OMAHA, Neb. – After the UConn men’s basketball program took over as the No. 1 team in the country as reigning champions in January 2024, coach Dan Hurley used it as motivation to keep the team going.
“Somebody should have to pry it out of our lifeless body and our dead hands,” he said then. “We should be playing so hard to keep this right now that somebody’s got to rip it out of our lifeless body.”
It happened to be that year’s trip to Creighton which snapped a 14-game winning streak in late February and bumped the Huskies down to No. 3. Carrying a 16-game winning streak and a No. 2 ranking into Omaha on Saturday night, this UConn team ended the first half on a 14-3 scoring run and blew the game open with a 14-2 burst early in the second. It was the best 40-minute performance from the team this season and it ended in a lopsided 85-58 final score.
Hurley doesn’t have the same approach with the current win streak, now at 17, and an 11-0 mark in the Big East, which is the best start to the Big East season for any team since UConn’s first national championship campaign in 1998-99.
“I just think that we’ve been playing so uneven, so spurty, kind of sluggish, disappointing, that I haven’t even talked about the streak because it’s been, I just don’t think we’ve played well enough for me to warrant talking about it,” Hurley told The Courant outside the visitor’s locker room at the CHI Health Center Saturday night. “And the team, I think one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made publicly is comparing this team to national championship teams. That was a mistake, so you won’t hear that from me until we get much later in the season and we are actually playing at that level consistently.”
For the team, the existence of the streak is nearly impossible to avoid.
It is the program’s longest winning streak since that 1998-99 season under coach Jim Calhoun, when the Huskies started 19-0 and only lost two games the rest of the way. It is also the third-longest active winning streak in the country behind Arizona and Miami (OH), which are both unbeaten at 22-0.
“You see it every day,” said point guard Silas Demary Jr., who has been one of, if not the best transfer portal addition in the nation. “Our biggest thing is just building on playing a full 40.”
“I don’t even know what the win streak number is,” Alex Karaban said, echoing Hurley’s messaging as captain in his fourth year with the program. He’s been a part of four winning streaks of 10 games or more. “I’m more so focused on leading this team and helping this team get better, just knowing that we were close against Villanova, Providence, close against all of these different teams to where we can’t focus on a win streak. So we’re just focused on ourselves, focused on getting better. If we get better, focus on the wins, the records will happen naturally.”
Mullins returns from concussion, gets right to it
UConn’s fab freshman Braylon Mullins missed one game after entering the concussion protocol in an overtime win over Villanova, and he felt the effects of the concussion “a little bit” as he watched the Providence game from the end of the bench on Tuesday night. Progressing through the protocol, he returned to practice Friday and thought he might have to try to get his wind back early in Saturday’s game.
“But no,” he said. “We came out to play today.”
Mullins got going early and finished with four made 3-pointers and a team-high 16 points, setting the tone for the team’s 16-for-31 performance from beyond the arc.
“He’s a special player, a special talent,” Hurley said.
Hurley winning Creighton fans over?
The boos weren’t so loud when Dan Hurley walked onto the court before a crowd of 18,560 – the eighth-largest in Creighton history. He has had his fair share of adversarial moments with the Bluejays fanbase, from the viral moment in 2024 when he apparently told an unruly fan he’d knock him out, to the “Two rings, baldy!” moment walking off the court after last year’s win. There were no “(Bleep) Dan Hurley!” chants on Saturday.
“I credit the Athletic Director here (Marcus Blossom), who is just a first-class leader and I know it’s important to him that the crowd is collegiate, it’s intense, there’s passion, but I know the messaging from the athletic department and the university is to tone it down a little bit. I appreciate that greatly,” he said.
The Bluejays got the last laugh when they knocked the Huskies out in the Big East Tournament semifinal, when Jamiya Neal showboated with a dunk in the final seconds and met Hassan Diarra with fists up when he came off the rim. Hurley took no issue with it, feeling like it was karma for his interactions in Omaha.
“I do think I’m starting to win some fans over here, slowly,” he said. “Just admitting (in his book, Never Stop) that I was an asshole last time here I think really helped me.
Creighton defense feeling hole without Kalkbrenner
Part of UConn’s 54.1% shooting from the field had to do with the loss of the 7-foot-1, four-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year, Ryan Kalkbrenner. The big man is now a teammate of Liam McNeeley’s with the Charlotte Hornets.
Creighton’s defense is No. 124 in efficiency on KenPom and 334th nationally in block percentage.
“Me and Kalk, I’ve seen him several times. I’ve got so much respect for him, and my relationship with their coaches and their players is not as adversarial as it is with the fans and the crowd here,” Hurley said. “I think it’s like what we went through last year, you lose Donovan Clingan on your defense, that next season everything changes for you. We struggled mightily last year defensively like they’re struggling this year when you lose, like the most impactful player in the country on defense.”
“Obviously he’s playing great in the NBA, starting and doing awesome,” Hurley went on. “I’m just grateful that there’s no chance that he’s gonna try to come back to college. And I don’t think the judges in Nebraska, they wouldn’t (bleeping) do that.”
