This is the moment of truth for the University of Connecticut Men's Basketball Team. Thursday night is when this team hit the bottom of a pit that has been dug with bad shots, shotty defense, and erratic play over the last seven games. It isn't where they lost, or to whom, they lost, but how they lost.
Beaten on every hustle play, skewered by fastbreak points as they halfheartedly jogged back on defense, outmuscled for rebounds, carelessly passing balls telegraphed for steals, allowing sure-fire dunks and layups to become strips in the lane as big men inexplicably made themselves smaller by putting the ball on the floor, all aided in the defeat.
At the head of the disaster was Kemba Walker, who's performance in Maui, where he averaged 30 points a game and had everyone minting his name on the Player of the Year award, seems like a fading rumor carried away with the winter snow drifts. Gone is the mid-range pullup jumper that seemed to always find the bottom. Gone is the quick start-and-stop move that seemed to create just enough space for him to get off a shot. Gone is the fade-away, high-arcing shot that seemed destined to make Walker a viable starting point guard in the NBA.
The guts are still left, as Walker continues to barrel down the lane in an attempt to get to the free throw line. The clutch play still remains, as Walker's shots against Texas and Villanova, and his “we won't lose” mentality that helped the team overcome a 14-point deficit against Seton Hall, will receive rerun treatment in Uconn archives for years to come. But, the magic of a top player, of someone capable of taking over a game, is gone.
More upsetting is the shadow of Alex Oriachki, who is quickly becoming one of the more frustrating players to watch, and another example of a disturbing trend under Calhoun – the lack of progression by quality athletes.
Like Walker, Oriachki walked out of Maui a beast. He was a double-double machine, and he had done it against big competition in Michigan State, Kentucky, and Wichita State. These weren't small front lines filled with weak, second-tier talents. These were big, tough bruisers, and Oriachki proved himself to be the biggest and the toughest. Since then, Alex O has done a wonderful disappearing act. Sure, he's awaken for some big moments against Texas (21 rebounds) and even Villanova, but in his last five games he's failed to grab double-digit rebounds and, in four of those games, failed to score double-digit points. His 12-point, 8-rebound game last night, a game where he was manhandled in the low box by a smaller Johnnies squad, was probably his best performance of the last two weeks. That tells you all you need to know about his play recently.
But, Walker and Oriahki's slide is simply symptomatic of the time's downward trend. Over the last four games, in which the team has gone 1-3, the play has deteriorated in stages. It began in the Louisville game, where the Huskies played well against the Cardinals' zone defense for more than 30 minutes. Then, down the stretch, their offense became nonexistent, with Walker and headache-inducing freshman Shabazz Napier playing a mindless game of two-man touch, wasting time clock, and lofting 30-foot three-point jumpers that had no chance. It helped the Huskies blow a lead twice, once in regulation and then again in overtime. Against Syracuse, the same problems materialized, and while Uconn played well against a hungry Orange, who were coming off four straight loses, their inability to score against the zone stopped any comeback hopes dead.
Against Seton Hall, the team played terribly into the second half, then found a defensive gear, and enough around-the-rim offense to prevent a disaster. On Thursday, all the chickens came home to roost. Uconn couldn't score against the zone, they didn't hustle back on defense, they didn't box out on rebounds, and they found themselves down by 25 points to a team that wasn't going to let them come storming back (no pun intended).
So, now, Uconn is at the crossroads. The season has been a rollercoaster ride. It began with little, if any, expectations. The Huskies were picked to finish 10th in the Big East. They weren't ranked. At the very best, expert analysts thought an appearance on the bubble for the NCAA Tournament would be the peak for their season. Then, the Maui Invitational came, and Uconn, behind the virtuoso performances of Walker and Oriachki, swept through the field. It was champagne wishes and caviare dreams, with a jump from unranked all the way to number seven in the country, rising as high as number four.
