UConn sports

No need for the Huskies to worry about being too full of themselves Saturday against Marquette. It’s time to see if they can bounce back from an awful finish in Providence.

We spent a few minutes with acting coach George Blaney and a few players before practice Friday afternoon at Gampel Pavilion. Here are the nuts and bolts:

– UConn tried to put the PC loss behind itself quickly, but it wasn’t exactly easy.

“Yeah, I think there were residual effects,” Blaney said. “We lost and we didn’t like it.”

Blaney followed the Jim Calhoun playbook and had the Huskies working on the basics Thursday and Friday.

“We got back in the gym and we did what Jim always does when we get in trouble,” Blaney said. “We went to rebounding and shell (defense).”

– Calhoun will miss his fourth game Saturday. He and Blaney remain in close contact, however.

“I think he’s going to come as soon as the doctors tell him he’s ready,” Blaney said. “Hopefully that will be sooner than later.”

The two men don’t talk much about Calhoun’s health.

“We’re really not talking about that,” Blaney said. “Every time I call him I ask him how he is and he says ‘fine.’ Then we talk basketball.”

That does change on occasion, however.

“And then yesterday (Thursday) he tried to get me to talk about golf because he thought I was uptight,” Blaney said.

– What can UConn do to string together some solid games?

“I think we just have to play hard consistently. That’s something we haven’t really done,” forward Gavin Edwards said. “As soon as we go up by a few points in the game, we just kind of let up a little bit. We let the other team back in the game, a lot of times when the other team shouldn’t really be in the game.”

– Marquette, sort of like Providence, Michigan and others, plays more of a four-out style with a small lineup.

“Quite honestly they present a size problem because they’re smaller,” Blaney said. “That’s almost a more difficult problem than a big problem.”

Marquette leads the nation in 3-point shooting percentage.

“We need to play five-man defense,” Blaney said. “We need to play the ball hard and keep it out of the paint. And when someone does get by us, we need rotation.”

– C Alex Oriakhi has a total of 15 points over his last five games. That’s 4, 4, 2, 2, 3.

After netting 12 against Seton Hall and 11 against Georgetown, the freshman hasn’t put the ball in the basket much.

“We’re trying to get him back to the 8-12 rebounds and get him some points. He’s really struggling with the points,” Blaney said. “And he’s struggling because he’s making the moves complicated. He thinks he has to make three or four moves and come underneath the rim. We’re trying to simplify that for him.”

Oriakhi says he just wants to rebound better on offense.

“The only thing I can think of is offensive rebounding,” Oriakhi said. “The guys that are going to take the shots, those are the guys we need to take the shots. The best thing I can do is clean up their misses.”

– The Huskies are focused on Marquette, but they’ll have a quick turnaround after and will play Louisville on Monday night at Freedom Hall.

Blaney is already thinking about his wardrobe.

“I don’t have a white suit yet,” said Blaney, referring to Louisville coach Rick Pitino’s occasional choice of attire. “I am working on it.”

“I haven’t been able to figure out what kind of tie goes with a white suit,” Blaney added.

- Neill