Finally, The Game We’ve Been Waiting For
The Story: The football team will get a chance to shovel a pile of dirt on the grave of its neighbor to the north when it faces Boston College tomorrow at Pratt & Whitney Stadium (noon, CBS Sports).
LONG TIME COMING: Boston College, a school 78 miles northeast of Storrs, has avoided playing in Connecticut since it left the Big East for the ACC after the 2004 season. It’s unfortunately the only time the teams are scheduled to play in the state because the home-and-home series only includes a return game at BC next season.
• The teams played in 2016, when UConn lost 30-0 at BC, and in 2017, the year UConn foolishly chose to play a home game at Fenway Park and lost 39-16. A 24-14 loss in East Hartford in 2003, the second game ever played at Rentschler Field, was the only time BC played on the road since the Huskies joined the FBS.
• If you need a refresher on the hatred, BC lobbied to join the ACC alongside Virginia Tech and Miami but was turned down. The ACC then realized that having just 11 schools at the time was kind of weird, so it gave in to BC’s whining. Then-Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal filed a pair of lawsuits against BC for trying to damage UConn and the Big East, the departing schools agreed to a settlement and everyone went their separate ways.
HOW STRONG IS THE HATRED? If we’re being honest, it’s not really that strong anymore, is it? We might be mistaken, but it’s been 20 years. Heck, Victor Rosa and the rest of the freshman class weren’t even born when BC and UConn shared a conference.
• Look at all the other rivalries that have been broken up by conference realignment. Texas and Texas A&M. Kansas and Missouri. Penn State and Pittsburgh. They all mean something and still engender strong dislike. BC and UConn just kind of coexist.
• Let’s not ignore the facts, either. UConn has never beaten BC in football. It’s 0-12-2 all time. And in basketball, the series was just as lopsided. It’s as much of a rivalry as UConn and Cincinnati. That being said, beating BC would still be so, so satisfying.
ABOUT BC: The Eagles (2-5, 1-4 ACC) are led by senior wide receiver Zay Flowers, who has 52 catches for 691 yards and six touchdowns. Redshirt senior Phil Jurkovec, who began his college years at Notre Dame, has completed 59.2 percent of his passes for 222.3 yards per game, 11 touchdowns and six interceptions.
• The only thing BC does remotely well, which is saying a lot, is not get penalized. That’s how far into the stats we had to go to find something remotely positive about the Eagles.
Has the NBA Pipeline Reopened?
The Story: Dan Hurley has had a player drafted in each of the last two years, and the Huskies could have many as three off the board this year in Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson and Adama Sanogo.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: UConn, at one time in the mid-2000s, had the most players in the NBA, beating out such factories as Duke, Kansas and North Carolina. As UConn has waned as a national contender over the last decade, the NBA players have disappeared. Of UConn’s four players on an NBA roster, two are Hurley products in James Bouknight and Tyrese Martin. That could more than double this year if things go as planned as Hawkins, Sanogo and Jackson are considered potential draft picks.
HAWKINS A FIRST-ROUNDER? The jewel of UConn’s prospects is Hawkins, who averaged an unspectacular 5.8 points per game and shot 33 percent from 3-point range last year.
• The Athletic’s preseason mock draft has Hawkins going with the No. 26 pick. His strengths are his shooting and athleticism. Hurley has already touted his 6-foot-5 sophomore wing as a first-rounder and he is going to be relied upon to be UConn’s No. 1 scorer.
• Hawkins is a catch-and-shoot player, and we would like to see him be able to drive to the rim and finish. If he can do that while getting double the minutes from a year ago, he could rise up the draft boards.
JACKSON OF ALL TRADES: Jackson, who is out until at least December with a finger injury, is listed by The Athletic at No. 36, which is a high second-round pick for a player who has yet to come into his own offensively.
• Jackson has one thing that you can’t teach, however, and that’s athleticism. He is a highly skilled 6-foot-6 forward who can make an impact while not shooting. He can pass and dribble and has an improving set jumper.
• We have yet to see that athleticism translate to much offense at the rim, but he is excellent at blowing by his defender and setting teammates up. Think of him as a defensive win in the NBA who doesn’t need the ball to make an impact.
• If Jackson improves his shooting volume from last season, where he shot 36.1%, and shows an ability to score at the rim he could rise up into the first round. He’s young, can handle and pass, and would do well in the NBA open-court game.
THE DEATH OF THE CENTER: Sanogo, the preseason Big East Player of the Year, is not listed as a selection. Drew Timme, a first-team All-America center from Gonzaga, is ranked No. 45, and Kentucky’s Oscar Tshiebwe, last year’s best big man, is No. 39. So, three of the top centers in the country, with two being Wooden Award favorites, are projected to go after Jackson and Hawkins, who combined to score 12.8 points per game. That’s less than Timme (18.4), Tshiebwe (17.8), and Sanogo (14.8) did a year ago.
• What’s the deal here? Centers are persona non grata in the NBA. When the best prospect in a generation is a 7-foot-4 Frenchman who plays like Kevin Durant, you can imagine how little pro teams value 6-foot-8 guys with great footwork.
• Sanogo’s strengths as a pro will be as a rebounder and inside scorer, but he’s going to need to extend his game to the perimeter. We are expecting to see some perimeter play from Sanogo this season and we wouldn’t count out corner 3-point shots for the junior center. That’s the shot that is going to get him into an NBA camp and perhaps on a roster.
• Projections out there for Sanogohave him as a second-round pick or an undrafted free agent. It all is going to depend on how his season goes, though considering his age and position, he will be hard-pressed to break into the first round.
BOTTOM LINE: UConn isn’t back to the heyday of having 10 or more players in the NBA, but with only aging Andre Drummond and the ageless Rudy Gay left from the Jim Calhoun era, it will be nice to have some of Hurley’s guys get into the league. It helps recruiting and it’s fun to see players with UConn ties playing at the highest level of basketball in the world.
Morning Reads
• No. 10 UConn throttled Boston College in men’s hockey, 5-1, last night in Boston. The Huskies wiped BC off the ice as they turned a 1-1 game at the end of two periods into a rout with four third-period goals. Ryan Tverberg scored twice for the Huskies. (The UConn Blog)
• The women’s soccer team throttled Seton Hall 4-0 last night at home behind Chioma Okafor‘s hat trick. (UConnHuskies.com)
• The No. 13-ranked field hockey team will play its final two regular-season games this weekend, with Temple in town this afternoon and No. 2 Maryland visiting Sunday afternoon. (UConnHuskies.com)
Top photo: Zion Turner will lead UConn against BC tomorrow afternoon. (Ian Bethune for The UConn Daily)