When Big East play began, it seemed the young Huskies didn't know how to play in the rough-and-tumble elements. Pittsburgh handled them with relative ease, South Florida, a bottom feeder in the conference, pushed them to overtime, and Notre Dame took advantage of sloppy, boneheaded play to squeak out a victory. Uconn had begun conference play 1-2, and many were questioning whether their Maui Invitational run was a fluke.
A trip to Texas corrected that thinking. In perhaps the best road victory this year in college basketball, Walker hit a game winner with only a few seconds left, and the Huskies improbably began a six-game winning streak. They easily ran through Depaul and Rutgers, outlasted a top-10 team in Villanova, then went on the road and beat a very good Marquette team. All was right with the world. This little team of Kemba Walker and a bunch of youngsters was playing like a veteran club that had been together for years.
That was before the second half of the Louisville game.
Now, having lost three of their last four, bunched up tightly in the middle of the Big East pack, dreams of a regular season Big East Conference title all but squashed, Uconn finds itself at a third crossroads. Can they resurrect their season the way they did after the Notre Dame loss? Certainly. Will they? That's another story.
The road back begins against Providence on Sunday, a team that has notoriously given Uconn problems. With seven games to go, and contests remaining against Louisville (at Louisville), Georgetown, Marquette, and Notre Dame, the Huskies can't afford a slip up. They have to beat Providence, Cincinnatti, and West Virginia, then hope for a couple of wins against those other four formidable opponents, two of whom will be rematched where they will want revenge.
Of course, college basketball is about March. If the Huskies were to struggle to a 3-4 record down the stretch, yet make a run in both the Big East and NCAA Tournament, no one would care about a mid-February drought. It would be viewed as a necessary evil in the evolution of a young team. But, despite what some may say, seeding is always important, and Uconn's next seven games, and performance in the Big East Tournament, will determine on what line they end up. A three or four seed is within their grasp, but a downward spiral could plunge them to an eight or nine seed, and a difficult road past the first weekend of the tourney.
Plus, Uconn's MO over the last several years has been a disconcerting one. For most of his career, Jim Calhoun's squads were known as slow starters, top finishers. Get the Huskies in December and January because, in February and March, they will be firing on all cylinders. That hasn't been the trend over the last six or so seasons. In each of those years, Uconn started hot and faded in the end. The team hasn't won a Big East Tournament game since 2005. It has failed to make the NCAA Tournament two of the last four years (although, to be fair, in the last five years the Huskies have managed two number one seeds, a number two seed, a trip to the Elite Eight, and a trip to the Final Four, so it hasn't exactly been a total loss when it comes to the big dance).
It is hard to know what to expect from this group, now. They are one of the youngest teams and, had you offered any Uconn fan an 18-5 record at this point in the season back in November, you would have gotten a unanimous “Yes” back. But, seasons don't play out on paper. Expectations in November are only useful for about a month. Uconn set the bar high. They showed a much more talented team than had been anticipated. They showed that 18-5 was about right where they could, or should, be for this time of year. Whether or not the team was “expected” to do anything before a single game was played means nothing. Expectations, real expectations, should stem from play, not predictions. And, right now, a collapse and early exit from both the Big East Tournament and NCAA Tournament would be rightly viewed as a failure.
In 2006 I wrote that the Huskies' inability to play well down the stretch, and overcome an inferior George Mason team, would hurt for years because you don't often get the chance to bring the best team, the most talented team, into the tournament. It doesn't come around that often. It isn't a guarantee. You don't just lineup the teams, decide who has the most talent, and slot the final four accordingly. It takes a lot. So, when you have the team, the players in place, take advantage. Uconn, that year, had the team to win a third national title. They played distracted, selfish basketball. They lost.
This incarnation of Uconn isn't nearly as talented as that 2006 squad, yet they have already shown an ability to beat anyone, anywhere, on any given night. To slip up now, when the sport's world's attention turns to college basketball in earnest, would be a shame.
Uconn has the talent, this year, to make a run. Maybe not at a title or even a Final Four, but a run that gets Connecticut excited again, and puts Uconn squarely back on the map. It would be ashame if the Uconn high-water mark for the season ended up being a game in Texas in January, rather than a run in March.
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