{"id":206941,"date":"2021-03-20T11:13:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T08:13:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/uconn-is-a-mystery-heading-into-tourney\/"},"modified":"2021-03-20T11:13:05","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T08:13:05","slug":"uconn-is-a-mystery-heading-into-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/uconn-is-a-mystery-heading-into-tourney\/","title":{"rendered":"#UConn is a ‘mystery’ heading into tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#UConn is a ‘mystery’ heading into tourney<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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As blunt as he is intense, Connecticut coach Dan Hurley admitted he has no idea what to expect from his team Saturday night.<\/p>\n

Not a single Huskies player has been in the NCAA Tournament before. Not one has even participated in a postseason game<\/a>, other than a conference tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think right now this is a mystery, as to who we are going into this tournament,\u201d Hurley said as seventh-seeded UConn prepared to meet No. 10 Maryland in an East Region opening-round game in its first NCAA Tournament in five years. \u201cWhich is kind of exciting. I think we\u2019re a hard team to predict. Are we a one-and-done? Or can we make a run?\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the experience factor, either. At times, the Huskies (15-7) have looked capable of making a big March run. On other occasions, they have app<\/a>eared not quite ready for prime time.<\/p>\n

They went 0-for-4 against the Big East\u2019s two best teams, Villanova and Creighton. Against the top five teams in the conference, they were 1-6. Of course, it should be noted star guard James Bouknight missed three of the losses. UConn was 11-3 when the Brooklyn native was available, and those losses came by a combined 13 points.<\/p>\n

\"Dan
Dan Hurley<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Furthermore, had point guard R.J. Cole not suffered a concussion in the Big East Tournament semifinal loss to Creighton, the result there might have been different. Cole was cleared Friday morning to play after going through a full non-contact practice Thursday.<\/p>\n

All eyes will be on Bouknight, a projected lottery pick. He didn\u2019t have a great Big East Tournament, averaging 12 points in two games while going just 8-for-25 from the field. He will likely see a lot of Maryland guard Darryl Morsell, the Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a very good defender, he plays physical and he likes to talk a lot,\u201d Bouknight said. \u201cIt\u2019s mostly going to be keeping my head. It\u2019s going to be a long night, just understand that. It\u2019s going to be a tough battle and there\u2019s not going to be anything easy.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter what happens against Maryland, Hurley is thrilled with the trajectory of his program. Prior to the season, he set goals: Finish in the top four of the Big East, receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament and show growth from Year 2 to Year 3. All three were accomplished even though his best player was out for five weeks and multiple COVID-19 pauses disrupted his team. And Hurley has a top-10 recruiting class coming in.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took a big step,\u201d Hurley said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard when you\u2019re the coach at UConn, with everything Geno [Auriemma, the women\u2019s coach] has done, Coach [Jim] Calhoun, Kevin [Ollie], all the national championships, to [stick] your chest out about getting back in [to the tournament].<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when you look at where we were a couple of years ago, what we were putting on the floor in terms of quality, being in the American [Athletic Conference] and now being back in the Big East and being a tournament team again, and having a potential high draft pick and a top-10 class coming in, it\u2019s hard not to just feel really good about where you\u2019re at.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#UConn is a ‘mystery’ heading into tourney” As blunt as he is intense, Connecticut coach Dan Hurley admitted he has no idea what to expect from his team Saturday night. Not a single Huskies player has been in the NCAA Tournament before. Not one has even participated in a postseason game, other than a conference…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/03\/Dan-Hurley.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[98651,94405,95874,97300,83259,81689],"class_list":["post-206941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-3-20-21","tag-dan-hurley","tag-march-madness","tag-march-madness-2021","tag-maryland-terrapins","tag-uconn-huskies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}