Dan Hurley After Loss: We Aren’t Cowards, We Are Tough and We Are Improving

Game-Tough Huskies Fall Short vs. Houston

The Story: The men’s basketball team gave it the old college try last night against No. 9 Houston as it rallied from 17 down to make it a game in the final minutes before falling 71-63 at the XL Center.

UMass transfer DeJon Jarreau scored 18 points in 22 minutes off the bench to lead the Cougars, who have won their last nine games. Christian Vital led the Huskies with 15 points.

WHAT WE LIKED: UConn was outmanned and ran into Houston, a team that is primed for a deep run in the NCAA tournament (let’s hope we didn’t jinx it) and fought for 40 minutes. UConn didn’t play well. It shot 41.2 percent, 33.3 percent from 3-point range (7-of-21) and 56 percent from the foul line (14-of-25) but still found itself in the game on grit and hustle. These are games that will help the Huskies in future years. There are no moral victories, but there are games you can hang your hat on as far as attitude, effort and enthusiasm. This is an improvement for the Huskies from January. How you lose does matter to young teams. We like that Dan Hurley is able to keep his team positive.

WHAT HURLEY SAID: “We don’t [quit] anymore here. We show up and we play like UConn men. We might not be everything that we need to be, in terms of being whole and having everything we need to be what UConn fans are used to seeing on the court. But what we aren’t [is] a bunch of cowards. We are not cowards. We are not soft. We’re tough. We’re improving. We’re developing a culture here of not giving in and playing through and competing and digging our heels in when things get hard and showing what our character is.”

THE TEAM THAT CAN’T SHOOT STRAIGHT: The shooting is brutal. UConn shot 33 percent for the first 30 minutes or so before hitting some shots late to up it to 41.2 percent. Shooting 33.3 percent from 3-point range isn’t going to cut it in the long term and the free throw shooting is abominable. UConn isn’t a good enough offensive team to give away easy points at the charity stripe.

UNLUCKY CALL: Oh, what might have been. The Huskies had a fast break and a sure layup that would have cut the deficit to five with just under three minutes to go taken away by an inadvertent whistle. The official called a shot clock violation despite the rebound happening with one second left. It stopped a sure three-on-one break. The issue was that Houston took a desperation heave well before it was needed and confused the referee. Hurley went nuts, but the official apologized. He addressed the situation after the game. It was a tough break and more unlucky than anything. Kelvin Sampson was upstanding for Houston; said he thinks “it’s a terrible rule.”

INSIDE THE BOX SCORE: This is no surprise, but Houston showcased its depth, holding a 42-9 advantage off the bench. UConn played Eric Cobb 16 minutes (six points) and Brendan Adams 17 minutes (three points). One other mindboggling stat is UConn, which fouls too much, held a 25-11 advantage in free throw attempts, but the Huskies missed 11 of them. All of Houston’s free throws, barring one, came in the final five minutes. The Huskies had an advantage and didn’t take care of it.

SOLID WILSON: Sidney Wilson had another solid game with 12 points on 4-of-9 shooting, a pair of 3-pointers and a steal and breakaway dunk. The one silver lining of all the injuries is that Wilson now gets a chance to play, and he is being pushed to play well. He played 37 minutes on Thursday.

NEXT UP: The Huskies have a week off for some reason and will play at SMU on Thursday. Perhaps it will allow time for Alterique Gilbert to rest up and join the game. Gilbert again warmed up but did not play.

BOTTOM LINE: The Huskies are heading in the right direction, and as Sampson said after the game, Hurley has it headed in the right direction. The immediate isn’t very good. A three-game losing streak has the Huskies at 13-12 and 4-8 in the AAC. The goal here is to finish above .500 and qualify for the NIT, though there is no guarantee UConn would get the invite. To do that, UConn is going to need to win some of these close games and have its effort pay off. In the long term? We like the spirit and fight of the Huskies and if this is about setting a tone of the program, Hurley has accomplished that. But, let’s not get too happy. We miss the NCAAs and three years of no NCAA berth is hard to take for a program of UConn’s stature.

