NEW YORK — Alex Karaban was asked if he would “do something different” were he to replay St. John’s in the Big East Final on Saturday night. To his credit, he gave an honest, thoughtful answer.
“The whole 40 minutes I wish I had done differently,” he said. “I mean, I wish some of my shots went in. I wish I didn’t lose focus on (Oziyah) Sellers and (Bryce) Hopkins when we were coming back and Sellers got a layup and Hopkins got the mid (range jumper). There’s a lot of things I wish I had done differently. There’s not much you can do about it, you just got to sit with that pain and really, you know … you just got to sit with the pain.”
In less than 24 hours, the pain would have to be pushed aside. The team gathered on campus for the NCAA Selection Sunday and their assignment for the most exciting part of the season. The Huskies have talked about rediscovering the “joy” with which they should be playing. Their 72-52 loss to St. John’s was an indication they also need to find their mojo again, their confidence, even if young athletes never like to admit that is the case.
UConn men’s basketball punished by St. John’s in Big East final, 72-52
“I didn’t crush them in there,” coach Dan Hurley said. “They’re crushed, the group is crushed. We laid an egg in something that we desperately wanted to win. I mean, we just laid an egg.”
The Huskies have until Friday to get it back. They will face No. 15 Furman in the NCAA’s Round of 64 on Friday, and if they win, would get UCLA or Central Florida in the second round, both games in Philadelphia. UConn, the No. 2 seed, is in the East Region, where Duke, the No.1 overall seed, tops the bracket. UConn would go to Washington, D.C. if they reach the Sweet 16.
At times like these, Hurley shifts into a sort of damage-control mode. While he pours everything he has into every game — he picked up another technical foul early Saturday night — and expects players to do the same, he will shift after a loss and urge his team to look back on all they’ve accomplished and draw confidence from it. The Huskies, after all, are 29-5 and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a better record and position that several of the program’s eventual championship teams, including 2023, when they lost in the Big East semifinal. Then, as now, Hurley pointed out that UConn’s style of play is better suited for the less-physical nature of non-conference play, and though it sounded like a rationalization, it was 100 percent accurate.
Whatever logic Hurley employs, UConn players have earned the right to feel good about themselves, but here is the trouble: That 29-5 mark does indicate a good season, but when you start 22-1 it doesn’t feel as good as it looks. A No. 2 seed in the tournament is nothing to be sad about, unless a No. 1 seed was yours to lose, and you played yourself out of it. There’s no shame in finishing second in the league and the conference tournament to the team that was picked to win it from the start, but this isn’t the way you’d want to do that. Bottom line, the vibe is not good. They go in with zero momentum, and will have to generate it from a standing start.
These things are never easy to track, but this year? Have you ever seen teams play three times with such wildly different results than these UConn-St. John’s battles? The Johnnies won the first decisively. UConn responded with an epic rout three weeks later. Now St. John’s responded in kind. They are the best team in the Big East, fair, square and undisputed, that bout is over, it goes to Rick Pitino by split decision. The Red Storm is the No. 5 seed in the East Region, so a fourth matchup vs. UConn is possible.
Now it’s for the Huskies to get up off the canvas and fight again, as their predecessors did at times like these, rather spectacularly after getting blown out by Pitino’s Louisville team in the 2014 AAC final.
This UConn team, after winning 18 in a row, has played its four worst games, and a couple of its best games, within the last few weeks. It is a good enough team to go far, a No. 2 seed indicates that, yet the Huskies are vulnerable and insistent enough to fall to a Power-4 also-ran, such as UCLA or UCF, in the second round.
“I’m not sure what the inconsistency is,” Karaban said. “It might be turnovers. We had a lot of turnovers today. I think all those losses that you said, we had a bunch of turnovers. We just didn’t defend at the level that we typically would defend at. So we show up defensively, we show up taking care of the ball, then we’re one of the best teams in the country. So we just got to do it on a nightly basis.”
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You can mask a lot of issues by shooting lights-out. You can overcome a bad shooting night by doing the other things well. But if you turn the ball over, as the Huskies did 17 times Sunday, are exposed on defense and shoot poorly, your season usually ends on that note. Sure, even championship teams have nights like that, but they are few and far between.
“I think we’re playing confident, to be honest with you,” said Solo Ball, 1-for-7 against St. John’s. “We’ve put up too many reps for us not to be. We shoot every day, during practice, get reps after practice. I wouldn’t say it’s a lack of confidence.”
The Huskies missed a lot of easy shots in the paint vs. St. John’s, and they went 3-for-19 on 3-pointers. Remember, they were 3-for-24 in the loss at Marquette that cost them a share of the regular season league title. Hurley believes his team might be pressing, especially when trying to come from behind.
“I think everybody is still confident in each other and in our ability to shoot the ball,” Braylon Mullins said. “Games like this just happen. It’s a make-or-miss league, you’ve just got to step up and make a shot and we’ve had a couple of games where we couldn’t do that.”
The Huskies have had too many such games in too short a span for an outside observer to feel good about their chances of stacking six solid performances in the NCAA Tournament.
What matters now, though, maybe all that matters come the start of March Madness, is how UConn feels about its chances.
