For an agonizing period, it was shaping up as one of the worst losses in years. And then, for a time, it was starting to look like one of the most exciting comeback victories in ages.
Say this for the UConn men’s basketball team, circa 2023: It makes you feel things. The Huskies can turn up the volume so high at either building, Gampel Pavilion or the XL Center, that you worry about structural integrity. Or they can make even a packed house as quiet as the woods on a snowy evening, all in the same game.
They are not great right now, not terrible, but neither are they dull. On Wednesday night, the Huskies put their fans through hell, and took them nearly all the way back, but left Gampel feeling empty after the 82-79 loss to Xavier, the sixth loss in eight games.
“It’s a tough loss, man,” Jordan Hawkins said, staring down at the interview table. “I hate losing, I’m very competitive, so, yeah. Tough loss.”
This, it was. A great, entertaining game, a great fight, but a tough loss, and a damaging one. The Huskies (16-6) are now 5-6 in the Big East, well south of first-place Xavier, 9-1, and have now lost to the Musketeers twice. No flukes here any more, nothing that can be chalked up to the hazards of road games. Xavier is the better team, and Marquette, which comes to Hartford Feb. 7, may also be better. And Providence. UConn, which won its first 14 games, will not win the regular-season conference title, but will likely finish in the middle of the pack. They have a break to regroup before playing Tuesday at DePaul, the only conference team to beat Xavier.
“We’ve got nine games left to really, really get our act together,” Dan Hurley said. “Fix the things we’re not getting on the defensive end of the court. We’ve completely lost our way and I’ve got to get that fixed.”
You really want to give the Huskies credit for their comeback in the second half. Down 17, they cut Xavier’s lead down to one with 10:59 left. After Xavier restored its lead to 11, UConn again got it back to one twice more, and had its chances to tie or take the lead, but for a few ill-timed misses at the free-throw line and a couple of turnovers that kept them from getting over the top, from proving they know what to do down the stretch.
Hurley switched to a zone and full-court press, but Xavier shot 50 percent in the first half, and 57.7 percent in the second. “If we stayed in man-to-man, they might have shot 70 percent,” Hurley lamented.
Hawkins scored 28 points, all but two in the second half, as the Huskies scored 55. Tristen Newton attacked the rim and got himself to the line 11 times, scoring 23, but typifying UConn’s recent frustration, he made a free throw he was trying to miss with two seconds left, to give his team a chance for a tip-in.
“If we didn’t dig ourselves so big a hole, we wouldn’t have tried to miss a free throw,” Newton said. “I don’t think anyone works on trying to miss a free throw, but our first half put us in a hole where we were in that position.
And the way the Huskies started this game was the thing that stung, despite the comeback. UConn missed its first nine shots, and Andre Jackson, goaded by the defense, missed seven of them. As Hurley explained in detail, there are better choices than jacking up threes when the defense is giving so much room, but Jackson couldn’t avoid the trap and the Huskies fell behind 9-0. They missed 12 of their first 13 from 3-point range and found themselves down 35-18.
At the XL Center, they boo. At Gampel, it was a collective gasp to see the Huskies play this poorly. There was a stunned silence as the half ended, UConn down 15, and it was stunning to see them come out so flat against the team that beat them on Dec. 31, in a game that could have set their season right, The 30-point win over Butler on Sunday now looked like fool’s gold.
UConn couldn’t guard, Xavier couldn’t miss.
“The huddles in the first half, the looks were kind of like disbelief that we could play that poorly in this building,” Hurley said. “Then the second-half team, we might’ve won every ‘four-minute war’ in the second half. That second-half team was team that I love to coach, a team with spirit, that fighting spirit, and the guts to make big shots and plays all over the court. ... That team is still there that has the quality.”
There were flashes, sure, but that identity that marked this team before New Year’s Eve has not yet been rediscovered, and if the search for it is becoming a compelling story, there will be no happy ending unless it is found.
“We’re still trying to get to it,” Hawkins said. “We gave a fight. We battled back in the second half. We’re working our way back to our identity. It’ll come back. Everybody on this team has the goal to get it back and we’re all working towards it.”
