WASHINGTON, D.C. – Silas Demary Jr.’s impact on the game has been clear on both ends of the court for UConn men’s basketball. When he’s on the bench, the issues holding the Huskies back have been accentuated.
After UConn’s win over Marquette on Jan. 4, when Demary was limited to only 21 minutes as he accumulated four fouls, coach Dan Hurley went on one of his press conference tangents where he described his fouling as an addiction, saying, “It’s sick. I don’t know why he likes it, but he likes it. It’s a strange thing to like.”
The issues started to clear up as Demary’s comfortability in the system grew, with the Georgia transfer starring and playing over 30 minutes in each of the next three games. He was available down the stretch and keyed tight road victories at Providence and Seton Hall. But his second foul came with more than nine minutes left in the first half at Georgetown on Saturday and the Hoyas started their comeback with him on the bench.
“Silas getting in foul trouble in the first half, which again, he’s had this addiction to it. Now he’s gotta go back into foul rehab. That hurt us in the first half, we were playing really well, he got the fouls, I had to sit him and we lost our rhythm there,” Hurley said after the Huskies clawed back and held on despite struggling at the free throw line down the stretch for a 64-62 win, their 14th in a row.
Malachi Smith, the backup point guard Hurley and his staff brought in from Dayton, hasn’t made quite the same impact during Big East play as he did during the Huskies’ nonconference stretch. Saturday was Smith’s fourth game in a row with a negative plus-minus.
“It put Malachi in a position too, with Silas’ addiction to fouling, where he had to play a longer stretch of the game in the first half. So we couldn’t just kind of sub Malachi in. I thought Malachi’s first run was better than that extended second run that he had to play because of the fouling,” Hurley said.
The offense has hit lulls at times with missed reads and excessive dribbling late into the shot clock, where the Huskies have found themselves with few options. It has also looked rushed at times with unforced turnovers coming from the timing and accuracy of passes being off.
“I just think he’s got to make better decisions,” Hurley said. “I thought, offensively, he gets an offensive rebound and he’s got a chance to pass it out to the 3-point line and he attacks a couple of bigs. Has that transition opportunity where, maybe, we can get a 3 or a layup (and he loses the ball). He’s just got to settle down a little bit, he’s pressing. It’s our job as coaches to get him out of the funk that he’s in because, again, this is a guy that’s shown the capability of helping us win some of the biggest games on the schedule.”
Demary played the entire second half on Saturday and found himself making winning plays again down the stretch, diving for loose balls and getting in the mix to secure tough rebounds. It was the third time in the last four games that he finished with three steals and he woke up Sunday fifth in the league in takeaways at 1.8 per game.
Whether Demary has been the most impactful transfer portal addition in the nation this year isn’t even a question around the program.
“I mean, he is,” said captain Alex Karaban. “Just what he does defensively for us, we play off him so much defensively and just as a point guard, the lead attacking guy, he’s big-time for us. Defensively, he sets the tone and we follow. Just his toughness every night, and offensively it’s clicking for him now.”
“The amount of winning plays that man just made in the second half of the game,” Hurley said. “There’s a lot of things that have changed the trajectory this year compared to last year, but obviously when you’re handing out gold, silver, bronze medals, you’re certainly playing his anthem just for the winning plays, the tough plays, the timely plays, big free throws, big stops.”
Now he just needs to do it all while finding a way to keep himself on the court.
