MBB tries to balance progress of recent past with postseason disappointment
In the eyes of the University of Connecticut Huskies’ men’s basketball program, a foundation that took two years to build was torn down in 40 minutes on Thursday night.
Granted, such a grim consequence was self-bestowed by a team going through the understandable stages of grief that come with being on the wrong end of an upset in the NCAA Tournament. One 70-63 loss at the hands of the New Mexico State Aggies in Buffalo won’t erase everything that UConn was able to accomplish over the past two years. This year was particularly exciting: the Huskies (23-10) put out their best win tally since 2016, with 13 of those triumphs coming in conference play, their best in either the Big East or American Athletic Conference since 2009.
But in Storrs and Hartford, opening day of the NCAA Tournament is supposed to be the first step of a spring journey rather than the luxury it has been over the past half-decade. Such frustration somewhat boiled over for the Connecticut contingent on hand for the first round of the West Regional.
“I don't want to talk overall about the big picture of what the loss means. I think these guys have had a couple of really, really good seasons to get this program back in a really good spot, but we played poorly in the NCAA Tournament,” head coach Dan Hurley said. At the same time, the fourth-year head coach refused to judge the past two seasons by a single game and implored outside observers to do the same.
“If you are going to be judged by just one game and in a single-elimination tournament where pretty much anybody can lose to anybody, if that is the only way that your season is validated, then I'll allow media or other people to do that,” he said. “I love this team. I've loved coaching this team. It's a special group of guys. They took a lot of big steps.”
In his postgame statements, Hurley was flanked by R.J. Cole and Tyrese Martin, two of the key contributors of the last two years, coinciding with the team’s return to the Big East. Hurley mourned not for the fact that the team was unable to fulfill the massive expectations typically bestowed upon the Connecticut program but rather that the individuals carrying on the tradition weren’t able to experience the glory of an NCAA Tournament victory. Thursday’s loss pushed the Huskies’ drought in national postseason victories to six years, their last such triumph coming in the first round of the 2016 edition.
“(The disappointment) has nothing to do with where we play and the history and tradition. It's about just that group and how much they've done and how great a group of guys they are,” Hurley said. “Just how hard of work and how much effort. Just what they've put into getting us back to the tournament back-to-back years. Just playing out some really strong regular
seasons. It's crushing to see your guys not be able to get the enjoyment of that next game and the build-up. It sucks.”
Though shorter since they came in as transfers, Cole and Martin’s time in blue and white represent a curious, if not exciting period, in Connecticut basketball history. Upon their respective arrivals from Howard and Rhode Island, the program was mired in a different kind of drought, an outright multi-year departure from the NCAA Tournament. They helped snap the relatively easy part of that absence last season, though disappointment awaited in the opening round against a 10th-seeded group from Maryland.
All but two participants from the 63-54 defeat to the Terrapins returned this season, a year further anchored by the expanded roles of sophomores Adama Sanogo and Andre Jackson. What ensued was a season that started to recapture that old sense of Connecticut prestige and glory, one perhaps unseen on the men’s level since the Big East’s near-extinction in 2013. Sure, they made an unexpected run to the national championship the year, but this season brought a big-game mentality that resembled the classic contests of the 1990s and early stages of the new century. The relative return was on full display in a February battle with Villanova, where a sellout crowd at XL Center willed the Huskies to victory over the new Big East’s overlords from Philadelphia, a win that felt like a true paradigm shift in UConn lore.
Alas, the euphoria of February does nothing to erase the heartbreak of March, a sensation that was still making its prescience felt amongst the players when they addressed the media.
“It was emotional just knowing that that was the last 40 minutes of basketball that we're going to be able to play with that group together, so it was kind of like stunning and sad, shocking, a lot of whole different emotions,” Martin said. “All of them probably hasn't set in with everybody, but I feel like once I walk out of here tonight, it's going to hit me.”
“This group, we built a lot in the last two years, and honestly, just to see it…not all go away, but this game right here just hurt, honestly,” Cole, who led the team with 20 points on Thursday, concurred. “I feel like we just gave it all back what we worked for this season, so it was a tough way to go out.”
At the end of the day, in the twilight of defeat, fleeting silver linings of optimism emerged, which is truly all one can ask for in the aftermath of a reversed upset. Martin and Cole acknowledged that while their time in Connecticut ended in heartbreak, he was excited for the future thanks to the development of the underclassmen like Jackson and Sanogo and was pleased that, if the Huskies had to bow out early, they and the other departees went out fighting with the most desirable group possible.
“We fight. I wouldn't want to go to war without any one of those guys that were out there with me today, even the ones that didn't get in the game,” Martin said. Going through what we went through, it hurts going out how we went out. We're fighters.”
“They were part of this program when we first got in here as well, so we built it from the ground up with them especially,” Cole said of the road ahead of Jackson and Sanogo. “They're very talented, and I think they're going to do very big things in this program and help this program continue to make the rise that it needs to be.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
