Offense Disappears Late vs. West Virginia
The Story: The men’s basketball team struggled offensively down the stretch and scored only two points in the final four minutes as West Virginia knocked off the No. 15 Huskies 56-53 in Morgantown last night.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The Huskies led 51-49 with 3:50 left and then went into a massive offensive drought when they finished 1-for-8. They struggled to get good looks, and when they got open looks, they didn’t knock them down.
The Huskies have shown a penchant for struggling late in games and it cost them a road win at raucous West Virginia. The offense-challenged Huskies were led by Isaiah Whaley‘s 15 points while R.J. Cole had 14 points and Andre Jackson scored 10.
MISSING SANOGO AND MARTIN: Predictably, UConn, which is averaging in the mid-80s in scoring and wants to play at a faster tempo, struggled offensively without Adama Sanogo and Tyrese Martin‘s combined 28 points per game. The Huskies have to rely on Cole and then the rest of the team to get the scoring done, and that didn’t happen last night. Where did the struggles come from? The replacements:
• Akok Akok went only two points on 1-of-5 shooting, though he was a major factor on defense and had 10 rebounds.
• Jordan Hawkins had two points and missed all seven of his shots, and Tyler Polley scored four points on 1-of-6 shooting. Six points on 1-of-13 shooting from the two best shooters on the team is tough to overcome. Hawkins is not yet comfortable with the speed of the college game. Polley was just cold.
• The bench managed only 10 points with six coming from the underutilized Jalen Gaffney, who only took five shots. UConn is lauded for its depth. Where is it?
• The 3-point shooting was atrocious with UConn going 3-for-21 from beyond the perimeter. Jackson, a reluctant shooter from that range, was 1-for-1.
INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: The game was slow as the Huskies had only 61 possessions and came away with a poor .8369 points per possession. They had only .71 points per possession in the second half, when they shot 34 percent. That wasn’t what Hurley wanted as he preferred a full-court game that created possessions and opportunities in transition. The Huskies had 11 fastbreak points.
DOING THE JOB ON DEFENSE: The Huskies allowed Taz Sherman to score 23 points and Sam McNeil to score 16. They were the only West Virginia players in double figures. The Huskies’ interior defense was solid as they allowed only 20 points in the paint and West Virginia went 9-for-19 on layups.
BOTTOM LINE: UConn’s offense foundered in crunch time like it did against Michigan State. The Huskies desperately missed Sanogo’s post play and his ability to score and space the floor. The offense ran through an exhausted Cole, who was good in the first half but had too much size and pressure thrown at him in the second half. That inability to get the offense started when the defense takes Cole out of the game remains a concern. Without Sanogo, if teams take away Cole, where do the Huskies go for points? Whaley and Jackson are opportunistic scorers, but they shouldn’t be relied upon. That leaves others to pick up the slack as Polley and Hawkins had off shooting nights. Poor shooting happens, but when the shot isn’t falling, the Huskies have to find another way to get their wing scorers going.
NEXT UP: The Huskies play St. Bonaventure on Saturday night in Newark, N.J.
Huskies Stung as Muhl Out Injured, Too
The Story: The injury bug keeps taking a bite out of the women’s basketball team as Nika Muhl will miss tonight’s game at Georgia Tech (7 p.m., ESPN2) with a nagging foot injury.
PREVENTIVE MEASURES: Geno Auriemma said Muhl will probably miss three weeks and is being shut down so the injury doesn’t get any worse.
• UConn will already be without Paige Bueckers, who will miss up to two months with a broken left leg; Aubrey Griffin, who hasn’t played this season because of foot and back injuries; and Azzi Fudd, who has missed the last two games with a foot injury.
• “These things happen,” Geno said. “When you lose somebody like Paige, [it hurts], but if you have Nika available, it takes some of the sting off. If you have Azzi available, it takes some of the sting off. But when you throw in all three of them, that’s a real gut punch.”
• Muhl has played in all six games this season and is averaging two points in 10 minutes, but she started 15 games last season as a freshman and averaged 4.9 points, 2.7 assists and 2.4 rebounds in 24.4 minutes.
SENIORS STEP UP: The Huskies’ trio of seniors — Westbrook, Christyn Williams and Olivia Nelson-Ododa — will need to play an even greater role beginning tonight against the Yellow Jackets, though that’s not unfamiliar territory for them.
• Bueckers, who is averaging 21.2 points and 5.5 rebounds per game, is accounting for 28.4 percent of the Huskies’ scoring and 14.9 percent of their rebounding. Williams is second on the team with 15 points per game and Nelson-Ododa is averaging a team-high 7.3 rebounds per game.
• It’s a homecoming game for Nelson-Ododa, who is from Winder, Ga., which is a little under an hour east of Georgia Tech’s campus in Atlanta.
• Expect freshman Caroline Ducharme to earn her first start with the rest of her backcourt teammates injured. Ducharme has scored 18 points in 39 minutes this season, but she scored 14 of those in 14 minutes in the Huskies’ last game, a win over Notre Dame.
ABOUT GT: The Yellow Jackets (6-2), who are receiving votes in the Associated Press poll, have three players in double figures in scoring in junior center Nerea Hermosa, sophomore guard Eylia Love and senior guard Lotta-Maj Lahtinen. Senior center Lorela Cubaj is nearly averaging a double-double with 9.4 points and 12.3 rebounds per game.
• Georgia Tech is a strong defensive team as it leads the ACC in scoring defense, ranks second in rebounding defense, is third in field goal percentage defense and is fourth in 3-point defense.
• UConn has won the only two other meetings with Georgia Tech. The last was in 2010, when it won 71-51 behind 30 points from Maya Moore in her homecoming game.
Morning Reads
• Jim Mora added another assistant coach as William & Mary offensive line coach Gordan Sammis took the same job in Storrs. William & Mary ran for a conference-best 203.7 yards per game this season. (The Day)
• Freshman running back Brian Brewton was named to The Athletic’s All-America first team as a kickoff returner. Brewton was third in the nation with 29 yards per kickoff return and scored two touchdowns. (The Athletic)
• Don’t expect a Phommachanh family reunion at UConn. Taisun, who is transferring from Clemson, is unlikely to play in Storrs as he does not want to compete with his brother, Tyler, to start. (Hearst Connecticut Media)
• Taylor Pannell had 16 kills and five blocks and McKayla Wuensch had 44 assists as the volleyball team beat North Florida in four games in the quarterfinals of the NIVC last night at Gampel Pavilion. The Huskies will face Valparaiso on the road in the Final Four tomorrow night. (UConnHuskies.com)
• Charlotte Hornets guard James Bouknight appeared on the CT Scoreboard Podcast. (CT Scoreboard Podcast on Spotify)
