Huskies Tame Black Bears
The Story: The men’s basketball team got off a to a slow start before suffocating Maine, 64-40, at the XL Center on Sunday afternoon. James Bouknight led the Huskies with 15 points while Alterique Gilbert added 13 points.
BOUKNIGHT AGAIN! Bouknight had a monster highlight-reel slam and amassed 15 points in 19 minutes by taking 11 shots. UConn struggles to score at times, as it did in a six-minute stretch in the first half before turning it around with defense. Bouknight looks like the kind of player who is good enough to eliminate those droughts altogether with his ability to score. Add in reserve guard Brendan Adams‘ 11 points and we kind of like the backup backcourt better than starting backcourt.
ALTERIQUE UNDER CONTROL: Don’t take the above as a slight on Gilbert, because we certainly don’t want Dan Hurley coming after us. Gilbert was under control and terrific against Maine with 13 points on eight shots and had only one turnover. He’s UConn’s most important player and needs to play well if the Huskies are going to be in contention for a return to the NCAA Tournament.
TURN ON THE HEAT: A snowstorm and sub-30 degree temperatures, so Hurley made the Huskies turn on the defensive heat and get into the Black Bears’ shorts in the second half. UConn held Maine to 16 second-half points and forced 28 turnovers.
MAINE JOINS EUROPEAN UNION? What do we call it, a Maine-exit from the U.S? We don’t know why Maine has 12 foreign nationals on its roster, and actually would love to know. While many of these players ended up at prep school in the United States, we don’t really don’t know what to think of that roster makeup. Funny fact? It’s nest player is Andrew Fleming who is from Norway … Maine.
NEXT UP: The Huskies will play Iona on Wednesday. Iona should be a tougher test as the preseason MAAC favorite this year.
Ready For the Future? We Aren’t Either
The Story: The football season ended on Saturday with a dreadful 49-17 loss to Temple. UConn finished 2-10 and is now headed into an era of uncertainty as a football independent and an uncertain future.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Close the books on the AAC. UConn never wanted to be in this league and played like it, including losing its last 19 conference games. UConn is 6-30 over its last three years, all part of Randy Edsall‘s second term. UConn will go independent as a football program beginning next year. In the meantime, there is a lot to chew about the direction of the program, including the future of the head coach.
IS EDSALL DONE? SHOULD HE BE? There is no indication that Edsall will be fired. It would have to have happened quick as he was due a $300,000 retention bonus if he was still head coach on Sunday. That may be more about where UConn is as an athletic department than a show of confidence in its head coach. UConn can’t make its fourth coaching change in 10 years, has no money to pay a new coach and staff and is about as unattractive an FBS job as there is in the country, considering no one knows what is going to happen as an independent.
WE ARE NOT JOKING! That’s the truth. Edsall is the only coach in this country that would have put up with AD Dave Benedict blindsiding him with the move out of the AAC, saying no to paying assistants and taking a job that should be in the $2 million range and doing it for a little more than $1 million. You get what you pay for and Benedict’s actions have made it abundantly clear that the school is going to reduce the financial commitment to football and competing at a Power 5 level. No amount of rhetoric can convince us otherwise. The proof is in actions, not words.
HOW IS THE ROSTER? Still very young, but there is talent. Quarterbacks Jack Zergiotis and Steve Krajewski have ability, though both have some incredible blind spots in their games. The Huskies have a 1,000-yard running back in Kevin Mensah and we like young wide receivers Cam Ross and Matt Drayton. UConn needs to rebuild the O-line, but the offensive skill positions might be in the best shape. We didn’t like Frank Giufre as an offensive coordinator. He stepped in when John Dunn left for the Jets. (Will he come back if Adam Gase is fired?) and we’ll see if he continues in that role.
Defensively? There is some improvement from last year, and we like Lou Spanos‘ intensity, but it is so bad, especially the secondary, they could go out and get 11 junior college transfers and we wouldn’t blink. If UConn had anywhere near the defenses they had in Edsall’s initial tenure, the Huskies could very well be bowling this year.
OUR TAKE: The leaps of faith UConn is asking fans to take in football are over. UConn now has to prove to fans that it is worth their support. Who thought when Edsall left the locker room in Glendale, Arizona, after the Fiesta Bowl that all of us would be in this position? Certainly not us. UConn goes into 2020 with a clean slate, but let’s make no illusions about how difficultly independence will bring.
We are encouraged by the recent spate of commitments but we just don’t know what the goal of the football program is any longer. Is it to compete in the top 25? Compete for bowl games? Help get the school into a Power 5 conference? Make money for the school? We don’t know. No one does, and while Edsall is tasked with rebuilding the brand and football program on the field, Benedict is tasked with steering the ship toward something sustainable. The schedule is a start.
Just playing the games and fielding a team is not the result and direction we are looking for. The AAC is very good from a football standpoint, but the university just never came to grips with its football misfortunes over the last decade. Independent status means a less ambitious role for football at the school, and perhaps a chance to gerrymander the schedule for more money.
We’re about to find out.
Morning Reads
HUSKIES SWEEP MIAMI: The men’s hockey team defeated Miami (Ohio) twice over the Thanksgiving weekend, including 4-3 at home on Saturday. The Ice Bus is 5-6-3 on the season. (UConnHuskies.com)
STRUGGLES IN HAMDEN: After winning four of five, the women’s hockey team struggled during the break and lost to Yale and Minnesota-Duluth at the Nutmeg Classic at Quinnipiac. (UConnHuskies.com)
CALL ME MAYBE: A Class of 2022 point guard from Georgia, Zocko Littleton, has picked up scholarship offers from schools such as Georgia and Xavier but is desperate to follow in Alterique Gilbert‘s footsteps and head to UConn. (247Sports.com)
BC BOOTS ADDAZIO: Cheshire native Steve Addazio was fired by BC after seven seasons even though the Eagles will once again head to a bowl game at 6-6. (Boston Globe)
ORLANDO OUT: Former UConn defensive coordinator Todd Orlando was the scapegoat for Texas’ struggles as he was fired from that position yesterday. (Houston Chronicle)
