Welcome To Game Week! … Or Not?
The Story: The long wait for the college basketball season is over, hopefully, as the men’s basketball team is rumored to play this week. Against who? CCSU and Hartford on Wednesday and Friday.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: UConn being tight-lipped about these games is weird. We don’t get it. The games against in-state foes can be canceled quite easily and we know the fans are frustrated about the lack of communication. We get that the Huskies don’t want to schedule a game and then pull out because of COVID-19. But, we are getting impatient and want to at least have something to look forward to on the sports docket. What we have, potentially, is two games this week that are the worst-kept secrets in town. Adam Zagoria tweeted that the Huskies will play CCSU on Wednesday. And as for Hartford on Friday? UHart coach John Gallagher let the cat out of the bag there. The games are allegedly on TV, maybe FS1, but UConn hasn’t acknowledged the games. Why? We don’t know and we don’t get it.
BACK FROM COVID-19: Part of the reason for the silence over the men’s basketball games could be because the team is just returning to practice after a positive COVID-19 test. It was back at practice last week and it looks like everyone is healthy and ready to go. James Bouknight was named to the Naismith Award watch list and after nine months of “will we play games or not?” we can actually talk about starting lineups for the team.
THE LEGEND OF BOUKNIGHT: This is going to be the season of Bouknight. There is some nice mythology developing about Bouknight being overlooked by scouts as he was only ranked No. 80-something in the country out of a small prep school in Granby, Mass. Hurley, of course, fell in love at first sight and made him a top priority. All great UConn players have those kinds of stories (Kemba Walker was a consolation prize; Emeka Okafor was found late on the recruiting trail out of nowhere). We almost didn’t get the Bouknight experience. Last year at this time, he was facing charges that resulted in fleeing from the cops at a traffic stop. It all worked out for Bouknight and this season, instead of the embarrassment of a court hearing, he is looking like UConn’s next NBA player. Bouknight is far from the only sure thing for the Huskies. He’s just the biggest name for the program as it returns to the Big East.
WHO IS ON POINT? We really like the team Dan Hurley has assembled and think it had a decent shot at winning the AAC tournament a year ago. The Huskies have two transfers who are going to be featured in Howard’s R.J. Cole, who averaged 21.4 points per game for the Bison and Rhode Island’s Tyrese Martin. Brendan Adams is now a junior and Jalen Gaffney returns as a sophomore. How Hurley handles the point guard slots is going to be fascinating. The Huskies have a lot of versatility there. We are dying to see Cole play. He is a 6-foot-1 scoring point guard who and shot 38.7 percent from 3 in 2018-19, his sophomore year. His last basketball game was March 20, 2019.
Cole took fewer 3s as a sophomore and while his scoring declined by two points, his 3-point shooting and overall field goal percentage increased as he took three fewer shots a game. We really like to see that kind of progress. It’s going to be interesting to see how Cole gets his shots off. The MEAC isn’t the Big East (though it is improving with several top-150 players committing to HBCUs lately).
COMEBACK FOR AKOK, POLLEY: We have our eyes on Akok Akok and Tyler Polley. Polley is coming off an ACL tear and the Huskies need his 3-pint shooting. For Akok, his Achilles’ tear has healed and we see he has bulked up. Those two are the Huskies’ high-end options in the post. UConn still has Josh Carlton, who is looking to bounce back after a poor junior season, and Isaiah Whaley, who went from roster fodder to a key contributor through just plain old hard work.
IMPACT NEWCOMERS: We mentioned Cole and Martin, but the Huskies have a highly regarded recruiting class in the books with Andre Jackson, Adama Sanogo, Javonte Brown and Richie Springs. Springs sat out last year as an academic redshirt and practiced with the team. Jackson could push to start and is a high-flying athlete who recently had NBA superstars Damian Lillard, Donovan Mitchell, Ja Morant and Jamal Murray talking about him (warning, NSFW rim destruction). He has also been dunking at UConn’s practice.
BOTTOM LINE: We need games this week for our sanity. But, if that doesn’t happen, Dec. 1 looks like the first confirmed date of a game against Vanderbilt at Mohegan Sun. There won’t be fans at games for a long time and the NCAA Tournament will likely be a one-site event. Expect games to be canceled and games to be put together ad hoc over the next two or three months, but that’s just the world we live in. Regardless, UConn is back in the Big East and we can’t be happier. We might have to wait one more year for that Friday night semifinal vibe at MSG, but we are going to get UConn against the teams we want them to play. Is the sports season in jeopardy? Yes, but we feel that the procedures are in place for COVID-19 and to get some semblance of a college basketball season and it is going to be a must-watch in Connecticut for the first time in a long time.
#IceBus Takes It To No. 7 UMass
The Story: The men’s hockey team failed to win two games against UMass this weekend with a 5-1 loss on Friday and a 2-2 tie on Saturday in Storrs that confusingly actually may have been a win after a shootout.
… WHAT? Let’s turn to wunderkind Daniel Connelly, who can explain it better than we could:
“The Huskies’ ‘victory’ tonight will initially go into the record books as a tie since this series is viewed as a non-conference game by Hockey East. If the UConn’s series with UMass in January gets canceled, these two games will then be counted towards the Hockey East standings.
“New to Hockey East this season, shootouts will be used to decide a winner if no team scores during a five-minute, 3-on-3 overtime period. For games decided in overtime or by a shootout, the winner will receive two points while the loser will get one.”
WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW: We have college sports in Connecticut. The men’s hockey team opened the season and we are delighted. UConn was waxed on Friday but was able to tie up the game on Saturday with two goals in the third period, the last with 2:20 left on a goal by Brian Rigali.
Morning Reads
BRIMAH TO PACERS: Former UConn center Amida Brimah still has an NBA dream and has signed with the Indiana Pacers on an Exhibit 10 deal. He likely won’t make the roster, but he is going to camp and will get some decent coin to do that if he goes to the G League. (Indy Star)
PEART HAS COVID-19: Former UConn OT Matt Peart is now in the Giants’ offensive line rotation, but is out with COVID-19 for the foreseeable future. (Giants Wire)
YOUNGEST TEAM IN 32 YEARS: The women’s basketball team will be younger than it has been in 32 years when it plays Quinnipiac on Friday. (Journal Inquirer)