Oh, Good, Back to the Basics

The Story: The women’s basketball team will play UCF for the second time this season as it will be traveling to Orlando to take on the Knights on Sunday (2 p.m., SNY).

ZZZZZZZZZ: Look, let’s call it like it is: After the No. 4-ranked Huskies (22-2, 10-0) defeated South Carolina on Monday, the interesting and exciting portion of their regular-season schedule is over. We tried to convince ourselves UConn’s first game against the Knights (20-4, 9-2) back on Jan. 27 would present a challenge — really, because they appeared good on paper and the mismatches were there — but the Huskies won 93-57, providing another reminder that the teams in the AAC are extremely unlikely to present a challenge anytime soon.

We know the Huskies have never lost a conference game since the AAC was established before the 2013-14 season, and if/when they defeat UCF, they’ll run their regular-season win streak to 97 games. They’ve won those games by an average of 42.9 points, and this year, when they’re supposedly more beatable than they have been since at least 2012, they’re still winning conference games by 32.8 points.

So, who’s remaining on their schedule? The Knights, who have an RPI of 16, then Memphis (232), Tulsa (147), Wichita State (248), Houston (101) and USF (146). Minus UCF, those teams are a combined .461 overall, .411 in the conference, and their average RPI is 175, which is … Denver. Essentially, the Huskies will wind down with five games against a team that’s just above .500 in the Summit League, plus the conference tournament, plus two early-round NCAA tournament romps.

Denver may be a fine team full of fine people. That’s great. It’s would fit well in the AAC, geographically and all. But, Denver. Ugh. Wake us in the last weekend of March.

BUT IF YOU INSIST: If seniors Napheesa Collier, who has scored more than 20 points in her last eight games, and Katie Lou Samuelson score a combined 12 points on Sunday, they’ll surpass Breanna Stewart and Moriah Jefferson for the most points scored by a pair of UConn classmates. That should happen by the midpoint of the first quarter, so, maybe stick around to see how many minutes the reserves play. Let’s set the over/under at 45.

Morning Reads

KNOCK ON WOOD: The clipboard Geno Auriemma uses to diagram his plays during games was made by hand by a fan living in Gibraltar. (Hartford Courant)

SETTLING BACK IN: After being fired by Cincinnati after last season, Jamelle Elliott has returned to UConn in an administrative role helping current and former players find job opportunities. (Hearst Connecticut Media)

HOME AWAY FROM HOME: Anyone surfing through the slate of college basketball games on TV could find a number of Connecticut high school players shining — even though Kevin Ollie wasn’t interested in any of them. (The Day)

SET THE TONE: The baseball team begins its season with a three-game series against No. 4 Louisville at the spring training home of the Detroit Tigers in Florida. Senior right-hander Jeff Kersten will start the opener this afternoon with sophomore right-hander Colby Dunlop taking the mound tomorrow. (UConnHuskies.com)

LET’S PLAY THREE: The softball team (3-1) will play Boston University, Bowling Green and USC-Upstate in South Carolina this weekend, but the original schedule took a bit of a hit because of severe weather. (UConnHuskies.com)

DOGFIGHT: The men’s hockey team (9-17-2, 4-12-2) will try to extend its winning streak beyond two games as it opens a home-and-home series with Boston University tonight at the XL Center. (UConnHuskies.com)

WARRIOR MENTALITY: The women’s hockey team (14-14-3, 9-12-3) is set for a pair of Hockey East games at Merrimack, with the first taking place this afternoon and the second tomorrow afternoon. (UConnHuskies.com)

MAJOR GOLF COACH: Max Major has joined the golf team’s coaching staff. Major is a grad of Johnson & Wales in Miami and is originally from Rutland, Vermont. (UConnHuskies.com)