UConn back to Big East?

[StuckOnYouk]

Terrific win vs Providence, now let’s carry that same effort into MSG on Saturday vs the Johnnies.

As of now it would be UConn Vs Providence on a Thursday at 230 in the BET. Quite a 4/5 game.

 

[Dan Murfman]

Unless PC loses at home to Seton Hall or Xavier loses to Butler at home they will be playing Creighton in their first BET game. Would love to see them beat Nova Saturday night. Still no good road wins. MSG doesn't count.

 

[RedOctober3829]

Unless PC loses at home to Seton Hall or Xavier loses to Butler at home they will be playing Creighton in their first BET game. Would love to see them beat Nova Saturday night. Still no good road wins. MSG doesn't count.

Good thing the BET and hopefully the East Regional are home games then!!

 

[bosox188]

I mean technically, you never need to win a road game to win the conference and national championships. So we're good!

 

[Ale Xander]

Nice 35-8 lead, Jesus

 

[Dan Murfman]

Well unless Creighton loses to DePaul it’s going to be PC Thursday at 2:30. And while this game isn’t a must win a win at Nova would be great momentum going into BET.

 

[bosox188]

Excellent win at Nova tonight, defense was absolutely tremendous and Hawkins, Karaban, and Jackson all delivered on the other end. UConn now back up to #4 in KenPom. This is every bit as good as you could have hoped they'd look heading into the BET.

Also Azzi Fudd's return for the quarterfinals on the women's side was a very happy development today. Caroline Ducharme taking yet another head injury, less so.

 

[StuckOnYouk]

We’re back to being the team we were in the first two months of the year when we looked like we could win it all.
Providence has gotten rocked twice in the past few weeks, including by us. I assume they will come out with a lot of energy so if we can withstand the first 5-10 minutes we should be fine.

 

[BaseballJones]

UConn is going to beat Providence by 15+.

 

[JOBU]

UConn is going to beat Providence by 15+.

Hope so. I don’t share your optimism. I kinda see a back and forth affair with UConn pulling away (hopefully) in the final minutes.

 

[bsan34]

Providence basically collapsed after that 2nd UConn game. The last week in particular has been *ugly*.

 

[bosox188]

I do expect Providence to play a lot better than their past week and I expect they will come out amped up early on. But I have a lot of faith that UConn will be able to weather that and wear them down.

Past tournament results do not scare me, this team has scoring talent on the perimeter that the last few teams couldn't touch, Hurley is going to shake off any doubts about being able to win tournament games. I don't have the numbers on hand right now, but I saw something earlier in the season where the efficiency metrics of Hurley's teams (think it was KenPom adjusted offensive/defensive efficiency) have basically gone up with almost every year of his coaching career. He's a really good coach and he's only getting better, and sooner or later the results will match the expected results.

 

[RedOctober3829]

I will certainly take that kind of start. Now get out to a big lead and take care of business.

 

[bosox188]

It's very strange that Newton didn't start the game, last night there was some random Twitter account I've never heard of that spooked a few people claiming that Newton and Alleyne would be unavailable due to some sort of academic suspension. Seemed like bullshit.

But Newton is in now so I guess we're fine.

Edit: and now Alleyne comes in off the bench when he usually would.

 

[RedOctober3829]

It definitely is Storrs South in MSG yet again.

 

[bosox188]

Andre Jackson has been awesome so far, absolutely awesome.

 

[bosox188]

I am hooting, I am hollering. What an electric showing from the kids.

 

[JOBU]

About 15:00 left in the game. Up by 24. If this is the team that shows up from here on out they will be an incredibly tough out. Not too many teams out there that can beat UConn when they play like this.

 

[JOBU]

It definitely is Storrs South in MSG yet again.

If they get seeded in the east region I have a hard time seeing how they wouldn’t be the favorite to come out of that region between playing in Albany and MSG. Sign me up for that.

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

Haven't been able to watch -- at work. Why is the foul disparity so significant? Seems like it should be the other way given the flow of the game and how good the Huskies seem to be. Just one of those things?

 

[bosox188]

Haven't been able to watch -- at work. Why is the foul disparity so significant? Seems like it should be the other way given the flow of the game and how good the Huskies seem to be. Just one of those things?

