Huskies roll into Brooklyn looking for encore, but all in on Stetson first

UConn opens NCAA Tournament Friday primed to make history and defend national championship. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)

NEW YORK — All season, UConn has not shied away from being the hunted throughout the college basketball season. It has come with the territory of bearing the flag for the sport as its reigning national champion.

With that said, the Huskies have the added factor — it may or may not be a bonus or benefit on any given day — of head coach Dan Hurley always wanting to extract another drop of blood from his stone at a moment’s notice to keep his team honest and hungry.

UConn opens the next chapter of its quest to be the first team in 17 years to defend its title on Friday, when ASUN champion Stetson is the first hurdle for the Huskies to clear in what should be an overwhelmingly partisan gathering at Barclays Center this weekend.

“We started in April,” Hurley said of laying the groundwork for this season, which began almost immediately after defeating San Diego State nearly a year ago. “When Cam Spencer visited and we talked to the returning players that had to make decisions, our vision was Brooklyn to Boston to Phoenix. This road is what we’ve been manifesting and talking about for a long time. You always have to have your sights set on something you want to achieve.”

“I think that was talked about in the beginning of the season,” Alex Karaban echoed. “(Hurley) really set the expectation of what this group is capable of doing in the June and July summer workouts, but more recently, it’s been focused on Stetson. We’ve been locked in and focused on Friday’s game, just taking it day by day.”

The individual approach to each game, as cliched as it may be, could be for the best, though. Never mind the fact that a No. 16 seed has posted a titanic upset twice in the past six years — both times at the expense of the No. 1 overall seed that UConn occupies in this tournament — but each game is not only its own entity, but the magnitude of each one is increasingly amplified, says Hurley, due to theatre shadow cast by the five national championships on display in Storrs.

“I think just playing and coaching at UConn prepares you for pressure,” he elaborated. “We don’t have the luxury of playing and coaching under the radar. When you play at a place with the history and standards and all the success, I think every game you play at UConn is pressurized. So I think when you get to these moments — Big East tournament, MSG, NCAA Tournament, lights are super bright — we’re used to playing with a big target, we’re used to playing with pressure. So we perform well under pressure.”

“Obviously it’s one step at a time in terms of the quality of teams you play. Everyone’s vulnerable in every game in this tournament, so obviously we’ve gotta take care of business on Friday to get to Sunday.”

One other mantra Hurley has instilled in this team is for it to not believe its own hype. The Huskies have insulated the locker room on that front, so to speak, merely living in the moment with a unit that plays for one another and pays attention to what lies on the immediate horizon. 

“Ever since we won it last year, everyone’s just been wanting to beat us,” Karaban said. “Everyone’s been talking about us repeating and all that stuff, but we’ve really blocked it out this entire year. We’ve just been excited going into tomorrow’s game and excited to do this journey with a new team.”