Box Score | UConn Quotes | Providence Quotes
By SEAN BRENNAN
Special to BIGEAST.com
A lot was expected from Thursday’s BIG EAST Tournament quarterfinal matchup of UConn and Providence. An epic battle between two long-time conference foes? Yeah, that was expected. And a down-to-the-wire contest with some last-second heroics? Sure, why not. That’s what March and the BIG EAST Tournament is all about, right?
But for the entire first half, and maybe the first 10 minutes or so of the second half, it was all UConn. The Huskies were hitting on all cylinders, looking like the runaway freight train that opened the season 14-0 with wins over such brand name teams as Oregon, Alabama, Iowa State, Oklahoma State and Florida. That was a Huskies’ season-opening roll that not only put the BIG EAST on high alert, but the nation as well.
Sure there was the mid-season slump when UConn looked, well, human, and dropped 6-of-8 from the end of December through much of January. But once they righted the ship with a win over DePaul, it ignited an 8-1 spurt to close the season and the conference was once again on alert.
Providence witnessed that UConn team in the first half when the Huskies jumped to a 16-point lead at the half before it ballooned to 26 points at one point. Game over, right?
Not quite.
“I thought they weren’t going to go away quietly, not with the atmosphere, not with the Providence program and the product they have and what they do,” Huskies’ coach Dan Hurley said.
And make a late run the Friars did, cutting the UConn lead to just five points three different times down the stretch before a three-pointer by Alex Karaban with 1:00 to play sealed the deal for UConn as the Huskies held on for a 73-66 victory before 19,812 at the Garden.
Fourth-seeded UConn (25-7) moves on to face No. 1 Marquette in Friday’s semifinals at 6:30 p.m. It’s the third trip to the semis for the Huskies since they returned to the BIG EAST.
“It was a tale of two halves,” Providence coach Ed Cooley said. “For 30 minutes we were digging the sleepers out of our eyes. We didn’t have a lot of emotion. We didn’t have a lot of physicality. I think the first 25 minutes they played their brand and they were very good at it.”
UConn was, for sure, having their way with the fifth-seeded Friars (21-11) in the first half as the Huskies built a 35-19 lead at intermission and later saw their bulge balloon to 58-32 after a bucket by Nahiem Alleyne with 12:30 to play. And that was it for the Friars.
Or was it?
“We were down 26, I bet everybody in here thought the game was over,” Cooley said. “When you have the power of trust, belief in one another amazing things happen. I thought the ball had a little music to it when it started to move. It sounded like Barry White out there when the ball was moving. Everybody’s voice got deep, everybody got energy off of it.”
Maybe it was Barry White that helped the Friars get back in the game. But it was more likely the pressure the Friars turned up on defense that did the trick.
“A lot had to do with us applying pressure on them,” said Providence’s Bryce Hopkins, who led Providence with 16 points. “I feel once we got into our press they started rushing and turning the ball over. So, we fed off that.”
All the way into the final frantic minutes when that seemingly insurmountable lead was whittled to a mere five points. But UConn, which got a game-high 19 points from Jordan Hawkins, gathered itself when it needed to, got that huge three-pointer from Karaban and then saw Tristen Newton (16 points) close things out with two free throws with 26 seconds to play to ice the win for UConn.
A tale of two halves, indeed.
Afterwards Cooley had high praise for UConn as well as his own team’s chances beginning next week in the NCAA Tournament.
“Credit Connecticut. They’re playing as well as anybody in the country,” Cooley said. “Tell me a team in America playing better than that team we just played. And I’m a basketball junkie. I don’t see one team better than the University of Connecticut right now.”
And what of the Friars March fortunes?
“We’ll sit back on Selection Sunday and see where the Friars are going,” Cooley said. “Don’t be surprised if you see us in the Final Four.”