A look back at Monday’s UConn-Louisville game:
Louisville 82, UConn 69
TURNING POINT _ The outcome of the game was decided almost immediately. UConn was down 5-0 in a flash, trailed by eight points less than four minutes in, and was down 13 after the fifth Louisville 3-pointer splashed down with 13:50 left in the first half.
The turning point in the Huskies’ little downward spiral is the more important matter. Has the team hit rock bottom? Are they finally going to respond?
Acting head coach George Blaney admits it’s hard to appreciate even the small steps forward your team is taking if it doesn’t start picking up wins.
“You worry about that a lot,” Blaney said. “It erodes your confidence a little bit after riding so high. With the St. John’s game and the Texas game, where they just felt so good about themselves. They knew at that point they were good. And we are good. We’re still good. We’re just not playing very well.”
The last sentence certainly appears accurate. UConn has dropped three straight and six of its last eight.
UNSUNG HERO _ It’s a broken record but nearly every UConn opponent is getting much more production from its bench than the Huskies are. And forward Gavin Edwards doesn’t count. He’s a starter, whether his playing time begins at tip-off or not.
Monday night it was Louisville forward Jared Swopshire who made the biggest impact as a reserve. The lanky forward had nine points and nine rebounds filling in for the Cardinals’ foul-plagued frontcourt starters.
But it wasn’t just Swopshire. Louisville received solid play from guards Preston Knowles, Peyton Silva and even got six minutes from little-used freshman big man Stephan Van Treese.
Louisville coach Rick Pitino may have been a bit hesitant to insert Van Treese into the lineup. What did the coach say to Van Treese when sending him in?
“I didn’t say anything to him,” Pitino said. “I was just nauseous.”
BEST ‘X’ AND/OR ‘O’ _ Some thought UConn might actually appreciate facing a pressing team Monday, with the opportunity to go up-and-down more often and focus less on its halfcourt offense.
But the Cardinals didn’t press all the time, and many times it was the three-quarter court variety instead of the 94-foot version. It apparently was the correct strategy as UConn committed 18 more turnovers.
Louisville had a modest 10 turnovers, which is seven more than UConn’s previous opponent (Marquette) had on Saturday. Numbers like that have made some Huskies jealous, and forced them to question their team’s credentials.
“Three turnovers? We’d kill for only having three turnovers in a game,” Edwards said. “Good teams, they just know how to pull it out. They get down but they know how to stop the bleeding. Instead of going down 15, they only go down six or four and then come back and fight through it. We’re just not doing that as a team right now.”
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS _ In what was the fifth-to-last men’s basketball game at Freedom Hall, the 19,655 fans didn’t exactly start the game screaming their heads off. But a hot start by the home team got many of the fans on their feet and into the game.
The Huskies, meanwhile, didn’t appear to excited _ whether they really were or not _ about playing in the venerable building one more time.
“I talked tonight about playing in Freedom Hall,” Blaney said. “It’s a cathedral. It’s one of the great places in America to play basketball. And you should really be ready to play. It’s a privilege to play here.”
UConn hasn’t had the privilege of winning on anyone’s home court this season and Monday was no different. The Huskies are 0-5 on the road.
LOOKING AHEAD _ The Huskies host DePaul Saturday night in Storrs.
A guaranteed UConn win?
Hardly.
First, it would seem impossible to guarantee anything with this team. Second, DePaul led third-ranked Syracuse for much of its recent game and has hardly folded up shop since head coach Jerry Wainwright was fired.
“We talked before this game (Louisville) that we had 10 games left and we needed to do some business in the 10 games,” Blaney said. “Now we have nine games left and we have to do some business.”
BY THE NUMBERS
18 _ UConn’s turnover total Monday night.
71 _ UConn’s turnover total over its last four games.
- Neill
