The Huskies came in last place in the Maui Invitational before rolling over UMES.
UConn men’s basketball’s trip to Maui Invitational didn’t go as planned, as the Huskies went from favorites in Maui to finishing in last place after three-straight losses to unranked opponents. UConn bounced back with a resounding over Maryland- Eastern Shore at home in Hartford, but the Hawks are one of the worst teams in Division I by just about every metric. With Feast Week done and a crucial two-week stretch against No. 15 Baylor, Texas and No. 7 Gonzaga looming, our staff has some takeaways from the Huskies’ meltdown in Maui.
The fouls are a problem
Dan Madigan: I am so over the #discourse about Dan Hurley and the refs on the internet. But ref drama aside, this is as undisciplined of a defense so far as Hurley has ever had at UConn. The Huskies were out-attempted 98-48 at the free throw line in its three games in Maui. Even if the refereeing is good, bad or somewhere in between, it’s impossible to win a game that way. There isn’t one truly strong perimeter defender outside of Hassan Diarra, and even he has been plagued with foul issues.
UConn currently ranks No. 83 nationally in defensive efficiency, the worst rating since Hurley’s first season in Storrs. That backs up the eye test, with so many struggles both with individual defense and on rotations. I’m still bullish that Hurley and staff figures this out and gets this defense back to playing at a relatively high level, but it might be a bumpy road. Fortunately, the offense (No. 6 in offensive efficiency) is still humming, and that should be enough to keep up with (and beat) most of the Big East outside of Marquette, St. John’s, Xavier and apparently DePaul.
In Praise of Clingan, Castle
Patrick Martin: There’s a reason Stephon Castle and Donovan Clingan are Rookie of the Year material in the NBA. When 40 percent of the starting lineup can cover that much ground, the other three around you just need to be positionally sound, which Tristen Newton, Cam Spencer, and Alex Karaban were. Without two of the best defenders in the country, every aspect of Hurley’s defensive scheme must be perfect. Rotations have to be crisp, switches communicated, and doubles sent at the right time. UConn did none of that, as pointed out in this Maui Postmortem by Brian Kervick of StorrsCentral.
For now, every player on this team has an exploitable weakness on defense. Solo Ball might be shooting 45 percent on 3-pointers, but he’s last in Evan Miya’s defensive BPM. Aidan Mahaney is getting hunted in isolation. Samson Johnson is elite at high hedging but has more fouls than rebounds. Liam McNeeley and Karaban are analytically sound on defense, but won’t wow you with their lateral quickness. But Clingan and Castle aren’t walking through that door to complement their positional awareness.
Three games in three days gives a staff that relies heavy on analytics very little time to make adjustments. With essentially a bye week until Baylor, watch closely to see how the staff tweaks their defensive scheme.
Paradigm Shift
Martin: Hindsight is 20-20, but piling on the ‘three-peat’ narrative for this roster looks like it did more harm than good. Four straight games against KenPom teams deep in the 300s offered the staff nothing to really work on the first month of the season. This team needed a reality check.
Going into Maui untested as the No. 2 team in the country was a massive target on the back. Memphis, Colorado, and Dayton all shot above their averages and played with their hair on fire because UConn has been invincible for the last two years. But this isn’t the UConn teams of 2022-24. The returnees were role players grappling with more thrust on their plate. The sophomores lacked big-game experience. The transfers came from programs run starkly different than UConn’s. Every question mark we identified in the preseason turned into a problem; a massive departure from the last two years where every bounce went UConn’s way. That’s life.
Hurley talked all offseason about finding a narrative for this year’s team. He’s found it now. UConn men’s basketball was the punchline of Thanksgiving break. The takes have been scorching hot: The king is dead, long live the king. Hurley is now bad for college basketball. Hurley is fake tough! UConn was a flash in the pan.
Everyone loves a downfall, and UConn fanned the flames.
Martin: Here’s the problem with those reactionary takes; they went too far the other way. It’s November. This is still a tournament team, and a dangerous one if the defense gets sorted. All the tweets, pearl-clutching think pieces, and YouTube supercuts of meltdowns are only giving the staff that walks around with a permanent chip on its shoulder, more ammo. This team wasn’t ready to be the hunted, but now it becomes the hunter again. The bulletin board material and narrative that ‘nobody believes in us’ can now drive this team back to where it was when the season started.
Madigan: It is much too early to give up on this team with the talent on the roster and the coaching staff. Three losses in a row is never ideal, but it’s better that these flaws were exposed now than in March. That being said, with the Big East struggling as much as it has overall, these next few weeks will be crucial. The team needs some better showings (and ideally at least 1-2 wins) home against No. 15 Baylor, at Texas and against No. 7 Gonzaga at Madison Square Garden to be taken seriously. We will know a lot more about this team and how things are trending by the time Big East play ramps up.