They let them both play in the 1st half, then in the 2nd half once UConn went up by about 25 they started calling UConn fouls nonstop.

 

[JOBU]

What the fuck are they doing. Jfc

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

Oh boy, this is bad.

 

[jmcc5400]

UConn’s coach is literally on the Court. It’s unreal. And what a missed loose ball foul

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

Going to need to shoot the 1 and 1.

 

[JOBU]

Didn’t need this stress after a 26 pt lead. Glad they held on but Jesus man

 

[bosox188]

Hawkins and Karaban hit huge shots down the stretch there to hold off the onslaught, which is very encouraging for prospects the rest of this month.

 

[DennyDoyle'sBoil]

Didn’t need this stress after a 26 pt lead. Glad they held on but Jesus man

It was shitty but you just have to hope that it ends up being a positive. Survive and advance. Get a chance to see the press and get a scare? Maybe that's not really a bad thing.

The thing about a 26 point lead is that you can get outscored by 25 for the rest of the game. That's just how you have to look at it.

 

[StuckOnYouk]

We are a Jekyll and Hyde team and you saw it all today.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have tried to run out clock with 10 minutes left? Caused us to completely fall out of our offense.
But a win is a win. Kudos to providence for playing to the final buzzer.

 

[bosox188]

We are a Jekyll and Hyde team and you saw it all today.
Perhaps we shouldn’t have tried to run out clock with 10 minutes left? Caused us to completely fall out of our offense.
But a win is a win. Kudos to providence for playing to the final buzzer.

Like you said, we just had to withstand 5-10 minutes from Providence. Just wasn't the part of the game anyone expected.

But I don't think they were trying to run out clock with 10 minutes left. It's more that they lost their minds for a few minutes playing against the press, plus Newton banging up his knee and staying out on the court limping around for a minute (feel like there should have been a timeout there). It sort of dominoed on them pretty quickly.

 

[StuckOnYouk]

Seemed to me with at least 8 minutes to go and maybe more we were content with getting the ball up court past their press and then just settling, eating 20+ seconds before starting to set something up quickly.
But maybe my timing was off.
I don’t want to make it about the officials because we had way too many turnovers but I found it odd the team that was pressing all half only had like 2 fouls called on them while we had probably 8 or 9 at one point in the second half. Didn’t seem to jive.
But whatever like I said credit to providence for not giving up. Cooley is a good coach.

 

[bosox188]

Seemed to me with at least 8 minutes to go and maybe more we were content with getting the ball up court past their press and then just settling, eating 20+ seconds before starting to set something up quickly.
But maybe my timing was off.
I don’t want to make it about the officials because we had way too many turnovers but I found it odd the team that was pressing all half only had like 2 fouls called on them while we had probably 8 or 9 at one point in the second half. Didn’t seem to jive.
But whatever like I said credit to providence for not giving up. Cooley is a good coach.

I didn't want to do it either, though I did mention it during the game and I agree. In the first half they let both of them play, in general in the other games this tournament they seem to be letting the teams play too. In the second half things started out similarly until UConn went up huge, then the fouls started pouring in. Hard to be objective when you're watching your own team play but, I don't know. It wasn't for a lack of driving, Newton couldn't get a call down there.

Edit: I also agree that Cooley is a very good coach and I think he's going to do a great job turning Georgetown around starting next year (was that mean?)

 

[bosox188]

After one half of basketball, this is the kind of game that's amazing to watch if you're not a fan of either team, and agony otherwise. Back and forth basketball at its very best, but oh so stressful...

 

[BaseballJones]

They are REALLY letting them play. So much hacking and grabbing and pushing and bumping with so few calls.

 

[JOBU]

After one half of basketball, this is the kind of game that's amazing to watch if you're not a fan of either team, and agony otherwise. Back and forth basketball at its very best, but oh so stressful...

As a fan of one of these teams I concur with your assessment.

 

[JOBU]

Heck of a game but a tough loss. UConn couldn’t buy a bucket the last 2 minutes. Had a few good looks. They just didn’t drop. Oh well

 

[RedOctober3829]

3 or 4 seed on Sunday I’d say. Disappointed with no timeout before last possessions and Calcaterra 3s on 2 of last 3. Danny’s gotta win a big game in March now. 0-3 in BET semis. 0 ncaa wins. Gotta change next week.

