ALBANY, N.Y. — That worst nightmare was materializing, the worst-case scenario playing out.
Could it happen? Could Iona, a No. 13 seed, send the UConn men to another early and ignominious exit from the NCAA Tournament?
For a half, it sure looked like it. UConn was behind and looked tight. Then the second half began and the Huskies snapped out of their collective amnesia. They remembered who they were and how they got here. Their best player, Jordan Hawkins, snapped out of his shooting slump, and the Huskies won in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in seven years, beating Iona, 87-63, at MVP Arena.
“Big time performance,” coach Dan Hurley said.
Upsets and near upsets were happening all over the country in this first round, but the Huskies, bitten by that bug a year ago, couldn’t let that happen to them again. Hurley, who has rebuilt the program over the last five years, had to lead them over this hump, or past the roadblock it had become.
And Hurley and his players delivered, shooting over 60% in the second half, looking like a team that could go a long way, maybe all the way. When Adama Sanogo, who scored 28 points with 13 rebounds in a truly big-time performance, hit a jumper to extend the lead to 20 with 3:02 left, Hurley turned to the crowd, tapped both sides of his head and yelled “boom, boom.”
The Huskies, March duds for too long, were at last exploding back onto the scene. And the Rick Pitino Factor was fizzling out, the talent on the court asserting itself.
In this sense, both sides got what they came for: Iona threatened an upset long enough to get various schools searching for a coach, St. John’s in particular, even more anxious to throw millions at Pitino. His mystique still matters.
And UConn (26-8) won and advanced as a No. 4 seed, shook off the yoke of two first-round exits and did not let Pitino’s mere presence force them into mistakes and the agony that would have followed a loss here.
Now it resets, UConn will play No. 5 seed St. Mary’s on Sunday in the Round of 32. It won’t be easy, but the Huskies now have all but the usual postseason pressure lifted.
From the start, it was clear Iona was prepared, in the basketball and mental senses, to play this game, not that anything less could be expected from a Pitino-built and coached team. The Gaels hit their first four shots, three on 3s, and didn’t cool off much as the half played out.
UConn was pulled into playing the Gaels’ game, fast, frenzied, every exchange of the ball made difficult by Pitino’s press defense. The Huskies were not shooting well, under 40%, and their best player, Hawkins (0 for 5), remained in an offensive funk, carried over from the Big East tournament, and though UConn didn’t turn it over a lot, Iona converted the turnovers into nine points.
Iona looked to be gaining more confidence as the game went on, and took a 39-37 lead into the half.
“I thought we were guarding well, they were making some tough shots,” Hurley said. “We felt good at the half, felt like we were going to play well in the second half. Obviously, we turned up the defense.”
In the second half, the tide was reversed and reality set in for Iona, Hall of Fame coach or no. Hawkins hit his first two 3-point attempts to start a UConn run that culminated in an 11-point lead. Joey Calcaterra’s 3 made it a 13-point lead, as actor Bill Murray, the father of UConn assistant coach Luke Murray, stood and cheered a few rows behind the bench. Hawkins scored all 13 of his points in the second half, Bristol’s Donovan Clingan had 12 points and nine rebounds, as the Huskies’ centers dominated the stat sheet. And Andre Jackson, in his hometown, had 10 points, seven assists and five rebounds.
“We felt the desperation we had to play with,” Jackson said. “It was going to be either us or them that went home, and we had to put them away.”
Once the Huskies started rolling Iona was overmatched, outscored 50-24 in the second half. This time, UConn made what was supposed to happen, happen.
“It feels like we got past a marker that we kind of set,” Jackson said. “It definitely feels like a weight off our shoulders.”
