Hurley, Huskies Have Arrived
The Story: Dan Hurley has never been shy about his goals for the men’s basketball team and with a date at DePaul tomorrow, the No. 20 Huskies are finally looking like the team he has always promised they’d be (6:30 p.m., FS1).
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Hurley’s most famous quote, so far, was spoken in his second year after a loss to Villanova. Hurley, who like Jim Calhoun wears his heart on his sleeve, warned that opponents “better get us now.” The insinuation, of course, is that the Huskies aren’t going to lose games regularly, and he set a mark for the future of the program.
• Two years after those comments, one NCAA tournament berth and a blowout win over Georgetown in hand has us confident in one thing: The Huskies have arrived.
HOW GOOD WAS UCONN ON TUESDAY? UConn scored 96 points against Georgetown, but that only touches the surface on how good it was. The offensive performance against the overwhelmed Hoyas was one of the best of the last 20 years in all of college basketball. I know what you are thinking, really? The answer is, of course, yes as ESPN guru John Gasaway noted the performance was an “extreme scoring event.”
• What’s that, you say? Scoring 1.645 points per possession was perhaps the best offensive performance of any team in the country this season. As far as offensive efficiency, it was one of the five most efficient games since at least 2002.
WHY WAS IT SO GOOD? UConn scored 96 points on 68 shots, made 10 3s and knocked down 18 of 25 free throws. Georgetown never had a chance. The Huskies added 27 fastbreak points and were deadly on the offensive glass.
• It was a perfect manifestation of how Hurley wants to play. He wants to win, above all, but he doesn’t mind blowing teams out of the water. He wasn’t afraid to back off that when speaking on Barstool Sports’ Bench Mob podcast yesterday.
WHAT DID HURLEY SAY? “I don’t care what people’s opinion of me is. Like, I just want to try to kill the next team I’m playing. Like, I don’t give a shit what people say. It don’t bother me. People think yelling at me during a game on the road … like, that shit don’t bother me.”
PLAYING WITH PACE: Want to really get The Daily office’s juices flowing? Just play uptempo basketball. Why can’t the Huskies do that more often? Naturally, fast breaks start on the defensive boards, and they have to be secured first.
• Secondly, how good is the defense in transition? Our hope, though, is that UConn continues to play with pace. It isn’t fullcourt basketball, rather, playing fast and moving the ball on offense and attacking. What we don’t ever want to see again is walking the ball up and having to go with a pick and roll late in the clock to create a shot.
OK … DEPAUL? The Blue Demons have struggled since Big East play began. They were 9-1 but are now just 10-9, meaning they are 1-8 in the conference.
• The Huskies will have their hands full with DePaul’s leading scorer, Javon Freeman Liberty, who is scoring 21.6 points per game and shooting 38.6 percent from 3-point range.
• DePaul is coming off a 67-43 loss to Villanova on Tuesday.
Huskies Face Changes With Fudd Back
The Story: With Azzi Fudd back from a foot injury that cost her nearly two months, the women’s basketball team will have some decisions to make when it comes to rotations, minutes and lineups beginning Sunday at Providence (7:30 p.m., SNY).
FUDD’S IMACT: The freshman sharpshooter made a surprise return in the 80-78 win at DePaul on Wednesday and scored 15 points in 23 minutes off the bench.
• Fudd hadn’t played since Nov. 22, meaning she was out of the lineup before Paige Bueckers was injured. She scored 7.5 points on 45.8 percent shooting in 19.5 minutes off the bench during those first four games.
• Will Fudd stay on the bench? It seems likely, at least for the next few games. The No. 10-ranked Huskies (12-4, 7-0 Big East) may limit her minutes to ease her back in from a foot injury, and Geno Auriemma said part of the reason why he originally moved Evina Westbrook to the bench two weeks ago was to get more depth scoring.
• The biggest impediment to Fudd starting is the emergence of Caroline Ducharme, who has scored 17.1 points in 34.8 minutes since Dec. 9 at Georgia Tech, the first game Bueckers missed. You cannot possibly justify moving Ducharme to the bench.
WHAT DID GENO SAY? “Azzi’s first workout the other day, she made like 25 straight shots, and I’ll bet you only one of them touched the rim. When you add somebody like that to the lineup, that makes a lot of people feel a lot more confident, especially me.”
GROWING PAINS: Yes, DePaul is a good team. But it’d be hard to say that some of the Huskies’ struggles on Wednesday were not due to the changing dynamic of adding another player.
• Remember, the Huskies looked lifeless in the first three games without Bueckers, and only the 20-day pause because of COVID-19, and easing back in with games against Creighton, Butler and Xavier, prevented them from a bit more trouble. Even the game at Oregon on Jan. 17 was an adventure with Christyn Williams out.
• There hasn’t been any update lately on Bueckers. At the time of her injury, it was expected she would return around mid-February. Once she returns, UConn will be good — but we reckon it will still take time for everyone, including Bueckers, to adjust.
• The Huskies are a No. 3 seed in the first top-16 “reveal” by the NCAA tournament committee last night and aren’t even slotted to play in Bridgeport in the regional. Is that fair? Yes, for now, but if Bueckers comes back, they might be the best No. 3 seed in history.
ABOUT PROVIDENCE: The Friars — can women be friars? — are 9-9, and 4-5 in the Big East, heading into tonight’s game at Creighton. They are led by Janai Crooms, a talented point guard from Rhode Island who spent her first two years at Ohio State before transferring to Michigan State before last season. She is averaging team highs of 12.9 points, 9.2 rebounds and four assists a game.
• Mary Baskerville, a 6-foot-3 senior forward and Enfield High graduate, is averaging 10.1 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. In fact, Providence is the best defensive rebounding team in the Big East, averaging 29.7 per game, and is averaging 40 total rebounds a game.
Morning Reads
• The men’s ice hockey team, fresh off a win over No. 19 Merrimack, will try to lay claim to the title of the best college hockey team in the state in the Connecticut Ice tournament this weekend in Bridgeport. The men play Yale tomorrow with No. 2 Quinnipiac or Sacred Heart on Sunday. The pandemic canceled last year’s tournament and the snowstorm barreling toward the Northeast is a problem. All games will be on SNY. (Hartford Courant)
• The women’s hockey team will try to stay hot when it hosts Boston College tonight, followed by a game at Holy Cross on Sunday. (UConnHuskies.com)