 

[bosox188]

I'm going to have night terrors about open threes not falling tonight. I give Hurley a ton of credit for the switch to zone that cooled off Marquette's offense. That absolutely saved us down the stretch, would have had the doors blown off us.

Considering that could have easily been a final four match-up, I'm trying to keep perspective.

 

[Dan Murfman]

3 or 4 seed on Sunday I’d say. Disappointed with no timeout before last possessions and Calcaterra 3s on 2 of last 3. Danny’s gotta win a big game in March now. 0-3 in BET semis. 0 ncaa wins. Gotta change next week.

I didn’t hate the no timeout. He had Adama open.

View: https://twitter.com/brassbonanzaa/status/1634371676711313408?s=61&t=mLlSRkfq4VtgCm4CvSpAPg

 

[bosox188]

Was a lot to post that too. They had Adama for the tie, Newton just didn't see it sadly.

 

[BaseballJones]

You could tell right away that Newton was basically in panic mode. Hurley should have seen that because it seemed super obvious to me about two seconds after he gained possession of the ball. I'm not at all surprised he didn't see Sanogo.

 

[gryoung]

They are REALLY letting them play. So much hacking and grabbing and pushing and bumping with so few calls.

Ahhh. Good ol’ Big East basketball.

 

[RedOctober3829]

Was a lot to post that too. They had Adama for the tie, Newton just didn't see it sadly.

I don’t know that Newton could get the ball to him. Full speed with defender draped on him and off ball defender coming to wall him off from getting to the rim.

 

[bosox188]

Marquette is absolutely ripping Xavier to shreds right now. Xavier was a really good team, this is kind of stunning to me, I'd picked Marquette but not like this. I feel a lot better about last night seeing this.

 

[Dan Murfman]

Marquette is absolutely ripping Xavier to shreds right now. Xavier was a really good team, this is kind of stunning to me, I'd picked Marquette but not like this. I feel a lot better about last night seeing this.

And you know St John’s really should have beaten them on Thursday.

 

[BaseballJones]

UConn women got what I think is a great draw, all things considered. The two biggest threats to win it all are, I think, South Carolina (obviously...they're the best team in the country by a significant margin) and Stanford. But both of those teams are in the same half of the bracket, opposite UConn. Here's UConn's likely path:

First round: Vermont - should be an easy win
Second round: Baylor or Alabama - Baylor usually is pretty tough but they're down this year...UConn should roll into the Sweet 16
Regional Semifinal: North Carolina or Ohio State - gets a little harder here, but I don't see UConn losing to either of these teams
Regional Final: Virginia Tech or Tennessee - No disrespect to Va Tech, who is really good and they've had a great season, but I think UConn handles them pretty easily; and they already beat Tennessee at Tennessee

I think UConn makes it to the Final Four.

And then there, they'd match up with Indiana or Utah or Villanova or LSU probably. None of those teams is a cakewalk, but it's never easy this time of year. Put it this way: I'd rather face ANY of those teams than South Carolina or Stanford at this point in the tournament.

So I actually see this beat up, exhausted UConn team making it to the NCAA championship, where they will likely promptly get rolled again by South Carolina. BUT.....UConn CAN win that game (with a depleted roster, they only lost by 4 earlier this year)...IF a number of things go right for UConn. South Carolina would be the heavy favorite, but UConn would definitely have a puncher's chance in that one.

 

[Dan Murfman]

Pricing airfare, hotel room and tickets. I really want to go

 

[bosox188]

I am so happy that these kids get to play next weekend, and that we get to see more of them.

 

[RedOctober3829]

I said it on Friday and I’ll say it again: they got by the first one which was the toughest. Now they can just go play. They look like the Pk85 Huskies that dominated Alabama, Michigan State, and Iowa State. I think they’re going to Houston.


View: https://twitter.com/uconnmbb/status/1637983447032426497?s=46&t=IVL2VrlFgLlpc3mjGGto8Q

 

[JOBU]

I love me some JC. I always thought it was a bit weird that the school has (as far as I know) never really done anything to honor Calhoun. I think there’s a banner that hangs in his honor but I would have thought the godfather of UCONN basketball would have at least a statue or the court named after him.