STORRS – A new season begins for the UConn men’s basketball team, which was announced as a No. 2 seed, No. 6 overall, in the March Madness field on Sunday.
After failing to dethrone St. John’s in the Big East regular season and the conference tournament, attempting to sleep off the pain of a brutal loss in Manhattan and turn the page, the Huskies bussed back to Storrs on Selection Sunday and gathered to hear the path toward their ultimate goal in the NCAA Tournament.
A good, though disappointing, season could turn into a great one with a third national title in four years – which, coach Dan Hurley pointed out a few times before the season began, would still define this run as a dynasty.
UConn, 29-5 with four losses coming in its last 11 games, was placed in the East Region of the bracket, set to play No. 15 seed Furman in Philadelphia on Friday. The game is set to tip-off at 10 p.m. on TBS.
It is the sixth year in a row that the Huskies made the NCAA Tournament, a new program record.
The East Region – a gauntlet – includes Duke, the No. 1 overall seed, along with No. 3 seed Michigan State, No. 4 seed Kansas and No. 5 seed St. John’s.
“Every year you look at it, it’s pretty tough. St. John’s a five-seed? That’s a heck of a region. Michigan State has looked more like a No. 2 until Purdue’s run and ends up as a 3… It’s a heck of a region,” Hurley said. “We’ve wanted to play in Philly from the start, I think we’re excited that we were able to earn Philly.”
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Should the Huskies avoid a first round upset, they would meet the winner of No. 7 seed UCLA and No. 10 seed UCF in the Round of 32 with a chance to make the second weekend in Washington, D.C. The earliest they could meet St. John’s for the fourth time this season would be in the Elite Eight.
The other No. 1 seeds are Arizona in the West Region, Michigan in the Midwest and Florida in the South.
UConn has been a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament six times in its history, including the 2004 national championship run – the second under Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun. The Huskies lost in the Elite Eight three times as a No. 2 seed, in the Sweet 16 once and in the second round once.
But this season, with this team’s volatility, a high ceiling and a very low floor, has been all about keeping focus on the moment.
“We’ll do what we did in 2023. We’ll leave it here,” Hurley said after his team was jumped and beat up on by St. John’s, falling in the Big East Tournament final, 72-52.
“The No. 1 thing that we talk about, and it’s pretty apparent, is that we play better out of league than we do in league. There’s other teams that play better in-conference and struggle in the nonconference. For us, our history has been that we’ve performed better outside of the league, we play well in the NCAA Tournament,” he said Sunday. “We’re confident in our ability to get outside of this league, which is a real brutal, physical, rock fight, and just get a little more basketball, more movement, and less grabbing and less holding and less fouling and less mauling.”
UConn is 52-6 over the last four seasons against nonconference opponents, including a 10-1 record in nonconference play this year – that one loss coming to Arizona, which received a No. 1 seed on Sunday.
In 2023, the Huskies came up short in the semifinal round at Madison Square Garden as Jordan Hawkins’ attempt at a game-winning jumper hit off the rim and they lost, 70-68, to Marquette. Hurley learned from his mistakes in years prior and didn’t let the loss linger, and the team went on to dominate its way to the first of back-to-back national championships as a No. 4 seed.
This team has more flaws, so he wouldn’t predict that same type of run. But it has shown that, when everything is clicking, it can compete as one of the best in the country.
“I think this team’s capable of it,” said captain Alex Karaban, the only player left from that 2023 team. “I think we’ve responded on a variety of bases, whether after a loss or after a win, but we do have to respond. The excitement that Selection Sunday brings, the excitement of playing in March Madness should really help with this pain that we’re going through right now, but it’s not gonna be easy to just get over it. Coach will help us out with moving on. I’ve got to help with leading this team to help move on, and at the end of the day, once we’re playing wherever we’re playing, there will be excitement again.”
“We’ve got some guys pressing, we’ve got some people overthinking, and we’ve had some issues in some of these bigger moments recently. The Marquette game to win the league, the game the other night,” Hurley said. “The group’s got to carry itself like a team that’s won 29 games. There’s not many of them in high-major basketball that are going into the NCAA Tournament with 29 wins. So we just want these guys to carry themselves like a 29-win team. And I felt like we carried ourselves (Saturday) night like a 19-win team.”
Injury update
Hurley had a positive update on Silas Demary Jr.’s ankle injury, which was described as a “very minor sprain,” after he had to be carried off the court and into the locker room with three and a half minutes left in Saturday’s game. Demary’s X-ray came back negative, his father reported, and he appeared to be walking normally, without a boot, as the team crossed Jim Calhoun Way to view the selection show from the football facility.
“I think Silas is in pretty good shape,” Hurley said.
Hurley said “it will be close” with Jaylin Stewart in terms of a potential return for the first round. Stewart, dealing with right knee inflammation, hasn’t played since the Feb. 21 road trip to Villanova.
