before the NCAA Tournament, and a chance to restore some of what was lost in the season finale at Marquette.
The Huskies were poised to claim a share of the league regular-season crown, only needing to beat a lowly Golden Eagles squad to achieve it. Their loss gave St. John’s its second straight Big East regular-season title and again raised questions about the ceiling and quality of this year’s Huskies.
They narrowly avoided a rematch against Marquette in the Big East Tournament Quarterfinals, which begin on Thursday with top-seeded St. John’s against Providence at noon.
Richard Pitino Jr’s Xavier Musketeers claimed an 89-87 victory over Marquette in Wednesday’s opening round to set up their matchup with UConn.
The 4-5 matchup featuring Seton Hall and Creighton will tip off at 2:30 p.m. before the Huskies’ 7 p.m. tip against Xavier (15-17, 6-15 Big East) on FS1.
Villanova will end the night against Georgetown, starting at 9 p.m., with the winner of those last two games facing each other in the semifinal nightcap on Friday night.
Barring any upsets, No. 6 UConn (27-4, 17-3 Big East) would face the Wildcats for a third time this season after winning both regular-season meetings, in overtime in Hartford and comfortably in Philly.
Dan Hurley’s squad has been without Jaylin Stewart for the last three games; the junior wing is expected to be out for the Big East Tournament as well, Hurley told reporters. He added that Stewart should be ready for the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s a big loss,” Hurley said, adding that it leads to an “untenable situation” with Alex Karaban’s playing time.
The head coach shared that he’s been working on new lineup options to prevent Karaban from having to play 40 minutes.
“We gotta get Malachi going,” Hurley said, before hinting at a two-big lineup, saying that it might make sense for certain matchups.
While UConn lost at Marquette largely because of a 3-of-24 performance from three, the 16 turnovers, and the persistence of that issue, have played a large role in this team’s woes.
“The turnovers have been a nightmare for this team,” Hurley said. “Potentially this team’s undoing.”
He suggested that the giveaways are preventable or largely unforced.
“A lot of it is just, it should be passed out,” Hurley said. “Not dribbling into bad spots, not trying to throw a pass into the middle-third of the court without location, accuracy, and pace.”
Hurley shared that with the proximity to their recent Marquette scouting reports, they were working more on Xavier. He added that it was devastating to lose their shot at the Big East crown in the regular-season finale, but they still have a lot to look forward to.
“The potential’s there,” he said. “We’ve played in the top five…we’ve played better against the best teams that we’ve played.”
Right now, they have to contend with a hungry Xavier team looking to play spoiler. They ended the regular season losing five of six, but just triumphed over a Marquette team that was surging at the end of the year.
The magic of March is that anything can happen.
“New York City, MSG, quarterfinals [are] awesome, Friday night is even better...all the fanbases all hate each other,” Hurley said. “It kind of blows away the first two rounds of the [NCAA] tournament.”
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