UConn coach Danny Hurley could see into the future as soon as the Huskies– who had become perennial national contenders under previous coach Jim Calhoun– moved back to the Big East from the all-sports American Athletic Conference– so they could play familiar Eastern rivals again.
This is where UConn belongs.
It has taken four years. But the unbeaten 14-0 Huskies are ranked second in the AP poll and are coming a 74-68 victory over a Villanova team that had won two national championships in 2016 and 2018 and had dominated this league after reallgnment.
Hurley has won just two games in March Madness and that was when he was coaching Rhode Island. But this team has serious Final Four potential and the fans who lined up outside Hartford’s XL Center several hours before tip off can sense it.
The Huskies, who had only defeated Villanova once since the 2014 NCAA Round of 32, seized the moment before a sellout crowd of more than 15,000.
It’s a changing world in the Big East and the Huskies seems ready to re-take control.
The emotionally charged Hurley, who was ejected late in the second half of the Huskies’ 71-69 victory over the Cats in Hartford last year, stayed on the court the entire game this time while Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright, who built the Nova program into a mini-dynasty the last five years before he retired last spring, was nowhere to be found.
UConn is a team with more weapons than anyone in the league, including 6-10 junior Adama Sanogo, the Big East Player of the Year and 7-2 freshman Donovan Clingan, the early favorite for Big East freshman of the Year. The Huskies can go two deep at every position and have at least seven players with the ability to score 20 points in a given night. They play suffocating defense and forced Villanova, which is usually so good with ball possession, into an uncharacteristic 18 turnovers.
This time it was sophomore guard Jordan Hawkins who did much of the damage, scoring 22 points grabbed 7 rebounds and making four threes. Forward Alex Karaban had 15 and three threes while Andre Jackson added 10. The Huskies limited Villanova to 43 percent and just 5 of 22 from deep. they scored 21 points off Nova turnovers, 16 in the second half when the Cats had difficulty getting the ball up court against full court pressure,
“They do such a good job offensively getting the ball out on the break,” Villanova first year coach Kyle Neptune said. “I thought they got out on us a little bit. Just their speed and athleticism and shooting– it’s tough to mimic in practice but once we got a feel for what they do, I thought we did a good job in the half court.”
UConn, down 36-33 at the start of the second half, jumped in back in front, 49-39 with 11:39 to play after Clingan made a pair of field goals but Villanova, which got 23 points from Caleb Daniels and 18 points and 8 rebounds from Eric Dixon, had enough character to stay competitive. Villanova {7-6} cut the lead to 58-56 on a jumper by Daniels before Sonago scored on a reverse layup and forward Andre Jackson drained a three after guard Hassa Diarra, a defensive dynamo who had four steals, picked up a key charge with 2:25 to play.
“I wanted to be disruptive, pick my team up with energy and defense,” said Diarra, a junior transfer from Texas A & M. ‘It started at the defensive end.”
Jackson figures to play a huge role on this team as long as he can control his tempo. He picked up his second technical in as many games, an issue Hurley needs to address. With 3:01 left in the first half, Jackson buried a three pointer to give the Huskies a 29-23 lead. Then he spun around and appeared to yell in Neptune’s face, and was immediately hit with a T. Jackson, who had been hit with a tech for taunting the Georgetown bench in a Dec. 20 game, was sent to the bench by Hurley.
“How can I stop that? I mean, look at me,” Hurley said. “I say it to him and I can see him looking at me like, ‘You shouldn’t be lecturing me on those things.’ You know, it’s hard, because when you’re a player and other team is yelling when you have the ball, “Non-shooter.” But he’s got to stop putting himself in that position. That’s a big swing. But I don’t think this place was louder then when he hit that hit from the corner.”
UConn is on a roll. They are back in the stratosphere the way they were in 1990 when they started 19-0 and won their first national title. And Hurley seems willing to embrace the target on his back.
“Pressure is being 6-8,” he said. ‘There’s no pressure on us, we’re good. We’ve got a good team. We’ve won our first 14, we’ve got a lot of confidence in what we do. We’re taking the confidence of a 14-0 start, but the complacency from it. There are posters all over our facility of where we were picked in the pre-season and the coaches poll, and the pre-season Top 25. These guys know. This team wasn’t ordained from the start, and we’re earning every single thing that we got.”
“We’re UConn, so every team is going to bring their best for us,” Hawkins said. “We always have a target on our back. It’s the history that we’ve had. We always knew we had that target on our back and we enjoy it.”,
