Hurley hopeful that UConn’s loss in Big East opener is aberration and not harbinger

Dan Hurley looks on as UConn takes unexpected loss in Big East opener at Seton Hall Wednesday night. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEWARK, N.J. — Life on the road in Big East Conference play does not discriminate, regardless of your status in the middle of the pack or, as UConn found out Wednesday, reigning national champion.

For the third straight season, the Huskies were upended on Seton Hall’s home floor. Only this time, the 75-60 loss to the Pirates was a much starker contrast to the overtime shootout of 2022 and the dramatic comeback capped off by KC Ndefo last January.

“They just kind of punked us there in Big East Conference fashion,” a morose Dan Hurley assessed as UConn was held to its lowest point total of the season as Seton Hall took down the fifth-ranked team in the nation to give Shaheen Holloway a signature win at the helm of his alma mater. “It’s just a really, really disappointing effort. Obviously a lot of things that went on, the 17 turnovers, just a lot of things not reminiscent of who we’ve been for a long time. It’s humbling, and credit Seton Hall, they did a great job.”

“Big East games, man, they’re a different animal than non-conference, different from the NCAA Tournament. They’re way more physical, and we’ve gotta be able to adjust these games.”

The physicality was compounded by an uncharacteristically disjointed Huskies squad that was methodically ripped apart by Seton Hall’s efficient shot selection — the Pirates attempted only eight 3-point field goals, far and away their lowest total in that category to date this season — and relentless drives to the basket. To make matters worse, Donovan Clingan sprained his ankle after landing awkwardly in the second half after dominating to the tune of 14 points amid foul trouble. The 7-foot-2 center’s status for Saturday night’s home game against St. John’s is in limbo, but on a night where a 20-10 advantage over the first 11 minutes of action quickly evaporated, the bottom line is that the team effort was not where it needed to be.

“We were dreadful,” Hurley somberly noted. “We lost so many one-on-one battles out there. That was embarrassing, that was truly embarrassing. We just got completely out of sorts. I didn’t like our energy to start the game. Even up 10, it felt like fool’s gold. We weren’t sharp.”

“We all gotta own it. That was not reminiscent of a top team, that was a pretty embarrassing performance for all of us, myself first in line. Nobody played well. I coached bad, I prepared the team bad, our scout prep was bad. I think literally every player on the team minus Donovan offensively had a bad performance, and you have embarrassing losses like this on the road when that happens.”

The positives to take away here, if there is one, are that UConn got its off night — which happens in Big East play due to the parity of the league and level of competition — out of the way early in the league slate. Additionally, Marquette and Creighton, both considered to be the Huskies’ fiercest opposition to a conference championship, suffered losses in their league lid-lifters as well, with the Golden Eagles falling at Providence Tuesday while the Bluejays squandered a homecourt advantage against Villanova 24 hours later.

“Listen, we went through a brutal stretch in January last year and then ran through the tournament,” Hurley recounted. “Obviously there’s 19 more of these to go, but if you’re realistically trying to win the regular season Big East, if that’s one of your goals, your program can’t show up like this and perform in a place where I think, coming into the game, we had a good chance of winning.”

Hurley's disconsolate candor was somewhat refreshing in the wake of his team’s nadir. Despite the haymaker that felled the Huskies, the coach insists there is very little, if any, time to dwell on Wednesday’s defeat. He hinted at correcting the mistakes Thursday when planning to review film, but also reassured his group would place this effort in the proverbial rearview mirror in short order.

“Tomorrow’s gonna be brutal,” Hurley declared. “The video session is going to be crushing because whatever the players think happened out there, when they see the film, the film doesn’t lie. The accountability is going to be super high and we’re going to be brutally honest about how things went here today, but we do have to turn the page quickly. We’ll react appropriately. When we lose at UConn, everyone hurts.”