UConn Quotes | Xavier Quotes | Box Score

By SEAN BRENNAN
BIGEAST.com
 
They poured into Madison Square Garden early Thursday morning. Out of Manhattan parking garages, off the Metro North and out of local hotels (and maybe a bar or two). UConn fans were everywhere to be found around 33rd Street hours before the Huskies were scheduled to tip off with Xavier in their quarterfinal matchup.
 
This, Huskies Nation figured, would be a cakewalk. No. 1 seed UConn would barely have to break a sweat to take down the ninth-seeded Musketeers who just 18 hours or so earlier were putting the finishing touches of a down-to-the-wire battle with Butler in their tournament opener. And besides that, the last time these two teams faced each other, back on January 28, it was such a lopsided UConn win (99-56) that Xavier coach Sean Miller said he couldn’t exactly put into words what a beatdown it was for his Musketeers.
 
And since that day nearly two months ago, all the Huskies have done was win 10 of their next 11 games, see Cam Spencer and Tristen Newton be named to the All-BIG EAST First Team, Stephon Castle snag Freshman of the Year honors, Hassan Diarra earn the Sixth Man of the Year Award, Donovan Clingan be named All-BIG EAST Honorable Mention and Dan Hurley be crowned conference Coach of the Year.
 
This all for a team that leads the BIG EAST in scoring offense, scoring defense and, well, just about any other category that means anything, you’ll find UConn’s name at the top of it. And there was one other thing that was going to motivate the Huskies to take no prisoners against Xavier - their fervent drive to win the BIG EAST Tournament championship. It was the one accolade that eluded the Huskies in their national championship season of a year ago and it remained a thorn in the side of UConn all season.
 
So with all that stacked against Xavier - and with that Metro North UConn crowd making the Garden feel like a Huskies home game - what were the chances of Miller’s Musketeers pulling off the most epic of upsets to kick off Quarterfinal Round Marathon Day at the Garden?
 
After the first half? Pretty good. After that, not so much.
 
The Huskies showed off their top-rated offense in the second half when they broke open a one-point game at the half to build leads that surpassed 20 points with just over 5:00 to play, and their top-ranked defense limited the Musketeers to just five field goals in the first 18 minutes of the second half as the Huskies flexed their top-seeded muscle in an 87-60 victory over Xavier.
 
UConn (29-3) will face the winner of St. John’s-Seton Hall in Friday night’s semifinals. The Huskies now stand just two wins away from winning their first BIG EAST Tournament title since 2011, which would be their eighth overall and would match Georgetown for most tournament titles in conference history. 
 
“We’re playing for a championship,” said Spencer, who finished with 12 points. “This is one of the biggest goals that we have set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. If you don’t want to win now, then you probably shouldn’t be playing.”
 
Xavier was giving UConn all it could handle in the first half. The Musketeers actually opened the game on a 10-0 run, saw UConn catch them at 13-13 with just under 13:00 to go before halftime and then traded leads multiple times down the stretch before the Huskies took a 34-33 lead at the break.
 
But then UConn started to do UConn things in the second half.
 
The Huskies began to methodically build their lead right away with a layup by Alex Karaban and a free throw from Tristen Newton giving UConn a 43-35 lead with 16:51 to go, its biggest advantage of the game to that point. But it was about to get much better for UConn.
 
A dunk by Samson Johnson gave the Huskies their first double-digit lead of the game at 52-42 with 11:09 to play and the Musketeers were desperately trying to hold on. But UConn was having none of it.
 
The Huskies’ lead eventually ballooned to 66-49 after 11 straight points from Donovan Clingan with 5:39 to go and the next two minutes only got uglier for Xavier as UConn saw its lead grow to 26 points (75-49) with just under 4:00 to play before Hurley began to pull his starters.
 
“He’s a gentle giant, you know. He’s a jolly green giant,” Hurley said of the 7-2 Clingan. “Sometimes he’s got to get that intensity level up, get that nastiness. He’s such a sweetheart of a guy and yeah, he turned it up and got pissed off. When Donovan turns it up he impacts the game like few players in the country.”
 
Six different players scored in double figures for UConn, with Clingan and Newton scoring 13 apiece, Karaban, Johnson and Spencer adding 12 each and Stephon Castle chipping in with 10 points and a game-high eight points as the Huskies looked every bit what a No. 1 seed should look like.
 
Miller, who played with a depleted roster this year due to injuries, lauded his team’s effort while also acknowledging UConn’s dominance.
 
“We did the best we could,” Miller said. “In the first half, to be down one at the half. I thought we played with a lot of energy on defense, got back in transition. Did a lot of great things. We simply ran out of gas…We weren’t able to sustain all the very good things that we did in the first half in the second half.
 
And how does Miller think this UConn team stacks up against the one that won it all last season?
 
“I personally think they’re better this year than last year,” Miller said. “That doesn’t mean they will win the National Championship, but their offensive efficiency and their scoring punch and their balance is just at another level this year than it was last year.”
 
Which sounds like terrific news for the rest of the BIG EAST.